Fool House brings its '90s party to the Val Air on March 5

The touring '90s party band plays the restored 1939 ballroom on Friday, March 5, 2027, and tickets are on sale now.

Dig out the flannel, the butterfly clips and whatever is left of your frosted tips. Fool House (The Ultimate 90's Party) is coming to the Val Air Ballroom on Friday, March 5, 2027, with the show starting at 8 p.m.

The date was announced Oct. 28, and tickets are available through AXS. The Val Air holds 2,556, so there's room for a big crowd. Even so, a Friday night in early March, when everybody in Iowa is sick of winter, is the kind of date that fills up.

Fool House is a Chicago-area band that has built a following by making a full night out of the decade. Shows open with a video DJ spinning '90s hits before the band plays a live set of about two hours, and fans are encouraged to show up in '90s gear and sing along, according to the Rapid City Post. The setlist covers the whole range of the decade, from NSYNC, Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys to Nirvana and Blink-182, and frontman Gary Hochstetter leads the group. Some venues have added '90s trivia, a photo booth and a balloon drop to the night, per a listing from the La Crosse Center. The band tours widely across the Midwest and beyond, with stops this year in places like La Crosse and Rosemont, Illinois.

A Friday night in early March, when everybody in Iowa is sick of winter, is the kind of date that fills up.

The room makes this more than a cover-band night. The Val Air has its own long history as a dance hall. Thomas Archer bought the site in 1939 and built a partly open-air ballroom. The name combines Valley Junction, the historic heart of West Des Moines, with "open air," according to the West Des Moines Chamber. Over the decades the stage hosted everyone from Duke Ellington and Bob Dylan to the Beach Boys and Snoop Dogg.

The building has also come back recently. VAB LLC, managed by First Fleet Concerts' Sam Summers, bought the property in 2022, per the Business Record. The ballroom was added to the National Register of Historic Places that fall and reopened in 2024 after renovations costing nearly $15 million, according to WeAreIowa and dsm Magazine. A room built for big band dances in the 1930s now hosts a crowd singing along to "...Baby One More Time." That fits.

What to expect: a long night, a big singalong and plenty of dancing. Fool House plays to a crowd that wants to be part of the show, so the dress-up advice is real. The video DJ opens the night before the band takes over, so don't show up late if you want the full run.

The '90s are now old enough to be nostalgia for a whole generation. On March 5, the Val Air is the place to lean into it.

Sources: Rapid City Post — Fool House Brings the Ultimate '90s Party to The Box Elder Events Center (rapidcitypost.com); City of La Crosse — Fool House Ultimate 90's Party at the La Crosse Center (cityoflacrosse.org); West Des Moines Chamber — Knowing Your History: The Val Air Ballroom (wdmchamber.org); Business Record — Local music promoter buys Val Air Ballroom (businessrecord.com); WeAreIowa — Val Air Ballroom reopens after historic year-long renovations (weareiowa.com); dsm Magazine — A New Val Era (dsmmagazine.com); AXS — Fool House tickets (axs.com); JamBase — Fool House at Val Air Ballroom (jambase.com)