In case it isn’t obvious, I was REALLY into the idea of 90s night laser tag at The Fun Warehouse last night!
I showed up ready to rock my Bonne Bell Lip Smackers, my Exclamation perfume, my five scrunchies all at once and every other 90s fashion cliche I could come up with. FWH did their part by blasting the soundtrack of the era, both in and out of the arena. This feels like stepping back in time! Music is one of the most powerful tools for evoking a sense memory of the past, and this really took me back…especially reminiscing as a DJ.
The night began with some 90s tag that Beanz had customized for the event with cool flashing multi-colors, turning the packs into a party.
We played 90s Free For All and, by design or not, the scoreboard took on a 90s grunge feel. :)
Gotta love it!
The next game gave us our first 90s night challenge. The player with the highest accuracy (and minimum score of 5000 points) would win a 90s themed candy prize pack.
Ok, it wasn’t actually the prize that was driving me as much as my competitive nature, but in that moment all I could hear in my head was the one-hit wonder, Bow Wow Wow…”I Want Candy!”
Yeah, that’s technically a song from 1982, but still a track that made an occasional appearance on the Wake-Up Jam, so it would fit right into 90s night. As would my accuracy at 94% …get it, that also landed in the 90s!
So I won the candy pack, which I have to say was kind of nostalgic too, as it included goodies I haven’t actually bought since I was a kid, including a couple of ring pops…
And I didn’t even know they still made push pops!
More tag followed by more contests. It was time next for 90s trivia, so we formed teams and I knew this crew had a certain “experience advantage” so to speak. And our team name…Tiv’s Triv!
The first trivia category was 90s music. I think we’ve got this. ;)
Questions included song and artist ID including “what was the name of the 90s rapper who sang Ice, Ice Baby?” Come on, give me a challenge!
I’m sure everyone in the room had to know it was Vanilla Ice, but I think our team should get bonus points for knowing his actual name is Robbie Van Winkle.
Perhaps it was a slight advantage to have a DJ who used to have a 90s morning show answering 90s pop culture trivia questions. This got the memories flowing!
When it came to actual trivia we didn’t miss a single question. However, these were not the kind of mind-benders I used to come up with on our morning feature called “Impossible Trivia”, so several teams also got them correct. That meant it all came down to one tiebreaker question…ironically, also called the “Impossible Question”.
The question? How many taxi cabs were authorized to be on the road in NYC in 1997? The closest to the right answer would take first. Our team guessed a bit low with 507 (a nod to the Levi’s 507 jeans of the 90s …501s were the 80s, but 507s were the 90s), but the actual answer is a little over 12,000, so congratulations to the “People” team for winning. Team Tiv’s Triv was part of a three-way tie for second, which won us a $10 game card (go play some Pixel Maddie!) and that was fine because this was a really fun addition to the night.
The next contest was open to anyone who played in the next game. So, we headed back to the arena and in my Bayside Tigers T-shirt (Beat, ba-beat, ba-ba-ba beat, go Bayside!)…
…my hoop earrings still holding on and my scrunchie laden arm, I grabbed a phaser and went in to play laser tag like it was 1999!
Coming out of that game, a pack would be drawn at random to win a prize. Congratulations to Earthquake for scoring a…Bop It?!
I have to admit, this is one thing from the 90s I have zero memory about, but it looks cool and was one more awesome element to the night.
As I drove home (sucking on my ring pop the whole way) I got to thinking about all the awesome memories I have from the 90s. It was a unique era where I was a kid at the beginning and really (even though I got my first job) still a kid at the end, and it was a time when I really started to become the person I would be. I had spent the earlier part of the day first completing a Mixed Tape 5K challenge…
Then I spent some time in Syracuse hanging out with two of my best friends I have known since 1992, and we reminisced what we were doing back in the 90s.
It is truly amazing that we are all still so close all these years later!
I also contemplated how I wish I had gotten into laser tag much earlier in life, but in the 90s I was young and instead I was watching this guy on tv. Now David Lascher is one of the hosts of the “Hey Dude, The 90s Called” podcast, so any part of the 90s I missed I can relive through his stories. He even has a laser tag story to share…
This evening was full of nostalgia! So, was 90s night at laser tag a success? Like, totally!
Comments or Questions?
Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com
Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com
