Katherine Stanton, 46, has not missed a single silent disco since they arrived in Canberra two years ago, and she’s travelled to Sydney and Brisbane to keep dancing under headphones while the rest of the room hears something else entirely.
That’s the scene drawing large crowds across Australia. Events in Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane and other cities are pulling in repeat attendees and new fans, with Tom Gay, the director of Amazing Silent Discos, saying Australia draws the largest crowds and that more than 1,000 people attend these events, with more than 2,000 during Vivid Sydney this year.
Who Gets to Join In
Stanton said she and a friend were “super excited” when silent discos came to Canberra because they had already done a silent disco walking tour through Sydney and “had the bug for it.” She said, “I've gone to every single one in Canberra. I've travelled to Sydney for them. I've travelled to Brisbane for them. I love them. They're fantastic.”
Her words land before the promoters do. That matters. The people actually filling the rooms are the ones describing what these events mean to them, not the people selling the tickets or staging the lights.
At a silent disco, people can have their headphones tuned to different music channels at the same time. Stanton said she is “definitely a '90s, noughties gal … I do like reliving my youth.” She said, “You can be with a group of friends on completely different vibes of music but still enjoying each other's company and dancing and having fun.” She added that meeting other people on the same colour station creates a shared moment of recognition.
Stanton also said the biggest roadblock for people she has tried to convince to join her is self-consciousness. She said she has never felt that way. “I have said to friends who've had that hesitation, there's something magical about when you put those headphones on, because they're sound-cancelling,” she said. “You feel like you're in this little safe cocoon because the music is so loud and surrounding in your ears. You don't even really realise how quiet it is until you do have to take it off to have a conversation or go to the bathroom or go to the bar. You don't feel like you're out of place.”
What the Event Machine Sells
Stanton said the events usually run from 6:30pm to 9:30pm and are designed for people who still want to be able to function the following day. “I love that I can have fun, listen to some great music, enjoy the company of my friends, have a great time, and then be home, showered and in bed and still fresh on a weekend for the next day,” she said. She also said, “I'm definitely someone who has music as a bucket filler.”
Gay said the events take place in museums, cathedrals, town halls and even underground stations and international passenger terminals. “The whole idea of Amazing Silent Discos is to have it in an unconventional location that you don't think you would ever have a party,” he said. “Prime example is a night at the museum, dancing under dinosaur bones, or amongst whale bones.” He said many attendees have been to those spaces before but are experiencing them in a new way at night with lights and interactive DJs.
That’s the apparatus at work: familiar public spaces turned into ticketed experiences, then sold back as novelty. The bones stay where they are. The crowd gets the headphones.
Joy, Control, and the Crowd
Gay said he wanted to create a space where people could have good, old-fashioned fun. “We live in a negative world already, and I don't want to add more negativity to the world,” he said. “And I think the most I can do is change the moment of a thousand people all at once, even if it's a three-hour moment … I want to bring more joy to the world.” He said, “There have been so many people who have come up to me and said 'Tom, I have never experienced so much joy in my life, just by dancing.'”
He also said silent discos have been around since the early 2000s and described the experience as “unified and yet individualised.” “You don't need to speak the same language to know that you are having fun,” he said.
Gay said Australia draws the largest crowds, and he pointed to more than 2,000 attendees during Vivid Sydney this year as proof of the format’s reach. He said, “Visually, it's beautiful, because you have a whole bunch of the disco lights going around.” When people take off the headphones, he said, “all you hear is people either singing completely out of pitch, or in tune, and a lot of shoes squeaking on the ground.”
Events are planned for Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Caloundra, Adelaide, Hobart, Ballarat and Canberra, and there are plans to expand to the Northern Territory, northern Queensland and New Zealand. The next round of discos will include '70s disco classics.
The crowds keep coming. The rooms keep changing. And the people inside them keep making their own little worlds, one channel at a time.