Spirit will be back on Abbey Street for one night only. In a very special event, on July 4, the former staff of Spirit Nightclub – now known as the Academy – will get together to raise money for their friend Lana.

Lana who was a hostess at Spirit, was diagnosed with brain cancer last November. She needs to go to Moscow for an operation if she is to have the cancer removed. The 23-year-old, from Latvia cannot afford the €15,000 surgery herself nor can her parents, so her friends in Dublin are getting together to hold a big bash, Lana’s Night, to raise the money needed.

DJs on the night will include Jane Kenny from Boy’s Make Better DJs, DJ John Power of Spin 103.8 fame and DJ Karen who is now with the George, there will also be performances from Spirit dancers as part of the reunion.

Her friends and former colleagues want to do all they can for Lana who has already been through an ordeal with her illness. In 2006 she first began having bad headaches and fainting fits and decided to head back to Latvia for a checkup only to be diagnosed with a brain tumour. After the first operation was performed in March 2006 Lana was left paralysed and developed double meningitis. After a year and a half Lana learned to walk and talk again and applied to an Irish college to study and was accepted only to begin experiencing the same symptoms again.
Lana was hospitalised in November 2007 with a diagnosis of brain oedema after more operating and another course of rehabilitation Lana became worse while the tumour continued to grow. Latvian doctors are unable to help Lana anymore and her only hope is the €15,000 operation that can be performed by the specialists of Central Russian Institute of Oncology in Moscow.

Tickets for the event cost €15 plus booking fee, and are available from the Academy or Ticketmaster.