Skip to content

Exclusive: Robbie Williams, Calvin Harris and Nile Rodgers 'perform at £4m birthday party' in Hale Barns

And Dermot O’Leary was the MC…

A star-studded private party said to have cost as much as £4million took place in Hale Barns last night, with some of the biggest names in music reported to have performed.

The event is understood to have been a 50th birthday celebration for Natasha Arora, wife of B&M Trading Director and billionaire businessman Bobby Arora, held in the grounds of the couple's Hale Barns home.

Sources say guests were entertained by Robbie Williams, Calvin Harris and Nile Rodgers and Chic, with TV presenter Dermot O'Leary acting as master of ceremonies for the night.

Williams is understood to have flown in especially for the party, squeezing in the Hale Barns appearance between dates on his world tour - he played Jazzablanca in Casablanca, Morocco on 2nd July and is due on stage at Luxexpo Open-Air in Luxembourg on 6th July.

Calvin Harris, meanwhile, jetted in from Ibiza, having performed his legendary summer residency at Ushuaïa Ibiza on Friday.

A huge marquee was erected in the grounds for the occasion, which one source said resembled "a high-class hotel".

View this post on Instagram

Disco legend Nile Rodgers flew in from Dublin, where he and Chic played a major outdoor headline show at the Iveagh Gardens on Thursday.

It’s not the Chic frontman’s first time in Hale Barns - he previously visited when his friend - and local resident - Johnny Marr presented him with the first of his signature Fender Jaguars at the old Four Seasons hotel by the roundabout.

Recalling the meeting in a 2018 interview with Altrincham Today, Marr said: "He'd found himself with a day off in the pouring rain and we were supposed to be meeting a couple of days later at Parklife. He called me and I said 'what, you're in WA15'. He said he was out near Manchester Airport. He told me he was by the Marriott and I said 'dude, that's three minutes away from my hood!'

"So I went over there and presented him with the first of my signature Jags because he's been an inspiration... It's like Memphis or something, round here!"

The Aroras are among the North West's most prominent couples, regularly attending high-profile events in and around Altrincham and Cheshire.

Their Hale Barns home made national headlines in May 2023 when a helicopter carrying then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak landed in the back garden. Bobby Arora lives next door to his brother Simon, the former CEO of B&M.

Bobby, who grew up in Sale, began his retail career importing homewares at the age of 18. Alongside brothers Simon and Robin, he acquired the struggling B&M grocery chain in 2004 and transformed it into one of the UK's leading discount retailers, now worth billions.

The brothers were ranked 99th on The Sunday Times Tax List of the nation's largest taxpayers - and 14th in the North West.

Comments

Latest