Ballroom Blitz

"Just once I'd like to go to a charity event where this doesn't happen!"

"The party I went to was so fancy I thought a Spider-Man villain would come crashing through the skylight!"

— Tina Fey

For whatever reason, there's a dance or a dinner, or a party of some kind, going on — be it a snooty royal or noble ball, a school dance or a wedding, or maybe a particularly large birthday party. If it's a more formal occasion, pretty much everyone is dressed up. There's a fairly good chance that if our heroes have been invited, the Big Bad or his mooks are quite likely to invite themselves; be assured something catastrophic and violent is going to occur, usually in the vicinity of either the entrance or the dance floor. Conversely, the hero may break into the bad guy's party; a party after some evil action done before would prove their Lack of Empathy.

In most circumstances everyone will be unarmed, except maybe the guards (if they even have them). Cue panicked screams, and the Action Girl complaining about having to fight in a dress... until she rips the hem off. Then watch out.

May overlap with A Fête Worse than Death. The subtrope Wedding Smashers is for fights happening during a wedding party specifically. If the hero is wealthy enough, he may end up Paying for the Action Scene out of generosity. See Excuse Me, Coming Through! for the general trope of fights, shootouts, or chases occurring in a public space.

Incidentally, while there can be blood on the dance floor here, that term will take you to Vampire Dance instead.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Played for Laughs in a Super Bowl Special ad celebrating 100 years of the National Football League. It starts with a stodgy, dignified celebration with tuxedo-wearing players listening to the commissioner's speech while a huge cake, topped with a golden football, is wheeled in. The cake comes just out of reach of Marshawn Lynch, a (now retired) running back known for his Sweet Tooth. Lynch makes a grab for the cake, causing the football to tumble to the floor. This sets off a Pavlovian reaction among the current and former players who immediately make a dive for it. A crazed and very messy pick up game of football follows with Shout Outs to everything from Tom Brady's collection of Super Bowl rings to Peyton Manning's tendency for injuries to an improbable catch known as the "Immaculate reception." Meanwhile the three old men from the 1972 Dolphins (the only undefeated team in Super Bowl history) are sipping champagne and laughing at the show.

Anime & Manga

• Towards the end of the Baccano! arc set in 1930, Szilard tracks down Maiza at the party to celebrate Firo's entry into the Camorra. Machine-gunning ensues. Unfortunately for Szilard, it generally fails to stick.
• In Berserk the gang go to see Farnese while she was at a ball. This being Berserk, though, it doesn't end well. Cute little kitties break into the Ballroom filled with nobles fighting against Emperor Ganishka, finally allowing Farnese to display some combat ability (and giving her a much-needed confidence boost).
• In The Big O, Roger gets invited to a masquerade ball and is given a mask to wear. Roger chooses not to put it on — good thing too, because Schwartzwald had booby-trapped the masks to spontaneously combust, turning all of the other attendants' faces, all of them high society people, into charred messes.
• Mai's arc in Kanon at the prom.
• An early episode of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing had Lady Une try to assassinate Relena during a school formal dance, which lead to Heero going out and fighting them off in his Gundam. No fighting actually occurs inside the party, though.
• In the manga version of Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Ala Alba kicks off the blitz during Negi's escape from the governor's office. Unfortunately this coincides with the arrival of Cosmo Entelecheia… IN FORCE. Looks like that's it for tonight's dances of romances.
• In Sailor Moon Crystal, Zoisite interrupts a masquerade ball.
• Soul Eater has this in an episode when Death City is attacked and The Kishin is released during a party celebrating the DWMA's anniversary.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: Some duelist on a giant spiked bulldozer crashes some fancy party during the WRGP Arc. Aki ends up summoning her dragon and tossing him through a window.

