It’s Sunday at The Camden in Dublin city centre, and a large crowd is dancing energetically to dance-pop and electronic hits. It might sound like any other good club night, except it’s not yet 8pm, and the event is already beginning to wrap up.
Advertised by the organisers of the LGBT+ club Mother as an “all day dance party complete with DJs, drag queens, dancing and daytime disco debauchery”, the event began at 2.30pm and finished just before sunset.
Arriving after work in the evening, the party is already in full swing. On stage, one of the dancers “death drops” – throwing their leg in the air and falling to the floor – to the beat of Rihanna’s “S&M”, to a raucous cheer from the crowd.
Couples and groups of friends are posing together in the venue’s photo booth, or lingering for a chat in the smoking area.
“It’s just a normal night out really,” says one woman, “except I’ll get to go to bed early enough to be up for work in the morning.”
Cormac Cashman, promoter at Mother, says he and his co-founder Lisa Connell “have wanted to do a daytime event for ages, but we didn’t want to do brunch, because there are so many good ones already in the city. We thought we’d do what we already do well, which is a dance party.”
The party “definitely brought in a much more diverse crowd” than Mother’s night time events, including a “much broader age range” and people who live outside of Dublin, who are normally unable to make it late at night.
“It cuts out costs like taxis, because you can still get a bus home afterwards. And if you’re outside Dublin, you don’t have to stay with a mate. We were also able to have a much lower price point because Absolut sponsored us, which made it more accessible,” he says.
The cover charge was just €5 and included a complimentary drink on arrival.
“Town is also perceived to be less safe at the moment, so sometimes people want to be able to get home earlier. It was nice having a gorgeous, safe, queer dance space in the middle of the day on Camden Street,” Cashman adds.
From the day the tickets went on sale, it was clear there was a demand, and on the day itself, the event was almost sold out.
“There was a great buzz from the beginning. Everyone was dancing, there was no standing around awkwardly. And a lot of people were sober too, either having one drink or sticking with non-alcoholics,” Cashman says.
It’s part of a wider trend of daytime parties emerging around the country at the moment.
“There weren’t many daytime parties happening a couple of years ago, whereas now it’s become massive,” says DJ Billy Bunzari, who was DJing on the day.
Part of the reason for this is “people becoming more creative and utilising different spaces because there is such a lack of spaces available in Dublin”.
“People are just taking what’s out there and running with it. Coming from my perspective as a DJ, it’s amazing. I love playing music in the daytime,” he says.
“It’s way more chilled out, and you have more time to build up a vibe. You can take it slowly as opposed to coming in at 1am or 2am. It’s just a completely different energy.
“As a queer person approaching this too, gays have always partied in the daytime, just historically.” Bunzari is referring to tea dances, popular in the United States and England from the late 1800s into the post war era, but were later embraced by the gay community in New York in the 1950s and 1960s.
It was illegal at that time in the US for bars to “knowingly sell alcohol to homosexuals”, so afternoon “Sunday T-dances” were promoted and became a place for gay singles to meet and dance. Their popularity slowly faded out as the community became more accepted and it was increasingly possible for LGBT+ people to attend bars and clubs.
There’s a “resurgence” of afternoon parties now, across all communities, Bunzari says, and “it’s great to see it happen across different genres too”.
There are a host of new techno and disco parties happening in the daytime, and sober dance events are becoming more popular too, as people re-evaluate how they want to spend their weekends post-Covid, or how to build partying into their lifestyle and schedule.
I’d love to see more of this kind of thing popping up, because it gets boring going to the same things all the time
Back in March, London-based Irish DJ Annie Mac took her popular Before Midnight party – a nightclub “designed for people who need sleep” which starts at 7pm and is finished by midnight, and is especially popular with women – to Dublin for a St Patrick’s Day event at Vicar Street. The DJ is bringing Before Midnight to Dublin again on Friday 22nd of September, when she will headline the Culture Night festivities at the Guinness Storehouse.
