Thursday 16.01.2025

In for 2025: education, good moods, and being part of the club.

A view on dancefloor etiquette.

The year hadn’t even started properly, and one of the biggest DJs of our time had to step in to tame a ‘rowdy’ crowd. Marlon Hoffstadt, dearly beloved in clubs and a true festival superstar, went viral by calling out Australian ravers about a week ago, saying that he noticed ‘concerning behavior in crowds’ and ‘people were passing out’ at his shows. Closer to home, we see more and more door policies pop up, in the form of online safety briefings and chats with a door host before we get let into the club. Let’s dive into why door policies exist, and why they matter.

Club culture stems from the United States of America, specifically Chicago, New York, and Detroit. Most of all, it stems from Black culture, because people were – euphemistically stated – not included anywhere else. This is also the reason why club culture finds its roots in the queer community, and why clubbing was and still is such a form of escapism.

These days, we go to clubs to do exactly what the first ravers sought to do: escape our daily reality and let loose. And while we may or may not be as strongly excluded from daily life as the people first founding night clubs were, we definitely want to belong to the club, too. If you stop and think about it, it’s all in the name – a club sets its own rules and boundaries to become part of it.

Picture this: you get ready for a night out, blast your favourite hype tunes and have a cheeky gossip and drink before you proceed to head to see the main event – only to get stopped at the door. Door hosts, it seems, hold all the power. Especially tonight. They get to decide who’s coming in, who looks the part, and who gets the ‘maybe try again on another night’, right?

While that may seem very true the moment when we stand before them, door hosts are only there to make sure everyone follows the code of conduct of that specific club. Most of all, they will look at safety in an intersectional way. This means that most good night clubs (in The Netherlands) will have a policy that includes everyone, regardless of gender identity, background, or sexual orientation. This also means that when you are a little too ‘rowdy’, as Marlon Hoffstadt’ has put it, you could potentially not add to that safe environment that people look for, and that we all need to have a good night out.

 

Isn’t ‘safety’ or ‘diversity’ just a buzzword? Something you do as a club to look cool? That question made its way to many phones last year, being a hot topic on forums and social media. The answer from this point of view would be: no, if you and the clubs making the rules truly commit to it. Be honest: does it ever annoy you when people enter your space on the dance floor and have no regard to where you’re dancing? Does it make for a better night when you pay more mind to what everyone else is doing, instead of being in the moment? That’s exactly where boundaries and limits come in, and where the line of ‘passing out’ and being cutesy gets visible.

So was Marlon Hoffstadt right to call dancers out? First of all, it’s shit that a DJ would have to pause their set to attend to these matters, instead of doing what they’re there for: set the mood and create a fantastic memory that will last for a long while, together with everyone else in the room. If there’s one thing we should leave behind in 2024, it’s thinking that DJs are the gods in the room. Yes, line-ups definitely matter, but we, as a crowd, decide what the vibe will be like equally as much as they will. They deliver us the soundtrack and sprinkle their golden touch on the night; we feed them with the energy to do what they’re good at.

This all comes back to being aware of how we walk in, how we treat the people around us, and knowing where club culture comes from. So, in for 2025: education, good moods, and

checking in on your friends. To actually gain something this year, it might be good to look back. Was clubbing not alleged to be fantastic in the 70s, when it was founded? And was the 90s not a legendary time to go to a rave? We tend to romanticise the past; but if we all agree to get a bit of that rowdy (in a good way) spirit back, wouldn’t this year be one where people feel nostalgic about, too?

words by Meike Jentjens