London queer sex-positive party Joyride launching in Dublin next month
The London bi-weekly club Joyride is coming to Dublin kicking off with two parties before the end of the year.
Running for the last two years in London at Corsica Studios, Joyride comes to Dublin with two events at The Racket Space on Thursday November 21st, followed by a party at The Grand Social on Friday December 21st.
Joyride describes itself as “a queer, sex-positive event series at the intersection of rave culture, art, and sexual expression”, which “brings together DJs, performers, sexuality practitioners and artists to create a space where people can explore and embrace their identities in an open-minded and debauched atmosphere”.
December at The Grand Social is the rave party with Caít b2b Síofra, Mercorn (Tender) and Dark Mavis.
The November event is more of a gathering with a “fireside chat” style event with Joyride co-founders — Irish sex educator MJ Fox (she/her) and Mancunian DJ Lydia Fikan (they/them) — exploring sex parties, Joyride, the ‘kink scene’, community building and sexual exploration. There will also be stalls from local queer sellers, tattoos from Peat Eater and music from Rhyzine, co-founder of Honey Pot.
Tickets
Tickets for Joyride Social on November 21st are on sale now. Pre-sale tickets for the December 21st party sold out with general sale tickets going on sale this Wednesday (October 23rd) at noon. Tickets via Dice.
About Joyride
Founded in London in January 2023, Joyride merges sexual expression, queer celebration, and rave culture. With an exclusive residency at Corsica Studios, widely regarded as one of the world’s best clubs, Joyride offers a playroom custom-fitted by Soho House designer Domhnall Nolan.
Joyride has Community Guidelines in place to co-create the atmosphere with the ravers, protect the space and make sure people coming to the party feel as comfortable as possible expressing themselves. These policies have been designed with the team at Goodnight Out Campaign, and there’s a house welfare team on hand to make sure that they’re adhered too.
The team predominantly platform queer artists, and their connection to Ireland runs deep. From the start, the team has booked and platformed some of Ireland’s best DJs, including Joyride resident eoin dj, R.Kitt, Mercorn, Breen, Dark Mavis, Iarlaith, Nellída, Viva Dean, DJ-CK, and Toraigh.
In addition to raves, Joyride hosts Joyride Socials, a series of cultural and educational gatherings focused on sex positivity. These include workshops, markets, performances, tattoos, and more.
For more information on Joyride Raves, check out features in DJ Mag and Cosmopolitan, and learn about Joyride Socials in Vice and Attitude.
More on the music policy and performers below.
“It feels very symbolic and significant to have my hometown of Dublin as our first international destination. We’ve witnessed huge shifts in Irish attitudes towards sex and sexuality in the last few years—most clearly with marriage equality and the repealing of the 8th Amendment. There’s now an openness to different sexualities and facets of sexual exploration that would have felt very foreign even half a decade ago. At the same time, as these shifts have been happening, we’ve seen these unreal homegrown queer parties and DJs doing bits, and we thought, OK, Dublin, we see you. Let’s try this out. For the launch, we’ve assembled some of our most favoured queer DJs, artists, collaborators, and icons on the Dublin scene, and we literally cannot wait to see what we can build from this with the teams at The Racket Space and Grand Social.”
QUOTE: Joyride Co-Founder MJ Fox
MUSIC POLICY:
Joyride’s dancefloor is a liberatory space embodying freedom, pleasure, empowerment, and experimentation. Expect a genre-blurring mix from uplifting house to techno, with a mischievous streak. Emerging queer artists always get the spotlight during the early hours of every party
ABOUT OUR ARTISTS:
CÁIT
Introducing the first of our very special headliner b2b of two Dublin legends..is Cáit. The handbag house connoisseur is one of Ireland’s best exports in dance music and has become a well established name across some of the best queer parties all over Europe. From cultivating community early on at some of Dublin’s loved and gone spaces such as Dip and Jigsaw to appearances at Adonis, Cocktail D’Amore, De School, Whole and much more, they are one of our most beloved, skilled and knowledgeable selectors always providing a sexy, exciting and engaging experience on the dancefloor with a deep story woven into the mix.
SÍOFRA
Next up in our very special b2b is Síofra. Síofra is a Dublin based DJ with a distinctive style of both modern and 90s Prog House and Trance, her precision for selecting the niche cuts of long ago and tight mixing which has gotten her noticed at some of the best all over Europe. Síofra could be found recently playing as far away as in Estonia, at their residency at Fandango Berlin, curating her DIY Cara party series in Copenhagen, laying down a standout set for AVA at All Together Now, having her debut at Printworks London or sharing her story telling mixes on platforms such as NTS, Rinse FM,
DARK MAVIS
Opening the first night is Dublin native and fellow Joyrider, Dark Mavis. You can expect sounds woven between the oldskool and the nuskool which is both uplifting and dark in nature, with a keen awareness of the vibe he’s curating. Having been DJing in between Ireland and the UK over the past few years and having played at Joyride for the first just over a year ago in our home at Corsica Studios, his artistic journey since then has had huge strides in the past year and he is a key part of bringing the Joyride ethos to Dublin’s dancefloors.
MERCORN
Trading exclusively in dancefloor transcendence and shown through her sets, Mercorn is the embodiment of Irish rave culture history. Her love and appreciation for hard house, prog and trance always provides a journey of euphoria playfulness in her sets, and it’s these sets that have gotten her attention with playing at Ireland’s best clubs and festivals and also across the UK at Adonis, Dalston Superstore and Big Dyke Energy to name a few. She is also a community rave organiser with her Tender queer party, co-founded with Bull Horris, Gary and head dancer, Andrew Shannon. Mercorn was also part responsible for Tender’s stand out performance at Fuinneamh Festival this year, bringing peak time queer energy and joy to the festival.
RHYZINE
A multi-facilitated artist with a community approach to nightlife, Rhyzine is one of Dublin’s most important assets in the past few years. They are the co-founder of one of the best and most needed parties in the Irish scene with Honeypot Club, a night for gay gals and their friends and with this they have provided a much needed friendly space for the queer community to dance, DJ and perform. Their genre fluid approach to the dance floor allows their selections to focus on space and time and creates atmospheres for their crowd to liberate themselves in the dance. Their sound has been heard on NTS, The Lot Radio, DDR and more along with appearances at Dublin’s best parties and all over the country, and even a recent London debut.
