A night out at a club in Lattes — dancing as a group

How it came together in two days

Nobody planned this one a month ahead. On Thursday 26 February a member wrote in the chat: “Hi everyone! This Saturday we’re going dancing <…> in Lattes. We’ve booked a table for 9.15 pm (somewhere to put the cocktails 😉). Join us, anyone who fancies it.” She also removed the classic newcomer’s fear — turning up and finding nobody: “Message me privately so it’s easier to find each other there.”

The organiser picked the idea up: she posted three video announcements, one of them pinned in the chat, and on the day itself added a photo reminder — “Not long now :)) If you’re coming, tick the poll :)”. Later that evening: “If anyone else is up for it, come along.” When someone in the chat asked what it actually was, the format was explained in one line: “It’s a party. Sort of a club.”

The table, the timing and how many of us there were

The venue is in Lattes, the commune next door to Montpellier, and it works as a disco. The timings were spelled out in advance so nobody would walk into an empty room: the table was booked for 9:15 pm, but “everything there starts closer to 10”, and “people start dancing around that time”. At least one person planned her evening exactly around it: “Great 👌 I’ll be there at 10 pm then.”

The table was booked for practical reasons, not for show — “somewhere to put a cocktail down, and the bags”. To the cautious question “Is the table for 7?” the answer was relaxed: “It doesn’t really matter there… If you want your own chair, you’ll get a chair.” The day before, when someone asked “How many of us are going?”, the organiser answered “About 7” — and in the end, by her own account, it turned into a group of ten or twelve girls. A few joined at the last minute, right in the chat: “Did you forget about me? 🤪”.

How the night went

It turned into a proper girls’ night: dresses on, off to dance at one of the best clubs just outside Montpellier. Dancing, laughing, cocktails — all of it inside one group, which meant a relaxed and safe night, with no need to get acquainted with a room full of strangers. It ran well past midnight: one of the group was still writing in the chat at 1:36 am.

The next morning the organiser summed it up with a joke: “So yesterday we girls weren’t actually welcoming spring :))) A tragedy — we’ll have to do it again on 21 March” — astronomical spring only begins on 20–21 March. And then, briefly, about the company: “Girls will be girls 😜💕❤️”.

Six days earlier the community had run something completely different — the family pancake picnic at Maslenitsa in Le Crès park. This dancing Saturday showed the other side of the chat: evening outings for the grown-ups, with no children’s games and no shared potluck table.

If you’d like to come along next time

The mechanics of these evenings are simple, and worth knowing if you’re only just looking at the community. No fees, no registration: someone drops an idea into the chat a couple of days ahead, books a table, and everyone else ticks the poll. Getting into the group takes one private message to whoever is inviting — that way you’re met on arrival instead of hunting for your people in an unfamiliar room.

Going out as a group is the whole point of the format: you arrive to people you have already been chatting with, so the evening stays easy. The community does big outings too — a month after this Saturday there was a hike to Château de Montferrand with forty people. But the easiest ones to say yes to are exactly this kind: suggested on Thursday, danced on Saturday.