China’s Gen Z is hitting Sunday morning coffee raves instead of nightclubs | Canada Voices

When she first came to Beijing as a student, Lina Xu could be found most weekends at Wudaokou, a popular nightspot close to two of the city’s largest universities.

Friends she made on the dance floor never seemed to stick, however, and the booze-fuelled late nights often left her feeling drained rather than invigorated.

Still wanting to connect and have fun, Ms. Xu, 24, recently came across a post on Xiaohongshu, China’s equivalent to Instagram, about the growing trend of “coffee raves,” alcohol-free parties often held on Sunday mornings, when most clubbers are sleeping off their hangovers.

“I didn’t really know what a sober party meant initially,” Ms. Xu told The Globe and Mail. “It was only after my first experience that I realized it’s such a distinctive way of socializing. Because it takes place in the morning, it makes me feel genuinely awake and alive.”

In an increasingly atomized world where many zoomers in particular are looking for ways to connect, coffee raves − like run and supper clubs before them − also promote themselves as a way to do just that. Posts on Xiaohongshu often advertise such events as “introvert-friendly” or a way of “making friends through music.” Many female participants have also said they feel safer at such events than at late-night clubs.

“I’m not strictly against alcohol at all,” Ms. Xu said. “But I’ve never thought nightclubs and bars were the ideal place to socialize. Connecting with strangers without drinking just feels safer and better.”

In this, Ms. Xu is not alone. Alcohol-free parties have been spreading around the world, from matcha raves in Dubai and Singapore to coffee shop dance-offs in Seoul and Toronto’s own Reunion, a women-only club night that promises attendees “zero booze, killer beats” and that they’ll “be home by 11:30 p.m.”

While Reunion targets millennials who can’t stay out as late as they once did, many coffee raves are aimed at Gen Z partiers like Ms. Xu and are in part a response to her demographic cohort drinking far less than older generations (though surveys from last year revealed a gradual increase in alcohol consumption among older zoomers, now in their late 20s).

“I’m convinced that alcohol-free socializing will grow into a popular option for our generation,” Ms. Xu said. “Our parents see drinking together as a must for sorting things out, but this attitude was shaped by their time.”

At a recent coffee rave in Beijing, attendees kicked off their Sunday at 9 a.m. with a choice between a five-kilometre run, yoga, boxing and HIIT workouts, before dancing to beats curated by Venezuelan-Italian DJ Aliberti and watching performances by free divers in a 33-metre-deep pool.

The event was organized by Venezuelan Jordan Rojas, who was born in 1989, making him firmly a millennial, but one who sympathizes with the younger generation’s alcohol skepticism.

“For my friends and I, we didn’t do anything besides drinking, besides going to a bar and getting wasted on Saturdays,” he said. “I was enjoying hanging out with my friends, but it was harming my body. And the most annoying part for me was wasting Sunday, looking outside and seeing it’s a beautiful day, but I have a horrible headache and can’t go out.”

Mr. Rojas had read about coffee raves but couldn’t find any in his adopted hometown of Shanghai. One weekend, grappling with the type of particularly bad hangover all older millennials are familiar with, he decided to take matters into his own hands and organized the first Rave.AM event at a local coffee shop.

Since then, Rave.AM has hosted almost two dozen parties in Shanghai, Beijing and Sanya, on the tropical island of Hainan in southern China, each attracting 100 to 250 people. Most attendees “are young professionals who are very into wellness, very into music,” Mr. Rojas said. “There’s also a lot of Gen Z who don’t drink that much or who prefer a different lifestyle.”

The rise of coffee raves coincides with the fact that traditional clubs are struggling around the world, with an analysis by the Financial Times showing that the number of event spaces open past 3 a.m. has dropped everywhere from Melbourne to Tokyo and even clubbing mecca Berlin.

Some of this is a legacy of pandemic restrictions, which forced many nightspots to close earlier and in doing so reshaped consumer behaviour. In Hong Kong, where there was a strict 10 p.m. curfew in place for months, the government even sponsored a “Night Vibes” campaign to encourage residents to stay out later again, with mixed success.

With reports from Alexandra Li in Beijing