Sometime after 1 a.m. in Midtown, bodies pack themselves tightly into Crobar as a DJ guides the room and the crowd hums like a hive.
As night creeps to morning, The Birds Nest awakens a few blocks away. A space transformed by sound and light, music reverberating from concrete floors and steel walls as a curated lineup of DJs feed music to people that found the space via friends of friends and word-of-mouth.
Perhaps on this night there are even more surreal moments, like a “Sunsets” pop-up at the top of the Terminal Tower where a crowd of twenty move high above the city, the skyline stretching out before them, the moment feeling weightless.
Scenes like these are becoming more common across the city as Cleveland’s dance music ecosystem flourishes – offering people a chance to disconnect from their everyday and online lives and connect to something deeper.
“People find dance music when they need it the most,” said Le Schlippy, a DJ and local radio host who says they’ve met all of their friends on the dance floor.
After years of stagnation and pandemic isolation, the scene feels positively rejuvenated and eclectic. New venues and dance-focused events are showing up across the city at a rapid pace. The concerts and parties, found on social media or shared through apps like Partiful, are happening almost daily. Meaning there’s never been a better time to hit the floor or find a place to groove.
With all of the uncertainties and anxieties in the world right now, “people are craving that human connection,” Le Schlippy said.
***
In a dark warehouse just steps from AsiaTown, the low and melodic thumping of bass spills onto the street.
If you step inside, you’ll find Brian “Blackbird” Conti – a DJ, event production aficionado, and owner of The Birds Nest who has been in the electronic music scene since the legendary raves of the ’90s.
“What I’ve tried to do is recreate what we did back in the 1990s and 2000s, but in a safe, legal environment,” Conti said. “I’m giving people that experience again.”
The venue, which hosts electronic music artists from Ohio and beyond, sits across the street from the only large-scale record pressing facility in Ohio, a fact that may seem unimportant, but to Conti, seems fitting.
“There’s like this little hidden music pocket of Cleveland that people don’t realize it’s there.”
The Birds Nest is a part of a small but mighty wave of new dance music venues opening in what some have called Cleveland’s “House District.” The pocket Conti described has seen four electronic music spaces open in recent years, making it a one stop dance shop for Downtown Cleveland’s east side.
At the center of this growth is Crobar.
“They have brought a revival of electronic music to Cleveland,” said Le Schlippy, who hosts ‘Over the Hump Radio’ and has become an essential guide to finding local places to dance.
The small venue, which opened in 2022, consistently brings in “legendary” national and international acts, while also showcasing local talent, prompting leading electronic music culture platform Resident Advisor to call it, “one of the most forward thinking clubs in the Midwest.”
“Until just this past year, the only [local] venue [on Resident Advisor] was Crobar,” said Lamar Z, a DJ and event producer. Now there are many. To him, that’s an indicator that the last year has been formative.
Joey Sardelle says Crobar is the ideal home for his dance party PERF, which he says is the venue’s most attended event. The night spotlights queer, trans, and people of color DJs performing “unpretentious“ underground electronic music to any and all who want to show up.
What began as one hundred or so people attending a month has ballooned into sold-out shows and over five-hundred people at their largest event, according to Sardelle. This response also inspired him and scene veterans Disfunktional to start 10SHN_, a heavier techno event, at metal/punk bar No Class.
From the start, he says, it was clear that Crobar’s priority was as a space where care for the community and safety came first, above everything else.
“[Safety’s] something that [the owner] and I take very seriously,” says Sardelle. “As well as our security and staff.”
“We don’t have to answer to any corporate bullshit,” he adds. “We have unlimited creative freedom.”
Sardelle’s only requirement for newcomers, besides respecting yourself, the space, and others, is participation.
“If you’re on your phone for, like, 30 minutes at the front of the dance floor, like…live in the moment, take your one video and then get your ass back on the floor!”
Navy Jayde, who began DJing in 2020, says Crobar was among the first venues to reflect a changing appetite for expanding music tastes.
“It ignited something,” she said, “that I don’t think most people were even aware Cleveland could have.”
Her monthly Crobar party, ‘ENIGMA¿’, is centered around celebrating Blackness and cultivating Cleveland’s Black and queer electronic music culture.
“I surprise a lot of people, because I don’t think they realize how Black electronic music could be, or that it could actually have a rhythm,” she said, suggesting that broader awareness of dance music’s ties to Black culture is still developing in Cleveland.
