Don't Stop the Dance

Cork trance promoter Scott Mills and his wife Louise pulled off an astonishing coup earlier this month when they ran Ireland’s first legal all-night dance event.

The Reincarnation founders hosted a live-in DJ weekender at Trabolgan Holiday Centre near Midleton in County Cork on November 7 and 8.
And because all of the 700 paying customers were ‘residents’ at the Holiday Centre for the weekend, the venue was legally free to serve alcohol around the clock if it so desired.
Bars opened until 5am and music pumped until 8am on two consecutive nights and more than 700 young Irish adults acted responsibly and lived to tell the tale.
There were no arrests for alcohol, drug or anti-social offences. In fact, no incidents were reported to the gardai throughout the two-day spectacular.
More than 50 DJs were booked to perform and two rooms of music were opened, along with all of the usual Trabolgan activities such as swimming and crazy golf.
Admission was set at €180 for the weekend, payable in advance: this covered the revellers’ chalet accomodation and all entertainment for the 48-hour extravaganza.
Trabolgan’s management team had initially suggested opening the bars and music rooms around the clock for the duration of the weekender, but Scott Mills felt clubbers would need a break between the first and second night’s entertainment to recuperate.
“We decided it would have been detrimental to the event to keep the DJs going around the clock, so we stopped them at 8am on the Saturday morning and started back up at 1pm.”
From my own experience at such all-night events in Britain over the years, I had predicted that the majority of clubbers would vacate the music rooms at around 4am on both nights, with only a small hardcore element staying until the end.
Scott Mills had many similar experiences over the years, and he concurred. We had also learned that there was little danger of binge drinking or alcohol-fuelled anti-social behaviour in Trabolgan. Events proved us correct on all fronts.
“Keeping the bars open late encouraged people not to rush their drinking. They just kept it to a steady pace and everyone was really well behaved,” Mills told Hot Press.
Mills now firmly believes staggered opening hours are the key to ridding our cities’ streets of anti-social behaviour and drunken violence.
“When people go out they usually don’t hit the bars until 10pm and they start flooring drinks and rushing themselves. Then everyone’s kicked out of the clubs at the same time so there’s bound to be trouble,” he explained. “We had not one fist thrown throughout the weekend.”
There were no drug busts either, despite a friendly visit from the gardai.
“The issue of drugs didn’t come into the equation. The security was very tight and everyone was searched going in and out of each venue,” Mills explained.
Medics from St John’s Ambulance had a quiet weekend too. “A sprained finger and a missing asthma inhaler were the most serious issues paramedics had to face.”
Give Us The Night campaigner Sunil Sharpe warmly welcomed news of Reincarnation’s success.
“Politicians might want to spend their entire night at the bar, but this event shows that most clubbers just want later opening times to dance and enjoy the music as freely as music fans throughout the rest of Europe.”
The next Reincarnation weekender is scheduled for March, and Mills is quietly confident that all 1,100 tickets will be sold next time around.