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Picture this: Hundreds of people out on the dance floor. There’s glitter in the air (and in your hair). The DJ is spinning deep house. There’s confetti and strobe lights, and even live music. Everyone is completely sober. Also, it’s 6 in the morning—and no, you weren’t out all night. The party is just getting started.
That’s the idea behind the growing company Daybreaker‘s “early morning dance movement.” It’s a party that starts when you wake up and ends when you go to work.
“It’s meant to awaken people,” says Jenny White, Daybreaker’s Denver coordinator. “We definitely have people who go to work with glitter still on, and that’s exciting because it brings some of that buzz into their day. We’re really looking to start people’s day off correctly, and with a really good vibe.”
Daybreaker started in New York City in 2013, and has since grown into an international movement, with morning parties in 22 cities around the world, from Washington, D.C. to London to Hong Kong. It launched in Colorado in August 2016, with their first party at Mile High Stadium a month later. Since then, White says, they’ve thrown a party once a month, switching between Denver and Boulder locations. This year, the company plans to throw one party each month in both locations.
Daybreaker parties start with an optional, one-hour yoga session from 6 to 7 a.m. After that, the two-hour dance party kicks off, with breakfast foods, coffee, and juice available in place of your nighttime indulgences (e.g. tequila and post-party pizza). But, White says, the energy at this sober, early-morning dance party is some of the best she’s seen. And, as a DJ herself, she’s seen a lot.
“I work in the nightlife industry, so I typically see what it takes to get a dance floor going, and it’s a a drink or two, most of the time. But it was a shock for me, to see that these people have just woken up, and then, just, automatic dance floor,” she says. “People are just ready to go. It’s a sense of elevation.”
The parties happen at a new location every month, each with a new theme. Partygoers don’t find out the location and theme of the next party until the current party, so to add a “sense of mischievousness,” White says.
Denver’s next party—the theme is “white-out”—is next Wednesday morning, January 17 at Club Vinyl. Partiers can also hit up Thursday morning’s event in Boulder, with an “Après Ski” theme.
White’s words of advice for newcomers? “Expect to wake up, and feel tired—and not be sure they want to go—but get there. It will transform their mornings.”
If You Go: January 11, 6 to 9 a.m.; The Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder; tickets here; January 17, 6 to 9 a.m.; Club Vinyl, 1082 Broadway; tickets here; $25 for just the dance party, $35 for yoga and the dance party