As the scene continues to grow, inclusive and innovative spaces like Crobar are becoming central to its continued success.
“It’s not a gay bar, it’s not a white bar, it’s not a Black bar, it’s not an electronic bar, it’s not a live band bar, it’s all of that,” Navy Jayde said. “Crobar is malleable, because it’s a place that is music first.”
***
What’s happening with dance music in Cleveland isn’t necessarily unique. According to producer and DJ Sound on Tape, Cleveland is mirroring the current global appetite for electronic music.
“We’re just experiencing a resurgence of the genre altogether.”
And he’s right. From electronic music dominating festivals, to its influences showing up in the music of pop royalty like Harry Styles, Beyonce, and Charli XCX, the genre is having another moment – the industry having grown by nearly 50% between 2019 and 2024.
But in Cleveland, Sound on Tape, who also throws events at venues like Crobar and Smoke & Mirrors, confirmed that the momentum is definitely having an impact.
“We are commanding these huge audiences, bigger audiences than I’ve ever seen before.”
The Midwest, and Cleveland, is no stranger to dance music. In the 1980s, genres like house and techno – born from working class Black, brown, and queer communities – were cultivated in Chicago and Detroit, pulsing through gritty, underground clubs. Electronic music picked up speed in the ’90s, reverberating throughout warehouses and unofficial venues across Ohio as they began to fill with people from all over the region.
“On a normal Saturday night, it was nothing to go to a show with a thousand to two thousand people,” said Brian Conti. “You had to find out through friends or word of mouth. It was a culture that we harbored and we grew.”
Efforts like the RAVE Act of ’03 sought to quell these underground events for a perceived threat to America’s youth, and Cleveland’s dance culture changed shape once again.
Dance music didn’t fully hit the mainstream until the 2010s. Acts like Calvin Harris, Skrillex, and David Guetta brought ‘EDM’ to the surface by headlining festivals and topping charts around the world. In Cleveland, venues like FWD Day + Nightclub, which opened in 2015 and was bought by partners in Ethos Hospitality Group in 2025, began popping up to feed Cleveland’s appetite for the evolving genre.
During the pandemic, the city’s DJ population skyrocketed. For those who felt less inclined to stay isolated during lockdown, dance music events found their way back to the city’s warehouses, picking up a new audience on its way.
Lamar Z, who runs event brand “Don’t Funk the Groove,” said it was during this time that he was first turned on to electronic music.
“I think that it started from COVID…people had to throw pop-up events and these underground parties in warehouses,” he explains. “Especially in Cleveland, because we weren’t doing much like that at all. But then… it was happening every weekend.”
Today, it’s apparent that electronic music has always had an audience here and what’s changed is its reach. Catapulted by technology and experimentation, this expansion has brought new people to the region’s dance floors.
***
On the city’s west side, Sam McNulty is bringing electronic music to Ohio City with two dance venues — Smoke & Mirrors and Bird of Paradise — that are, quite literally, underground.
“I’ve always been a big fan of subterranean dance clubs,” said McNulty, who owns Market Garden Brewery and a bevy of other hospitality businesses in the area. “It just feels kind of celebratory and apropos to end your night in a subterranean dance club.”
McNulty is leaning into more intimate dance and house music experiences, with both clubs, which opened between 2022 and 2023, intending to fill a void left by larger nightlife spots in the city. Their success is evident by lines out the door on any given Saturday or Sunday.
For promoters like Matt Ambrose, who runs events brand Mainstage Cleveland, having a space like Smoke & Mirrors that understands their vision, and gives them the freedom to execute, is an exciting change.
“I’m really optimistic for the scene…excited for Cleveland venues that didn’t traditionally buy into this kind of scene to do so,” he said. “I have their trust. They have mine. It’s gonna give people that are new or are interested a chance to experience that.”
And those experiences are going beyond venues. Dance music’s explosion has inspired people to create their own unique pop-up experiences across the city, dodging the barriers of opening a brick-and-mortar spot.
“There’s a community and subgenre for everyone, which is a great part of dance music,” says Ambrose. “Those new subgenres are really carving out their own community space between DJs and also the attendees.”
One pop-up in particular, Happy Endings, has become a staple of Cleveland nightlife.
Started by popular DJs NicNacc, Eso and Theo at Cent’s Pizza, the event gives them a place to play the music they enjoyed, NicNacc said, at a time when other venues wouldn’t welcome their style.
