The second Angiepalooza Valentine’s Day Show will take you back to the 1950s to have Frank Sinatra crooning in your ears, thanks to one dream that Tim Tinnin chased until it came true.
From year one to year two come a handful of changes to how the Valentine’s show will proceed. The biggest, Tinnin pinpointed, is the orchestra. Even before the inaugural event had happened last year, he was already planning ahead, hoping to bring in a big band to fill out the sound in the Capital Bluffs Event Center at 1616 Oil Well Road.
And with the help of Amanda Allen, this year’s orchestral director who “fell in love” with the idea, he succeeded.
“I would defy you to find as cool a show anywhere in Missouri,” Tinnin said. “I don’t know where you would go to see a big band — and we’ve got musicians from all over Missouri.”
The premise of the wish, he recalled, goes back to how he took his then-fiance to see Michael Bublé perform live, which wasn’t exactly Tinnin’s favorite genre. But seeing the show, he was completely blown away and began thinking about how he could bring that sound to Mid-Missouri.
Last year, he already had eight vocalists and the Shure 55, a classic microphone used by crooners in the 1940s and ’50s. This year, he adds the orchestra, a roughly 17-piece big band he said “when you play a Sinatra tune, it’s going to sound like ‘Ol’ Blue Eyes’ is singing himself.”
The musical numbers — some he referred to as showstoppers — plus the expertise of celebrity chef Johnny Graham who was part of the event last year, is sure to make for a “five-star experience,” Tinnin said.
A step deeper than the entertainment and lauded hors d’oeuvre, the event acts as the single biggest fundraiser of the year for the Red Slipper Warrior Project, a nonprofit empowerment initiative striving to instill a warrior mentality in women and girls fighting cancer while reminding them they’re not defined by cancer and are still beautiful.
The project, of which Tinnin is CEO and founder, provides women and girls with a pair of sequined red slippers and a “go-bag.” It was inspired by his late wife, Angie, who he lost to cancer.
While the Red Slipper Warrior Project was not officially launched at the time of the inaugural event, it has now expanded to help cancer warriors in 14 states and Canada, and includes work with health care groups in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa, Tinnin said.
This event, and the support of the community, has been crucial in making the work with health care groups happen. While making money isn’t the only thing he’s focusing on, he recognizes it’s important. With current turnout and just a dozen or so tickets left, he hopes the event can raise around $20,000 to further fund the Red Slipper Warrior Project.
“The need is so great. There’s about a million women a year diagnosed (with cancer),” Tinnin said. “And I can’t fund that. Quite frankly, Mid-Missouri can’t fund that. But as we grow, we get to push our tentacles out a little bit further. … Every time we do this, and I’m talking about the Red Slipper Warrior Project, it works. So if it works every time we do it, we need to do it a lot. And that’s our goal.”
He’s hopeful this year will be the year the project explodes on a national level. While he has health care groups in three states checked off, “that’s 47 states less of what I want,” he said.
But making a difference takes money and time, he said, and he praised his team as “second to none.”
“If it didn’t work as well as it did, I wouldn’t work as hard as I do. And not just me,” Tinnin said. “My wife is amazing. She works tirelessly on this thing. Our committee. Our volunteers. … They work so hard because they believe in it. They know, at the end of the day, if we make a pile of money, then we can help a pile of people — and that’s really, really cool.”
Proceeds from the event will come from the silent auction as well as tickets.
The silent auction this year will take place online, a change Tinnin is hopeful will bring a variety of eyes and an increase in funds raised.
Interested buyers are currently able to browse items for bidding online. the bidding itself will open roughly 48 hours before the Valentine’s show and end at 8:30 p.m. the night of the show. Among the current donations are a Quintessa Wine (valued at $469), a Missouri Penitentiary Ghost Tour Package ($90), an ASUS laptop ($400) and a 100-by-100-inch handmade quilt meant to fit a King-sized bed (value: priceless).
The beauty of having the auction online, Tinnin said, is there may not always be the right people in the audience for certain bids — for instance, quilts. But put it online, and “quilt people are going to come take a look,” he said.
“We did it not necessarily wanting to (do it online), but because of COVID, we felt that was a smart move,” Tinnin said. “We’ll just see how it goes. If it doesn’t go well, then we won’t do it (online) next year. My gut feeling is that it’s going to do very well.”
In case people are interested in making a donation rather than purchasing, Tinnin encouraged donating “sooner than later” so interested buyers have the chance to peruse the options before bidding opens. The community and those who have donated, he said, have been amazing.
“I can’t say enough about how supportive this community has been,” Tinnin said, including those from around the state. “People, they’re paying it forward. They said, ‘You helped us, now we want to help you.’”
As per COVID-19 precautions, tables will be spread out, temperature checks will be taken at the door, sanitizer and masks will be available (though not mandated), and servers will be masked up. Tinnin encouraged those who are uncomfortable attending in person to explore the online auction if they wish to help. While attendees are welcome to dress in black tie, formal attire is optional.
The Angiepalooza Valentine’s Day Show will be 5:30-11 p.m. Feb. 12 at Capital Bluffs Event Center, 1616 Oil Well Road. Happy hour will be 5:30-6:30 p.m., with dinner from 6:30-7:30 p.m. and the show starting at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $100 each, a slight increase from last year, or $800 for a table of eight, and can be purchased through the Red Slipper Warrior Project’s ticketing site and redslipperwarrior.com.