Comic Books

• Pretty much guaranteed to happen at any superhero wedding. Notable examples include:
  • The wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Interrupted by all supervillains Marvel had created so far (even in other comics). Fortunately, all other superheroes were invited and joined the fight.
  • The wedding of Henry Pym and the Wasp, interrupted by the Circus of Crime.
  • The wedding of Green Arrow and Black Canary, which Batman lampshaded by saying that the only reason he even attended was because he knew this would happen.
• Adventure Time Graphic Novels: The sixth volume "Masked Mayhem" is based around a series of prank attacks against fancy dress parties thrown on Ooo's "Masquerade Day".
• Batman:
  • In the story arc Lovers and Madmen, the villain Jack a.k.a. the soon-to-be Joker attacks a Museum Charity Ball to get Batman's attention.
  • In the first arc of Batman (Grant Morrison), Batman And Son, a bunch of ninja Man-Bats attack a charity ball in London.
  • Let's just say that if the comic is showing Bruce Wayne attending a Gotham Society event, there's a good chance this is going to happen.
  • In the Red Robin/Batgirl (2009) crossover Tim and Steph end up protecting Dr. Leslie Thompkins dressed in a tux and dress respectively when a group of League of Assassins ninjas try to kill the good doctor at a charity ball.
  • In Batgirl: Year One, Killer Moth and his henchmen raid the Gotham City Police Department's Million Dollar Masquerade Ball and hold everyone at gunpoint. However, Batgirl manages to disarm his minions and chases Moth out of the building.
  • In the Batgirl (Rebirth) storyline "Art of the Crime", villain Grotesque attempts to bomb an art exhibit hosted by the Gotham City Museum of Antiquities.
• In the Halloween Episode of Jem and the Holograms (IDW) The Misfits decide to crash The Holograms halloween party. They get in but fail at doing anything malicious.
• Legends of Baldur's Gate: The party makes a deal to deliver a letter to a member of parliament at a fancy party, but Delina recognises someone there as a Dragon Cultist who attacked her earlier. A fight breaks out, ending up with Delina going out a window.
• Superman:
  • In The Death of Superman (1961), Lex Luthor is throwing a party to celebrate he's finally killed off Superman for good, when Supergirl smashes through a wall, grabs Luthor and takes him away to be put on trial, as warning the crooks attending the crashed party that they are next.
  • In The Girl with the X-Ray Mind, Linda Danvers is attending a costume party when two costumed crooks suddenly barge in the place to steal the partygoers.
• In Those Who Speak it's the heroes who interrupt the party by attacking Titus.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): The Holliday Girls get in a brawl with Draska Nishki's spies at a fancy masquerade party.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): Medusa crashes a fancy state dinner at the White House, slaughtering dozens of security personnel on her way through the building before running into the Amazon contingent attending the dinner.

Fan Works

• City of Chains has one of these. Sophia's birthday party eventually turns into a brawl when someone tries to assassinate her father. The thing is, the characters were prepared for this well ahead of time.
• In Dance with the Demons, Buce Wayne and Selina Kyle's wedding gets interrupted when Selina gets shot with a poisoned dart.
• In The Dragon King, Stoick invites all of the other tribes in the archipelago to Berk where they have a meeting on how they would deal with the ever elusive "Dragon King." What happens? A masked stranger lets himself in and tells everybody that he is the Dragon King and that he had arrived to explain himself and what he wants from all of them.
• As the Mistress is going through contractions in Chapter 13 of the Superjail! fanfic Extended Stay while she and the Warden are getting married, the inmates start to riot, even killing the priest in the process. Alice and Bruce are the only ones to be able to put an end to it.
  • Another example of this occurs in Chapter 7 while the Warden and the Mistress are on a date.
• Subverted in the The Game of Three Generals, the third part of the Elemental Chess Trilogy. Grumman and the allies throw a ball hoping to lure Acheron into attacking, but nothing happens, making them even more anxious.
• The Secret Return of Alex Mack: Terawatt's first encounter with Batman occurs when Poison Ivy and Bane crash a gala and the SRI team intervenes. Complete with Action Girl making a Dynamic Entry through a window.
• In this Sonic Boom fancomic by E-vay, Tails reluctantly attempts to host a charity event. It quickly turns into this trope — Sticks attacks the guests while declaring that they "must be cleansed of [their] hoity-toity facade", Rouge robs nearly everyone there, her and Knuckles' adopted sons get attacked by the resident Robot Girl after the younger one steals her leg, Sonic and Shadow get drunk and start doing karaoke, and the Author Avatar is set on fire. Amusingly, Eggman is also attending the party in a Paper-Thin Disguise, and he comments on the chaos.
  "Wow. This party went to hell and I had nothing to do with it!"