During the summer, District 8 ran a series of daytime parties at Palmerstown House Estate in Naas, and the record label Reclaim the Mainframe ran daytime parties at 777, a Mexican restaurant and cocktail bar on George’s Street in Dublin.
“They were amazing,” Bunzari says. “There’s something for everyone out there at the minute.”
Bunzari’s passion for “disco, and over the top 70s glamour” is more difficult to achieve “under the veil of darkness”, so part of the appeal of a daytime party is “investing in the aesthetic”.
“If you’re in a venue at 3pm on a Sunday and it’s super bright, you can see everything, it’s all very visual,” Bunzari explains.
Sometimes “you can see the cracks in some venues”, but Bunzari works closely with a collective called Seachtó, who can make “any space look absolutely gorgeous”.
Seán Ó Ceallaigh and his partner Ingrid Doyle started Seachtó in 2020, taking their inspiration from “the disco culture of the 1970s and the magic and unrefined beauty of Ireland and the natural world”.
“It’s a bit abstract, but it’s a floral art project. We do everything floral related – installations, photoshoots, weddings,” Ó Ceallaigh says. “We started off with daytime parties through Billy, and it’s definitely something we’d love to get into more.”
The pair have created installations in which they hung carrots out of the ceiling, or “piled up assortments of fruit”, and they love to have a specific theme or colour scheme to focus on.
“With daytime events, just having the natural light means people are able to notice the arrangements more. It’s a really nice touch at parties, and it’s not really done enough in Dublin. We’re a bit behind here compared to places like New York and London, in the sense of decor and creating an atmosphere at events,” Ó Ceallaigh says.
But people are becoming “more creative”, and Ó Ceallaigh is excited about “giving everyone the opportunity to experience the opulence, luxury and elegance” that decor like Seachtó's can bring to a party.
“You have to get creative, especially in this day and age,” agrees drag performer An Ziety, who was working at Mother’s Sunday event. She started her own drag brunch in Dublin this summer.
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“It’s important to think of what you can do differently. I had the idea for my event because the weather was getting better, so it’s nice to be outside, and not everyone wants to go out until 4am – even though I always encourage that,” she laughs.
Venue owners are also becoming “more keen” to book daytime events, while a few years ago, when “it wasn’t a concept” in Dublin, they wouldn’t have seen the potential.
An Ziety got in touch with The Woollen Mills on the north side of the Liffey in Dublin this year because the restaurant-bar has an outdoor rooftop which is “lovely in the summer”, and an awning available in case of rain.
The event is called Boots – a play on the phrase “boots the house down” from the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race – and attendees get three cocktails, a brunch dish, and a performance from An Ziety and her co-host Naomi Diamond for €50 per ticket.
“We’re keeping it going after the summer because we’ve seen more and more people coming every time. It’s a mix of a crowd. Obviously we get the girls, gays and theys, but we also get hen parties, mums with their daughters, and an older crowd,” An Ziety says.
“It’s an amazing space. At the first show we did, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was stunning. But thank god we had the awning because it was the wettest July ever after that,” she jokes.
I decided to head home because I’m at work in the morning‚ but my friends will keep the party going
The next Boots party is on October 1st, from 3pm to 6pm. The time slot is a “win-win” for the performers and the restaurant, An Ziety says, because “it’d be quiet at that time otherwise, so why not do something fun to get people in? It’s nice for me to be able to finish work at that time too.”
It’s a similar story at Mother’s event, which An Ziety is “buzzing” to perform at, alongside other drag performers including Viola Gayvis, Avatar Guille and Vicky Vollta. The performers all finish work by 8pm.
“The atmosphere is great. I don’t remember the last time I was able to dance at anything in the daytime unless it was one of the big festivals,” says attendee Amy O’Donoghue.
“I’d love to see more of this kind of thing popping up, because it gets boring going to the same things all the time.”
As Mother’s event comes to an end, the crowd begins to disperse outside into the daylight, and friends wave goodbye to each other as they run to catch a bus home, while others opt to move on to another bar.
“I decided to head home because I’m at work in the morning‚” O’Donoghue says, “but my friends will keep the party going.”
