Aarhus School of Business | harrietvstheworld

What happens when you get a bunch of exchange students with super tight budgets from the business school together for a Halloween party? A whole lot of creativity!

In what was one of the more enterprising Halloween parties I had ever been to, the theme was definitely keeping costs as low as possible. So much so, that the party itself was organised by one particularly enterprising French Canadian, who had us all paying a cover charge and in return supplied well over 1000 beers, as well as food, a model that has been working fairly well throughout the semester and no doubt results in a tidy profit (and deservedly so) with the Danish recycling system!

What I really loved about this party, was that in an effort to spend as little as possible (we’ve all become masters of cost saving, what with being poor students AND backpackers at the same time), most of the costumes were clever gags, rather than the obvious but expensive witch or fairy or disney princess. There were a few from “The Office” including Jim’s ‘Facebook’ and ‘Three Hole Punch’ costumes, though my favourite was probably Hunter S Thompson’s Raoul Duke from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Possibly because working out that costume went something like

“I don’t know what your costume is, but you look like the guy Jonny Depp played in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

“YES! No one has guessed it” and then I learned how difficult it is to find bucket hats in Denmark, though cigarette extenders are comparatively common.

Another favourite was the old man, as well as the Christmas Tree, complete with decorations. And of course there was the usual proportion of Halloween Cross Dressers. My costume was well in line with an incredibly low budget, my token costume party item – a silly hat. Sadly, as with all novelty hats at parties, it disappeared off into the crowd, but at a grand expense of $2 I didn’t cry myself to sleep over it

Good to see the old man hadn’t given up, and was still trying it on with Little Bo Peep.

***Update to include more puns, as requested***

The Vengaboys were back in town and they like, they like to party. The kept calling out to me, like my Uncle John from Jamaica and we spent the night together, together in one room. The music was boom boom boom booming, the crowd jumped up and down and I was still singing Shalala Lala in the morning.

When I saw that the Studenterlauget/ Student Association was putting on a 90s party, I assumed it was going to be your regular old student party with a dress up theme. How wrong was I! In Scandinavia, when they party like its 1999, they pull out the big guns.

Luckily one of my friends bought the lineup of the Club K (as in Klubben, the student bar) 90s party to my attention nice and early, as it was a sell out gig. Starting with S.O.A.P. – performers of the classic 90s tune ‘This is How We Party,’ followed by DJ Sash, a Danish duo previously unknown to me called Diskofil and finally, the headliner: The Vengaboys! I actually didn’t believe it when I was first told they would be playing on campus.

Rumours were flying around that it would sell out, so I got one of the 1500 tickets nice and early. Others, unfortunately were not so lucky. There was a great deal of excitement as we put our lip liner and loud shirts on – we could barely contain ourselves on the bus ride in! Unfortunately our excitement was slightely dampened by a giant line at the door, followed by another giant line for coat check, causing us to miss S.O.A.P. Once we finally got in, DJ Sash kindly informed us we were going back to 1997 and it was all go from there!

In another Danish display of non-PC drinking, the drink deal of the day was 10 shots for 100DKK (about $20) which come in little test tubes with lids so you can stash them in your handbag. Perfect for disco ravers.

After an excellent performance of every classic song of the entire decade from a somewhat ageing DJ Sash, Diskofil made an entrance. Diskofil is a Danish dance music cover band who famously ran in to a bit of strife with Los del Rios when they recorded a Danish version of The Macarena which they called ‘Margarine’. In response they rerecorded a slightly modified version called ‘Disko Karina.’ On Friday night only two out of the original five were there, but as strange as they were, they seemed to be quite a hit with the Danes! Sadly no songs in English, so I couldn’t sing along to anything. The bizarre costuming and disco beats were entertainment enough though.

At last, after a 30min wait (in which we acquired more shots and positioned ourselves in the front row, centre stage) the stars of the night came out! When I first heard they were going to be playing, my initial thought was ‘what could be more hilarious than washed up 90s pop stars trying to fit in to their skimpy old costumes and perform their eurotrash hits?’ I was suprised to see, however, that although 15 years has gone by they could still squeeze in to their costumes (just) and seemed to remember their dance moves. They whipped out all of their hits and I was amazed at how many of the words I remembered. I cringed at the Cowboy guy’s discoball jockstrap whilst belting out ‘Shalala Lala’, ‘Uncle John from Jamaica’ and ‘We’re Going to Ibiza.’ I didn’t know where to look when the Sailor guy pulled a Moose on the lead singer during ‘Boom Boom Boom Boom,’ and they went up multiple points when they confirmed to the crowd that they were the “Queens of Eurotrash.” Glad they can laugh at themselves too. All in all a brilliant performance and an epic blast from the past! And of course yet another reason why University in Denmark is awesome.

Unfortunately with the rapid dance routines, flashy lighting and smoke everywhere it was incredibly difficult to get good photos, but here’s the best of:

Also, a quick search of their website confirms they have recently played at the Hooters Pyongyang opening party, Berlusconi’s Girlfriend’s Sweet Sixteen Party in Milan, the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, the Vatican Kids Choice Awards and a Mixed Nudist Colony in Khartoum, Sudan. Definitely all real events.