Films — Live-Action

• In Babe: Pig in the City, Babe and the other animals find themselves in the middle of a fancy party for the Metropolis Institute of Medicine when Esme and the Landlady barge in to reclaim them. When a chef claims Babe for himself, Esme tries to get him back using an improvised bungee.
• Batman villains love this trope:
  • Batman Returns: The fancy costume party at which Bruce and Selina discover each other's identities gets interrupted explosively by the Penguin.
  Penguin: I wasn't invited. So I crashed!
  • Batman Forever: Two-Face crashes Edward Nygma's (The Riddler's) party despite the two working together. Followed soon after by Batman.
  Riddler: Your entrance was good; his was better. The difference? Showmanship.
  • Batman & Robin: Bruce organizes a charity auction sale of diamonds in order to lure Mr. Freeze. Poison Ivy infiltrates the party in a pink gorilla costume, takes it off and seduces everybody with her love perfume, then Freeze crashes the party.
  • Batman Begins: Rā's al Ghūl and his men crash Bruce Wayne's birthday party.
  • The Dark Knight: The Joker and his men storm Bruce's fundraiser as they try to assassinate Harvey Dent, having succeeded in eliminating Commissioner Loeb and Judge Surrillo. This is why Bruce can't have nice things. Later, Batman goes to arrest Sal Maroni inside his own nightclub.
  • Averted in The Dark Knight Rises: Bruce Wayne does go dancing with Selina Kyle at a ball, but Bane does not attack.
  • Averted again in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, where Bruce infiltrates Lex Luthor's party but uses stealth to steal encrypted information.
• In Blazing Saddles, the Final Battle busts right out of the movie and into the studio next door, where a rehearsal for a dance number is taking place.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The original film version culminated in an attack on the senior dance by the vampire hordes.
• During the prom in Carrie, a cruel prank causes Carrie to go on a rampage and kill everyone.
• Collateral: Dragged out rather ridiculously when Max starts shooting in a nightclub to cause a diversion. It works, everyone starts running for the exits... and five minutes later, they're still running. Best hope there's never a fire in that place...
• In The Dark Crystal, the Podling villagers are enjoying a rowdy celebration when the Garthim bust through the walls and start capturing everyone they can grab.
• Day Watch has Yegor's birthday party, organised by the Big Bad and attended by many high ranking Others (and several Russian celebrities in Celebrity Cameos). Everything goes well, if tense, until Yegor's estranged father, Anton, bumps into a Witch he arrested years ago. A scuffle erupts, turns increasingly violent and climaxes with someone throwing a magical frag grenade that destroys Moscow.
• Die Hard, Hans Gruber and his terrorist interrupt the Nakatomi company's Christmas party to take everyone hostage.
• This happens in an early scene from Downfall. During the Battle of Berlin, Nazi officials and their staff are throwing a party inside the Reich Chancellery, which is abruptly ended due to a Soviet artillery strike, forcing all the guests to evacuate.
• The big costume ball in Enchanted gets interrupted due to Nerissa first pulling the poison apple thing on Giselle, and then turning into a dragon. Also makes use of All Part of the Show.
• In Fiddler on the Roof, the party celebrating Tzeitel and Motel's wedding is rudely interrupted by the Cossacks, who attack without warning.
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom starts out in a fancy dinner event in Shanghai which eventually escalates into a gunfight.
• A variant happens in Labyrinth when Sarah breaks free from the ballroom in her Dream Sequence/Lotus-Eater Machine and the entire room shatters.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In The Avengers, Loki disrupts a very formal party in Germany in order to use one of the guests' eyeballs to allow the corrupted Barton to break in and steal something.
  • In Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Avengers have a little party at Avengers Tower, drinking and playing games like trying to lift Thor's hammer, when Ultron and his drones attack. However the trope is downplayed as most of the guests have left before the action happens.
• Midwinter Night's Dream: During Lazar's time in the army, he looked through the window of a house and saw a group of civilians gathered around a table, singing and celebrating. He and his fellow soldiers smashed the windows with their Kalashnikovs and killed everyone in ten seconds. Lazar defected that night.
• Mission: Impossible – Fallout: A fight scene breaks out at the Parisian club between Hunt and a Carnival of Killers.
• In Night of the Creeps, the dance never happened because the busload of fratboys all died due to the eponymous monsters and the undead serial killer.
• In both The Poseidon Adventure and the 2006 remake Poseidon: The new year's eve is celebrated on a luxury cruise ship when a enormous wave hits the ship, causing the ship to capsize.
• A night of disco dancing is ruined in Prom Night when the killer makes himself known during the crowning of prom king and queen.
• In Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed; The grand opening of a museum filled with the costumes of the crooks the Mystery Team captured, is interrupted when one of the costumes turns out to be "alive".
• Sky High (2005): The final battle begins at the school dance. Unusually, the Hidden Villain was invited to it, being a student.
• In Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, a party is held for the elite of the O.S.S. but during a toast, all the adults where drugged and the waiters try to steal the Transmooker device from the president, forcing the children to fight back.
• In Swing Kids, one swing dance party gets raided by the Hitler Jugend, leading to pandemonium as everyone tries to escape out the back. At the end of the movie, the Hitler Jugend raid another swing party, this time more prepared to apprehend everyone there. It does not end well for the partygoers.
• The Terminator: The Tech Noir club gets blitzed. Luckily Kyle was able to "Zero" the T-800 as a result.
• The End of Line Club in TRON: Legacy becomes a battle zone between rebellious programs and Clu's army following Castor pulling a Face–Heel Turn. It mostly serves as a mixture of awesome and funny, because of Castor dancing throughout the battle until Quorra's arm is derezzed.
• Van Helsing: The All Hallow's Eve Ball, which quickly erupts into a battle with Dracula.
• The extended version of The Wolfman has Lawrence's rampage through London take him into a conservatory ballroom. Carnage ensues.

