I was looking forward to mingling with fine upstanding female folk at this year's businesswoman of the year awards, whose theme was "Women With No Filter - celebrating leaders who honour themselves and others".
With guests ranging from a leading women's rights activist and a 1980s business icon to a princess who believes women can excel in both bedroom and boardroom and a minister Robert Mugabe once called "a stupid idiotic woman", this is a diverse group.
Outside the ballroom at the Sandton Convention Centre, I meet that '80s icon Reeva Forman, who became a household name for her high-fashion cosmetics and who boasts a figure coveted by women half her age.
The cosmetics queen tells me she's moved with the times - you can now buy her Reeva beauty products with a click of a mouse - and she's also rolling up her sleeves to help restore that historic Joburg landmark, Temple Israel in Hillbrow, to its former glory.
Inside the ballroom, newly preggers Tamara Dey entertains us as we wait for some of the night's VIPs to arrive, led by that women's activist I mentioned, Ethiopian lawyer Meaza Ashenafi, who helped start the East African country's first women's bank. She gives the night's keynote address.
Beautiful in a long flowing silk and chiffon beaded gown, she is joined by Lindiwe Zulu, our minister for small business development, who, before she held the portfolio, so rankled the Zim prez (he later apologised)...