Sometimes you just need to stay up all night and watch the sunrise. For those days, we've got you sorted.
Need some tasty fuel to see you through until dawn? Check out Melbourne's best late-night eats. Looking for an all-inclusive boogie? Get down at the best gay bars in Melbourne.
Nestled in between the wonderful seediness that is King Street, sits serious dance venue La Di Da. It’s not the biggest or the best club down that end of the city, but by golly it parties hard. Friday nights mean three rooms of music plus a burlesque show to get you going, while Saturdays play host to a butt-load of DJs, cheap drink specials and pretty young things.
This is the best place to be for house music lovers in Melbourne. The lit-up dance floor is gimmicky, but the thumping house music is the most up-front and underground you'll hear, and you'll hardly notice with the dancefloor packed with people doing their thang.
If ‘hipster’ wasn’t such a dirty word these days (and we've been stumped in finding a replacement that doesn't sound derogatory... suggestions?), we’d say Loop was the ultimate hipster club. More commonly featuring VJs (visual DJs) than your regular breed of DJ, Loop offers a small but pumping dance floor, delicious cocktails and in-door and out-door chill out space. Known to host obscure documentary screenings in the early evening and on weeknights. Yeah, hipster. Wonderfully so.
Every Melbourne 20-something, clubber or not, will find themselves here at some point. Revolver Upstairs is the classic all-night party venue. You can go in on a Friday night and not come out til Sunday morning, at which point you have all the goodness of Chapel Street’s fast food and brekkie fry-ups ready to bring you back to the land of the living.
When beloved Swanston Street venue Lounge closed its doors in late 2018, it was a shock to the core of Melbourne’s party scene. But from Lounge’s ashes arose Colour. Located on Queensberry Street in Carlton, Colour is run by Liam Alexander, Ben Rausa and former Lounge owner Carlo Colosimo. The venue itself has quite the history. Once a former church, this 1835-built building was also home to short-lived club Yours and Mine and 1990s S&M club Hellfire.
When beloved Melbourne club Lounge closed in 2018, it sent tear-streaked eyeliner running and club kids scurrying to find a new space for an all-night boogie. While Lounge's owners birthed new club Colour, hospitality veteran Maz Salt took over Lounge's former Swanston Street site and gave it new life as Radar. Radar focuses on catering to the dance music community, with a Function-One rig blasting until 6am on weekends. The club is also committed to supporting Melbourne's live music scene, so there are also occasional live shows.
Angel Music Bar is the perfect place to go to if all the new, hip bars are making you feel old. Just because you’re not fresh-faced and getting carded all the time, it doesn’t mean you’re not down for a big night with like-minded people. Music is front and centre here. DJs play the likes of John Coltrane, Susan Wong, Esther Phillips and Ute Lemper with scatterings of David Bowie downstairs, or you can head upstairs to the 80-room black box venue. From Thursday to Saturday you can kick on here until 5am.
Sub Club is a basement nightclub in little-known laneway Flinders Court, and its programming is as underground as its location. The club is carved out of the old ANZ bank vault, which gives it that Tresor vibe. Line-ups reflect forward-thinking curators and subcultures, so no one is left out here. You can expect to hear loads of bass, techno and left-field electro transmitting out of a 10,000-watt sound system. And most importantly, staff insist on a ‘no dickheads’ policy here and ensure it’s a safe space for punters to feel comfortable.
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