Jokes

• There is a joke in Finland about the stereotypically stern, quickly aggravated, knife-wielding Ostrobothnians.
  Q: "Why are the floors of dance halls in Ostrobothnia built to have a slope?"
  A: "So that the blood will run off better."

Literature

• About halfway through The Alloy Of Law, Wax and Wayne are attending a ball when 40 heavily armed thugs burst in through the door and kidnap Wax's fiancée. Luckily, Wax had brought his guns.
• In By the Sword, Kerowyn is first thrust into her role as Action Girl when mercenaries ransack her brother's wedding, kill her father, and abduct the bride.
• In Cluster Command the second book of David Drake's Crisis of Empire trilogy protagonist General Merikur and his wife Beth find themselves in the middle of such a blitz at the welcome ball for the new system governor.
• A reception for the visiting king and queen of France quickly devolves into this, in the first book of the Dawn of Steam series, once a group anti-monarchy assassins reveal themselves.
• Discworld:
  • Nanny Ogg's Cookbook: "The Fight" is listed as part of a proper wedding. The last step is "Then the bride cuts the cake."
  • Night Watch: The Patrician's party. Though no actual violence is employed (save for two guards who took crossbow bolts); the Patrician (Lord Winder) is literally scared to death by a young Havelock Vetinari.
  • The final confrontation between Granny Weatherwax and her sister of Witches Abroad takes place in an elegant ball.
• The Dresden Files book Grave Peril has Harry winding up attending large party being thrown by a vampire. It winds up being an example of why villains request his presence at their own peril.
• Bill and Fleur's wedding in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Even more so in the film, as in the book our three heroes manage to escape within a very short time after the villains interrupt.
• Added to the Dances and Balls of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, natch.
• Darrow's Triumph in the second book of the Red Rising trilogy.
  • The gala on Luna earlier in the book also counts, given how quickly the feud between the Augustus and Bellona families escalates into a full scale bloodbath (with Darrow's help of course)
• In The Silmarillion, Morgoth attacked Valinor and seized the Silmarils during a festival. Gondolin also fell during a festival when none of the walls were manned.
• In Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent, upset that she wasn't invited to the party celebrating a princess's birth, crashes it and curses the girl to one day prick her finger on a spindle and die.
• The Red Wedding in A Song of Ice and Fire. To a lesser extent - the Purple wedding.

Live-Action TV

• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the senior prom is threatened by devil-dogs (the demonic kind, not the USMC). Buffy stops the baddies before they can crash the party, and even finds the time to attend the prom herself.
• In Community episode Pascal's Triangle Revisited, an end of the year school dance turns into one of these when Chang attacks Duncan.
• CSI: NY:
  • In "The Dove Commission," the author of the titular report, and the woman he's dancing with at a party in a ballroom on the 65th floor of a high-rise, are taken out by a sniper using an armed drone-like device belonging to the TARU (Technical Assistance Response Unit).
  • The sniper in "Hide Sight" takes out a woman at an office celebration, complete with cake and party hats, in a high rise.
• In the Doctor Who two parter "Human Nature/The Family of Blood" a nice village dance is interrupted by (what else?) an Alien Invasion.
• In Firefly, Mal inadvertently challenges Atherton Wing to a duel at a shiny ballroom shindig.
