Events

[DISCO] If you are among the lucky throng that straps on some platform shoes, bedazzles an old pair of bell-bottoms, opens that wide-collared shirt to the waist and boogies down to the World’s Largest Disco this Saturday, November 28, remember this: By the time the dust settles on this year’s event, the World’s Largest Disco has raised well over $4 million for Camp Good Days and Special Times since 1994. That’s the year that Dave Pietrowski and friends staged a revival of the first World’s Largest Disco—held at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center at 1979, with a Guinness-certified attendance of 13,000 people.

It’s been a sold-out nostalgia riot ever since, studded with stars from the 1970s, from Barry Williams to the Hanson Brothers, Leif Garrett to Deney Terrio, Evelyn “Champagne” King to Charlene Tilton. (The list of celebrities is a tightly guarded secret each year; you have to go to know.) The event consumes the entire Buffalo Niagara Convention Center, with multiple stages, bars, and dance floors hosting a crowd that pushes 9,000 people. It has created a mini-economy for local thrift shops that cater to revelers looking to costume themselves. Hundreds fly in from out of town and put themselves up in downtown hotels for the weekend, eat and drink at local establishments, keep taxis busy.

 

 

A photo posted by Foxy Diamondz (@foxydiamondz) on Apr 28, 2015 at 9:16am PDT

Because it’s been happening for so many years, it’s easy to lose sight of what a sprawling success the World’s Largest Disco is, how unique to Buffalo, and what a boon to Camp Good Days and Special Times, which caters to children and families of children suffering from cancer. If you have tickets, congratulate yourself and have a good time this Saturday. If you don’t, well, head downtown anyway and watch the throngs in sequins and faux ’fros streaming into the Convention Center. It’s a sight to see. And then go home and order your tickets for next year.