Inside the Fire and Lightbox nightclub in Vauxhall, South London, a bass-heavy track thunders from the speakers. Strobe lights pulsate above the heads of a sweaty, dancing crowd, bedecked in glitter and eccentric outfits. It looks like any other club night — but it’s the middle of the afternoon, and everyone here is stone-cold sober.
Founded in 2022, the House of Happiness markets itself as “London’s ultimate sober clubbing extravaganza.” It’s one of a growing number of events looking to provide a “nightlife-style” space for those who don’t want to drink but still want to party.
In Singapore, alcohol-free matcha raves have boomed in popularity, while in US cities, venues are embracing “soft clubbing,” with online event platform Eventbrite reporting a 92% increase in sober-curious gatherings in 2024. In Europe, sober electronic music events have taken place in Paris and Berlin, and in the UK, long-running superclub Ministry of Sound announced its inaugural sober rave day party series earlier this year.
House of Happiness co-founder Neil Hudson-Basing, 43, describes their core demographic as late-20s to mid-40s, but says that people as old as 80 have attended their events.
“Partying and dancing and music is for everyone,” he says. “We wanted something really glittery and bold and a bit wild … that had all the ingredients of a clubbing event, but just no drugs or alcohol,” he adds.
Hudson-Basing decided to give up drugs and alcohol six years ago, motivated partly by “problematic drinking and drug-taking,” he says. But he didn’t want to give up partying.
With two friends, who are also now sober, he launched the House of Happiness in response to what he perceived as a lack of “proper clubbing experience(s)” for sober people in the UK, where alcohol and substance consumption — and overconsumption — are often embedded in nightlife culture.
He points to Morning Gloryville, also based in London, which organizes monthly sober dance parties, as one of the pioneers of the sober rave movement. But he describes their events as “very mindfulness or wellbeing focused” and explains he wanted to offer sober people something purely “focused on the spirit of having a good time.”
Morning Gloryville’s chief operating officer, Roxy Deniz Ozalp acknowledges that wellness is a key part of their ethos. In addition to a “pumping dancefloor (and) DJ line-up,” their pre-work and daytime parties offer yoga, meditation and breathwork sessions.
“We’re just trying to cultivate more positivity in the world,” she says. “We give people the space and the compassion to just be kind to themselves … to dance in the silliest, most childlike, liberating and free way on the dancefloor,” she says.
Dancing, particularly in social settings, is thought to have a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing, and it has also been shown to encourage social bonding. The UK’s Night Time Industries Association reported that 80% of attendees at electronic music events felt they had experienced emotional and mental health benefits.
But Deniz Ozalp says that the drug and alcohol-use commonplace in these settings can have a damaging impact on many people’s mental and physical health. She says that the launch of Morning Gloryville was partly motivated by a desire to make electronic music venues safer spaces, given the prevalence of substance and alcohol-related deaths in the dance music community.
Since launching in London in 2013, Morning Gloryville has expanded to 25 cities worldwide, including Berlin and Sydney, holding sober raves in iconic venues like the Shard skyscraper in London, and playing host to dance music legends like Fatboy Slim and Basement Jaxx.
Meanwhile, in New York in 2013, Daybreaker founder Radha Agrawal was eating post-club falafels with a friend and musing on the idea of throwing sober dance parties at daybreak.
“I had been an investor in a nightclub in New York, and I’d go there every weekend, and I would look around the room and everyone was just zombies,” she says. “I was just realizing that going to get falafels at three o’clock in the morning, with make-up and mascara running down my face, (and being) exhausted for two days after that, was something I no longer wanted to do,” she adds.
Agrawal says she was surprised to find that so many felt the same way. Their first sober sunrise dance party, in New York City in December 2013, attracted 180 people. She says Daybreaker events now draw up to 2,000 people and by the end of 2025, they will have thrown over 1,000 sober parties all over the world — from Tokyo and Buenos Aires to San Francisco and Amsterdam.
She explains that fostering connection is an essential component of Daybreaker’s mission, citing the Surgeon General’s 2023 declaration of a loneliness epidemic in the US. Since 1990, the percentage of American adults who report having no close friends has quadrupled to 12%, while the percentage of those with 10 or more close friends has fallen nearly threefold.
“If you’re drinking alcohol, you’re not really fully yourself,” says Agrawal, explaining that she feels this makes it difficult to form authentic relationships. “I think people are realizing that when you drink, you’re lonelier,” she adds.
While there is no substantial evidence to suggest falling drug use, around the world alcohol consumption is declining, particularly among young people in high income countries. In the US, only 18-20% of those of legal drinking age under 28 say they regularly drink beer, wine, or spirits; while in the UK, 39% of 18-24-year-olds report not drinking at all.
But despite this downward trend, some at the House of Happiness event, in London, say that going out clubbing as someone who doesn’t drink can be difficult.
“Sometimes it takes a while, if I go to a place where people are drinking… to feel relaxed. I don’t let it stop me, but I don’t do it as much,” says Amy Bradshaw, 41, adding that she “feel(s) a lot more comfortable” in dedicated, sober party spaces.
Ali, 32, who asked for her last name not to be used, is a DJ and says that sobriety was “isolating at first” because she found that “going into those big party crowds was really overwhelming” without alcohol, but she missed music and dancing.
She thinks sober parties provide a supportive environment for those who have decided to give up drinking. “It’s so uplifting here,” she says, as she takes a break from the dance floor and helps herself to the free sweets provided to maintain ravers’ energy in lieu of alcohol.
“When you come (to) places like this, it’s about connection, making friends,” she adds, explaining that she feels standard club nights are “not fun when you take yourself away from the drink.”
Not everyone at the House of Happiness day rave has given up alcohol completely. “I’m not sober in general; I like a drink,” says Carli Townsend, 40.
“This is a safe environment for people just to go and have fun,” says Townsend, who thinks that clubbing when alcohol is present can be dangerous.
“You get people fueled up, there might be a fight … at the end of the night,” she explains. “At the end, here, you leave feeling happy, genuinely,” she adds.
While many club enthusiasts might shudder at the prospect of getting on the dance floor sober, Deniz Ozalp says “people feel quite high” at Morning Gloryville events, “because of the heightened energy and this ecstatic, euphoric feeling that people get just through … dance” and music.
Hudson-Basing says he finds that people are actually more relaxed at his sober House of Happiness parties than at regular clubbing events. “People just go for it much sooner in the day, because they’re not waiting for something to kick in,” he says. “It’s wild.”
While he doesn’t think sober raves will ever replace drink and drug culture in nightlife venues, Hudson-Basing hopes they present healthier alternatives to people that are still fun. “Sober really doesn’t have to mean boring,” he says.