• Hart to Hart: As befits a couple with a curious capacity for coming across corpses, not to mention a propensity for pursuing the perpetrator and the money to enmesh the murderer, Jonathan and Jennifer's society soirees have this unfortunate interruption more than once.
• Heroes has Claire's big homecoming dance interrupted by a Sylar attack.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Daredevil (2015): The season 3 finale sees Wilson Fisk and Vanessa Marianna's wedding get cut short when Dex attacks the party seeking revenge on Fisk for murdering Julie Barnes (after Matt tips him off on intel from Felix Manning). Things make their way upstairs to Fisk's penthouse, where a three way fight then ensues between Matt, Fisk, and Dex.
  • Luke Cage (2016):
    • Midway through season 2, Luke has to headline a party being thrown by Mariah's stockbroker Raymond "Piranha" Jones to raise money to pay Cockroach. It's cut short when Bushmaster's thugs attack the party and try to kidnap Piranha.
    • In the climax of season 2, Mariah invokes this. She puts on a free concert at Harlem's Paradise knowing that Bushmaster will show up and try to kill her, and Luke will come to protect the innocent bystanders. It's even more hectic because this is happening while the police are at the club working a sting to have Shades wear a wire and lead them to evidence that links Mariah to the murder of Bushmaster's uncle.
  • The Defenders (2017): Matt Murdock and Jessica Jones (2015) fight off Murakami as he attempts to attack Trish Walker in an empty dance hall.
• Varying versions across all soap operas. Some don't even have a villain—All My Children's Adam and Gloria's vow renewal was interrupted by a tornado.
• In Merlin the two-part finale of series four begins when Morgana and her mercenary army attacks Camelot during the Beltane celebrations.
• Minutemen has a dance interrupted by a black hole.
• In an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, a bunch of nobles at a fancy ball are consistently interrupted by highwayman Dennis Moore.
• Star Trek: The Original Series: In "Balance of Terror," the Romulan attack occurs while Kirk is in the midst of performing two crew members' wedding. Played for Drama — the groom is killed. It gets a Call-Back in the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode "A Quality of Mercy."
• Supergirl (2015):
  • In episode "Fight or Flight", Reactron literally crashes Cat's party.
  • In "Crossfire", a gang of criminals armed with alien-tech guns who have been terrorizing the city storm into a charity party being hosted by Lena Luthor. Turns out, Lena was counting on this, and she had a device prepared to destroy their weapons so Supergirl can take them down.
• Walker, Texas Ranger:
  • The 3rd Season Finale, "Standoff", has Walker taking on a European assassin trying to kill a Mexican Presidential candidate when he takes hostages at a banquet, including not only the Mexican Presidential hopeful, but also the Texas Lieutenant Governor and C.D. and Alex.
  • In Season 9's "6 Hours", gunmen posing as waiters shoot up the conference center where the Dallas Business Association awards banquet— where Alex is being honored for her work at the HOPE Center— is taking place, prompting the Rangers to spring into action. Two of the shooters were killed by Walker and Sydney, two others were arrested by Gage and Trivette, only to be killed before they are brought in for questioning, and the remaining two escaped with the mastermind behind the whole thing: a wealthy teenage girl's traitorous bodyguard. The traitor was using it as a distraction for her father and the Rangers while he kidnaps her for a ransom and plots to murder her live on the internet.

