Raves at 9 am?: Breakfast Club Dhaka’s attempt at bringing nightlife to morning

The choice to host these sessions in coffee shops is a calculated move, since cafes are naturally unguarded spaces. They lack the intimidation of a nightclub and the scale of a festival. Photo: Courtesy

The 1985 film The Breakfast Club begins with five high schoolers being locked in a library for detention on a Saturday. The premise is a social experiment by accident: take a group of people who would never otherwise speak, isolate them, and wait for the walls to come down. By the end of their detention, having exchanged enough truth, they see each other and themselves differently.

In 2025, in a city as dense and loud as Dhaka, a group of people is attempting a version of this experiment. There is no high school or teenage angst, but the core idea of isolating a group to find a shared understanding remains. And instead of detention, the experiment is being conducted through a rave.

But Breakfast Club Dhaka does not host late-night parties in the way we have come to understand raves. There is no strobe light fighting against the dark, no ears ringing at 4am; instead, there is the 9am sun.

However, since for most of us the idea of raving is tethered to the night, under the cover of a certain social invisibility, walking into a cafe in the morning, fresh-faced with the express intention of dancing to electronic music, feels like a glitch in the cultural matrix of Dhaka. 

But this is 2025, and the general conversation around the cost of partying on the body has shifted. 

The founders, Tonmoy Dutta Gupta and Tawsif Alam Khan, started the initiative in early 2024. Their inspiration was drawn from specific observations of how other cities utilise the morning. 

Photo: Courtesy

For them, the spark came from the sunrise culture in Amsterdam, where sets felt "emotional and cinematic" and people gathered early with a sense of purpose. They also pointed to Melbourne's community cafés and morning festivals, describing it as a city where creativity seems to breathe best in the light.

"Breakfast Club Dhaka began as a simple question: Can we bring the morning culture of global cities to our city that rarely celebrates sunrise?" the founders noted in a written exchange. "We wanted to flip the narrative around parties and DJs in Bangladesh. To break out of the old shackles of taboo, nightlife stereotypes, and the idea that music culture only exists in the dark."

The choice of morning is deliberate, an attempt to make electronic music more palatable and transparent. By stripping away the shadows, the culture becomes harder to stigmatise. To Tonmoy and Tawsif, the sunrise became a symbol "transparent, clean, honest, and open". 

Their philosophy is built on a series of quiet pivots, light instead of loudness, community instead of a crowd, and experience instead of excess.

In Dhaka the geography of leisure is often limited to dining out or walking in a park, and the club is trying to fill a gap that many did not realise existed. 

"Dhaka doesn't really have an active nightlife — nor does it have an active day life," they explained. "Outside of a walk in the park or dining out with family, the city offers very few cultural experiences people can enjoy on a weekly basis. There was no consistent space where young, creative, culturally curious people could gather, express themselves, or experience something energising without the limitations or stigma of the night."

The logistics of the event are structured to be as seamless as possible. The coordination is handled mostly through their social media handles; announcements of upcoming sessions appear on Facebook and Instagram. A registration link is given on announcement posts through which anyone interested to join can secure a spot. 

Usually running from 9am to 12pm on Saturdays, it is a three-hour music ritual. There is a regular roster artist who anchors the session, supported by two budding DJs who are given space to experiment. By noon, the experience wraps up. There is no lingering; the guests are sent back into their weekend, presumably more uplifted than when they arrived.

The choice to host these sessions in coffee shops is a calculated move, since cafes are naturally unguarded spaces. They lack the intimidation of a nightclub and the scale of a festival. 

"Coffee shops create a relaxed, community-driven environment where people feel unguarded — the perfect setting for a morning ritual built around music, conversation, and connection," the founders said. 

However, as the community grows, they are looking toward more public arenas: parks, theatres, and other culturally meaningful venues that allow for different moods.

This approach has attracted a demographic that is surprisingly broad for Dhaka. While the core is made up of the expected 20-and-30-something professionals, artists, and students, the dance floor often includes children and people in their 70s.

Aisha, an architecture student at BRAC University, views the Saturday morning sessions as a necessary reset from the weight of the city. 

"As a student, life in Dhaka can feel heavy — classes, traffic, pressure, everything. But on Saturday mornings, I get to reset," she said. "It's the only space where I can dance without judgment, meet people outside my circle, and start my day with sunlight and music. It reminds me that Dhaka can be soft too."

For Lisa, a marketing professional and mother of two, the club offered a rare middle ground. She originally attended with her teenage daughter, expecting to sit in a corner with her coffee. Instead, she found herself dancing. 

"Breakfast Club is one of the few cultural spaces in Dhaka that feels comfortable for both me and my kids. No loud chaos, no awkwardness, just a wholesome morning with great music," Lisa noted. "My daughter says it's the only place where she sees adults and young people enjoying the same space without tension."

This lack of tension is perhaps the most significant achievement of the project, but maintaining it is a grueling logistical task. Running a sunrise event in Dhaka on a weekend means coordinating sound and coffee service before the rest of the city has even considered waking up. There is the unpredictable weather, sudden heat or monsoon rain, and the delicate balance of sound levels in residential neighborhoods.

"Getting guests to arrive on time in the morning can also be tricky, as Dhaka isn't traditionally a morning-event city," the founders admitted. "Despite these hurdles, the magic of sunlight and the community's energy always make it worth the effort."

Financially, the project stays afloat through a mix of ticket revenue, venue partnerships, and selective brand collaborations. It has grown from a simple idea into what Tonmoy and Tawsif describe as a recognized cultural movement. They have refined the musical identity and built a loyal community that sees the event as a weekly ritual rather than a one-off party.

While the coffee shop remains their home base, the project has recently begun to test its own boundaries. 

The club's second season came to a close on 19 December 2025, with a departure from its usual Saturday morning cafe routine. For the finale, titled "Decks & Deck," the geography shifted from the city corners to the open water of the Shitalakshya River. 

Photo: Courtesy

It was a day-long stretch, running from 10am to 6pm hosted on the deck of a houseboat. This was not the typical three-hour window; it was a slow-motion version of their ritual, designed to mark the final mornings of the year. Guests were shuttled out of the city to a space where the "morning ritual" was allowed to bleed into the afternoon and eventually the sunset.

The setup on the river mirrored the club's emphasis on comfort over chaos. There was a fully shaded dance floor and experience zones for those who wanted to step away from the music, along with a continuous flow of tea and meals catered by Pagla Baburchi. By trading the static hum of a neighborhood coffee shop for the movement of the river, the finale offered a different kind of isolation. 

In the 1985 film, the Breakfast Club ends with a letter. It's a note to the principal explaining that while he sees them as he wants to see them, they have found a different truth in each other.

The Dhaka version does not end with a letter, but it operates on a similar kind of discovery. 

"What we find most memorable is how naturally people connect in the morning, strangers sharing a dance, different generations enjoying the same music," the founders reflected. "We've seen people walk in with stress and walk out lighter, or arrive alone and end up leaving with new friends. These quiet, human moments remind us why the club exists."