Bring your own flavoured tea
Booze-free events feature yoga, dance and good causes
It’s not FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. about the meal at the monthly Conscious Family Dinner. You can spend time in a cuddling sanctuary, sit down with a tarot reader, dance, chat career goals with a life coach or sit in on an acro-yoga sex psychotherapy presentation.
But what’s inconspicuously missing is alcohol.
Creator Ben Rolnik says the dinners are about creating a new form of play that facilitates meaningful connections, not the vapid chit-chat that often proliferates at cocktail parties or bars. The reception to the dry dinners, held at various spots in Los Angeles but expanding soon nationwide, has been impressive, with each of the 200-person events selling out. Tickets cost about $35.
“It’s like a journey more than a dinner,” said Rolnick, a 26-yearold yogi.
Similar parties are popping up across the country, notably in New York, Miami and Chicago, tapping into an itch from millennials to find meaningful connections and purpose even in their nightlife.
When Justin Henderson, who created the event company Bender, hosted his first few events in Chicago a few years ago, he served alcohol, but noticed few were imbibing. He decided to stop offering it all together.
Bender’s events range from 40 to 300 people and include everything from a rooftop yoga pool party at the Standard Hotel to midnight silent disco yoga on the pool deck of the SoHo House in Chicago during a full moon.
“I’m just one part of a much, much bigger movement that’s happening. It’s not so much about whether alcohol is there or not ... people are just looking for ways to connect around things that they value and are passionate about,” said Henderson, a former health care manager.
While events have a different feel around the country, they all involve movement, often yoga or dance, to help people loosen up and connect with their bodies and each other in a shared experience.
The Shine has the feel of a variety show, with mindfully curated content in Los Angeles and New York once every two months, and includes everything from guided meditation to comedians to beat boxers. The Shine gives about $400 of its ticket sales to a guest with instructions to help someone with it. They might donate it to the homeless or an animal sanctuary.
The Softer Image bans not just alcohol but shoes as well. Healers open the space with group rituals, artists showcase their work and DJs supply heart-opening dance music.
There’s even sound baths, hypnotists and 31-year-old founder Luke Simon does reiki healings. “I wanted to have the spiritual feeling you have going to a workshop or retreat but bring that into the free formness of going out,” said Simon.