Music

• The Julie Brown Song "(Everybody Run) The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun" involves an interrupted homecoming parade.
• The Irish folk song "Lanigan's Ball" (given a Boston twist by the Dropkick Murphys as "Flannigan's Ball") is about one of these.
• The Trope Namer is "Ballroom Blitz" by Sweet. It is a surreal and lighthearted description of such an event. Covered by lots of people: Krokus, The Rezillos, The Damned, and by Tia Carrere on the Wayne's World soundtrack. It was inspired by a gig gone wrong in Scotland in 1973, when the band was showered by bottles from the audience and had to leave before finishing the set ("And the band started leavin'/'Cause they all stopped breathin'").

Rides

• In the beginning of Fast & Furious: Supercharged, the tram stops at a holographic party where the tour guide decides to lay low until the villains interrupt the party and attack the tram, leading to a high speed getaway.

Roleplay

• In Destine Enormity, the Elite and their supporters throw a Grand Ball — only to have the rebels show up and break up the party.
• In The Gamer's Alliance, the Maar Sulais court has a grand ball in honour of the Grand Alliance army which has come to join them in the fight against the Proninist Party. However, just when festivities are about to reach their peak, the Nightstalkers gang crashes the ball in the citadel, causes general havoc and kidnaps the elven mage Tiyana before the heroes can stop them.
• The Gungan Council has frequent dances and balls, so the Sith decided to host their own called "The Homecoming Ball" and invite Jedi and Rebels. Nowadays, its nickname "The Blood Ball" is known much more than its true name.

Theater

• A minor example in Les Misérables when the Thenardiers crash Marius and Cosette's wedding to bribe Marius for their secrecy about the fact that his father-in-law, Jean Valjean, was supposedly robbing corpses (actually saving Marius's life) when the barricades fell. It's rather subdued, with Marius taking care of the problem as discreetly as possible — until Marius punches Thenardier out.
• The Phantom of the Opera: The Masquerade Ball is, um...gliding right along until the Phantom decides to pay a call...