“People were just craving that comfort of being able to go out and actually dance and feel comfortable doing that,” she said, noting that traditional clubs may make people feel like they need VIP status to belong. “Here, the whole room is VIP!”
Theo, a producer, label owner, and all-around music aficionado, is now part of the duo SmoothTalk. He loves that the pop-up is bringing a different sound.
“You’re not gonna go to Happy Endings and hear a bunch of top 40 stuff,” he said. “Especially when they have the freedom to play whatever.”
Other parties like güdtaste bring a “roaming, culture first music experience” to the city. Recent shows included the takeover of the Market Garden warehouse, a hair salon, and art space Mini Box Studio – all replayable through impressively produced social media content.
“I just really want to bring people together to dance,” said Just AJ, DJ and creator of güdtaste. “That’s the main objective of it. It’s not a profit thing. It really is a community-driven thing.”
Then there’s Sunsets, whose sets range from that party on Terminal Tower to brunch-time DJ sets in coffee shops, proving that electronic music doesn’t always have to be enjoyed in a certain way or at a certain time.
With the pair’s “güdsets” collaboration for 216 Day amassing over 700 RSVPs, Bobby Booshay, DJ and co-creator of Sunsets, said that he feels like the city is building something big.
But a quickly changing culture isn’t without its challenges. Americans are spending more time alone. So much so that the U.S. Surgeon General called loneliness an “urgent public health issue” in 2023.
Simultaneously, habits like throwing and attending parties and drinking have declined immensely, especially among young people. This, along with skyrocketing costs for venues and party-goers is being blamed by some for the death of nightlife.
Cleveland is not immune to these struggles, judging by closures of popular nightlife spots in The Flats last year.
The downturn has inspired staple clubs like The IVY to lean into electronic music, among other genres, and hosting dance-forward events like Happy Endings.
But Navy Jayde says nightlife is shifting, rather than dying, and that people only know what they’ve been exposed to. Venues with rude bouncers, VIP sections, and the same DJ for the past five years playing the same fifty songs – in her opinion, that is the nightlife that is fading.
“If people would take a moment to try listening to something else,” she said, “or go somewhere where it’s not about the profit, you may get a different experience.”
Joey Sardelle echoes these sentiments, saying a lot of people in the scene don’t want to pay for high door prices and overpriced drinks.
Some say other groups are just an extension of traditional clubs, promoting “rave” experiences to keep up with the trend, but critics feel that the inauthenticity shines through.
“It’s not supposed to be like this $75 a ticket… experience,” said Lamar Z. “It was always meant to be something that was affordable and open to everybody in all different walks of life.”
DJ Bobby Booshay said the community needs to work together and hold one-another accountable.
“If we’re all doing the right thing, and we’re all going about it and with the best intentions, we all grow, it only creates a bigger thing for all of us,” he said. “Rising tides lift all ships.”
As with any fast-changing culture, the sustainability of Cleveland’s dance music scene will depend on the resiliency of the people, places, and community that fuels it.
“You have to let go of the ego,” said Le Schlippy. “Because at the end of the day it’s not about who has the best parties. It’s about the community… We’re either all in this together or we’re not. And if we’re not… it’s gonna fall apart. It’s gonna crumble.”
***
Despite growing pains, the joy and connection are far more important, no matter what exactly you’re looking for, those who spoke to Scene said.
For Lani Smith, co-organizer of the queer/woman focused party Sapphic Soiree, “Dancing is just fun!”
For some it’s about presence in your body and in the community.
“Getting people out to move, getting out in the community, in a space that you wouldn’t otherwise find yourself,” says Mary Beth Marks about a recent “earlybird” dance party thrown by her and Heather Frutig at the Morgan Conservatory.
“We had a social work instructor, she said, ‘I worked all day teaching at Case, I have to go back and teach all day tomorrow, and I saw the sign, and I thought, that’s what I want to do with my body at the end of the day.’”
For others, it is a way of life. “[Music] makes me feel grateful, ” said Theo. “It’s a very, very good feeling that kind of makes you feel like you’re not alone.”
For most, it is a much-needed refuge.
“We’re kind of like the USO shows,” said Matthew Blevins, one half of goth dance party Dark Wave Dance Cave. “You know, people come in and get relief and then they can go back to the trenches.”
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