DESCRIPTION:
Part 1 of 10 of Hot to Trot at Venue 44 in Mansfield (Saturday 26th February 1994). On the decks for this night were: Alister Whitehead, Lisa Loud, Russell Davison and Pete Wye. The Progress Band were: Keith Angel (live percussion), Carl Stanley (live Sax) and Anthony Wheeldon (funky guitar). A Delta Video Production.

Hot to Trot was a regular monthly event organised by Russell Davison & Pete Wye. They hit on the idea of transferring the unique atmosphere of their weekly run Progress at Derby to an all-nighter. The logos for the events famously featured a happy pig!

To celebrate 18 months of success Hot to Trot commissioned the makers of spitting image puppets to make a large red House (Progress) and a pink pig (Hot to Trot). The pig was duly hung up over the dance floor at Hot to Trot and the House was positioned over the stairs on the entrance to Progress. Apparently nobody say a thing, as person or persons unknown lifted this 5 foot monolith off the ceiling, carried it downstairs past security and out into the street. No doubt there were a few punters muttering about messy E's as they watch the mascot wandering off down the road. A £100 reward was offered for its safe return - no questions asked!

Hot to Trot Review from 1993:

As one of the Midlands premier clubs in it's various guises (Renaissance, Zest, Vibelite and at present Arcana). I'm sure there will be many of you reading this that have been to the Venue 44. We were inside by 23.30pm and for the first half an hour everybody was confined to the downstairs area, the buzz of anticipation in that time was something that I've never sampled before. Nothing particular was happening (apart from some good tunes being spun), but everybody seemed to have a smile on their face and a spring in their step.

At midnight upstairs was opened and Jools took the decks. For those of you that have not been their before, the main room is a longish rectangular shape with dance platforms all over the place (one guy even managed to get on top of the Coke machine), at the front is a stage with the DJ box to one side high above the crowd. The sound system is truly monstrous and works in a tandem with a laser than Pink Floyd would kill for. In short it is an unpretentious room (apart from the odd pink pig hanging from the ceiling) designed to let you dance yourself into oblivion.

Round about 01.00am that fine purveyor of House music Jim "Shaft" Ryan took over and played his usual solid set winding up the crowd for the arrival of Alister Whitehead. About the same time as Whitehead took control there was a massive influx of people coming in from Derby and Nottingham, the stairway resembled a tube station at rush hour and upstairs started to bounce harder than Dolly Parton's tits in an earthquake.

By the time Graeme Parks arrival the place was mad and he kept the whole thing flowing along with a seamless mix of upbeat Garage and pure House.

By 07.00am the upstairs was thinning out (although the chill out room still looked like Benidorm airport during an air traffic controllers strike) and Pete and Russell took over for the last hour with a bunch of anthems for the die hard party animals.

What a night. Definitely the best of the year and one of the best ever. If you've even the slightest inclination towards House music make sure you're at the next Hot To Trot, it could be the best £11 you ever spend.