Video Games

• The Justified Tutorial of the 007: From Russia with Love game is a cocktail party variant.
• One mission in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood turns into this. A Borgia cardinal is throwing one hell of a party, only for Ezio Auditore da Firenze to crash the party and murder the cardinal. Subverted in that all of the guests make it out just fine. The guards, on the other hand, are pretty much boned.
• Battlefield 1: In the Multiplayer segment, there is literally a map named Ballroom Blitz, and naturally, there is a dining room that serves as one of the control points in Domination. As a result, it is constantly the source of close-range firefights and vicious melee combat... and of course Stuff Blowing Up.
• BioShock: The attack on the Kashmir Restaurant's 1959 New Year's Masquerade Ball by Atlas and his rebels a year before the events of the game started the civil war that led to Rapture's downfall.
• Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow has a ballroom where you must evade and fight dancing Victorian-era ghosts.
• The Banquet Hall level in Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas.
• The final stage of the first Death Smiles, complete with killing dozens of dancing ghosts.
• EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce: At one point the heroes are crossing the ocean on a cruise ship, and blend in by dressing in glamorous clothing. Naturally, when they're enjoying themselves in the ballroom, Virijion leads a Tarantula attack on the ship and all pretense of secrecy goes out the window.
• The boss fight of your first visit to the Beauty and the Beast level of Kingdom Hearts II takes place in the iconic ballroom. By your second visit, they've got around to the actual dance scene — but it's interrupted by Xaldin, who kidnaps Belle and lures everyone outside.
• In NieR, you fight Shades in a ballroom in the Shadowlord's Castle
• Occurs at a cocktail party in Tomb Raider: Legend, complete with Action Dress Rip.
• The Karazhan raid instance in World of Warcraft has a variation. One section of the dungeon involves going through the ballroom and dining room, which are filled with ghosts. The ghosts are acting as people normally would, dancing and eating, with servants walking among the tables in the dining room. Of course, the players have to fight these ghosts to continue.

Web Animation

• The Nekci Menij Show: Episode Five, Haus Perty, ends with a Ballroom Blitz where all the "British" singers get into all-out war with the others, Adole gives birth, and Keshir providing the background music while not realizing what's going on.

Webcomics

• The battle of Quillotia in Archipelago occurs right in the royal ballroom, in part because the villains have been preparing a coup for a while and decided to speed it up. The character named "Blitz" is also there, incidentally.
• Girl Genius: Numerous hostile forces converge on a masquerade ball being held in Paris.
• RPG World contains one of these in the Elven village, Chery's hometown.
• Serpamia Flare: Chapter Three, the party hits up the Grand Oasis Ball in Lari Oasis and ends up having to battle it through with Danrir Rebels and a mysterious fourth party... in fancy dress.

Web Original

• On the Dream SMP, the Red Banquet eventually turns into one, as the Banquet itself was initially a guise to lure several vocally anti-Eggpire server members into a trap to kill them and feed their life forces to the Egg... then Quackity, Technoblade, his Hound Army, and Purpled show up.

Western Animation

• American Dad!: In "Haylias", after Hayley's arranged marriage she attempts to murder Stan during the wedding party. Part of the scenes is a Shout-Out to Carrie.
• American Dragon: Jake Long had a dance he never made it to because he had to stop the Huntsclan.
• The Beach Episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender ends with Zuko, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee wrecking a beach house where another teenager is having a party.
• Ben 10: Alien Force Kevin and Gwen go to a dance, but it gets interrupted by this trope.
• Danny Phantom: In the second episode, Danny decides to take some inconspicuous ghost-fighting weaponry to the school dance "just in case." Case happens.
• The first episode of Freakazoid!, "The Dance Of Doom" has a high-school dance interrupted by Cave Guy, who takes several of the high-schoolers hostage. Of course, this being Freakazoid, the dance is in honor of Daylight Savings Time.
• Justice League: In the episode "Maid of Honor," Batman and Wonder Woman (in their civilian identities) are enjoying a dance when the terrorists come crashing in to kidnap Princess Audrey.
• Kaeloo: In Episode 83, Kaeloo hosts a Valentine's Day Party. Long story short, the party guests wind up in a huge fight.
• Kim Possible had it happen to her in The Movie.
• The first Season Finale of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, "The Best Night Ever", ends with the Mane cast going to the Grand Galloping Gala... and making a huge mess of Princess Celestia's castle in the process. (Which, it turns out, is precisely what Princess Celestia wanted.)
  • This happens again in the season 2 episode "Sweet and Elite", when the main cast invite themselves to a garden party Rarity had been secretly attending. Fortunately, the end result is somewhat more positive this time around.
  • In fact, the first example arguably happens right in the two-part pilot with Nightmare Moon crashing Ponyville's Summer Sun Celebration.
  • It happens yet again in the second season finale, when a wedding between Princess Cadance and Shining Armor is interrupted by Twilight Sparkle and the real Cadance. The fake Cadance reveals her true form as queen of the Changelings, and her minions proceed to besiege all of Canterlot.
  • And yet again in the season 5 episode "Make New Friends But Keep Discord", when Discord invites, then ignores, the Smooze to the Gala. Maybe ponies just aren't meant to have nice things.
• Subverted in Reboot. For Enzo's birthday, a surprise party/talent show is planned. Villain Megabyte keeps menacing Bob during the preparations. At the actual party, after the comedy acts, Dot singing a torch song, and other festivities, Megabyte barges onstage — with an electric guitar. He plays power chords while his dimwit sidekicks Hack and Slash back him up on drums. Bob pulls out HIS guitar, and the two jam with each other! Megabyte's actual plan? "I've always wanted to do that!" He gives his guitar to the birthday boy, gets in his limo, and leaves.
• Lampshaded in the Robot Chicken DC Superheroes Special. The MC at a museum gala unveils a massive gem as the centerpiece of the exhibit, then observes that everyone gathered knows what's going to come next, hoping they can at least get through the first round of hors d'oeuvres before the first supervillain shows up. Sure enough, he's barely finished speaking before Mr. Freeze bursts through a wall. Seconds later, Captain Cold does the same thing. While the two of them bicker over scheduling issues, Icicle bursts through another wall. As the three of them ponder the problems of having multiple villains with the same gimmick, Chillblain crashes the party too, even though all of the guests have long since evacuated. And then the building collapses on them because they destroyed too many load-bearing walls.
• In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Spidey met the Green Goblin during one of these. It quickly turned into an Enemy Mine, since Tombstone didn't take kindly to the Goblin attacking his guests. (Tombstone is a Villain with Good Publicity and very commited to keeping it that way.)
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "A Mathematically Perfect Redemption," the Drookmani attack in the middle of Peanut Hamper and Rawda's wedding.
• Steven Universe: the Diamonds attack in the middle of Ruby and Sapphire's wedding, forcing the Crystal Gems to take up arms in all their finery.
• Superjail!: In "Ladies' Night", this occurs at the Warden's "Lockdown of Love" after Superjail's Distaff Counterpart is bitten by Spanish Flies.
• An episode of Teen Titans (2003) in which Robin is forced to take a supervillain's daughter to her prom ends up this way when Starfire's jealousy flares up and said supervillain's daughter's ex-boyfriend (who turns into just plain her boyfriend again shortly before the actual Blitz part of it starts) shows up.
• In the X-Men: Evolution episode "Shadow Dance", where the monsters that inhabit the pocket dimension Nightcrawler crosses every time he bamfs from one place to another manage to escape and start making a rampage in Bayville High, during the Sadie Hawkins dance night. Being this the school that the X-Men and the Brotherhood attend, they have no problem dealing with them. Kurt, on the other hand, is afraid of doing anything, both because said monsters had traumatized him earlier on (to a point he swore to himself he would never teleport again) and because he didn't want Amanda to find out he was a mutant. Turns out she already knew about his powers and his true appearance, and he manages to teleport them both out of school in the last minute at her urging.

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It's, it's a ballroom blitz! It's, it's a ballroom blitz! It's, it's, a ballroom blitz! Yeah! It's a ballroom blitz!