Welcome to Frasercast, a place where we discuss how our community can create a more inclusive and equitable world for people of all abilities. Our community includes individuals who have varying physical, emotional and diverse needs, and Fraser is here to help. I’m your host, Peng Thao, senior digital content editor at Fraser, for today’s episode.

 

We’d like to give a special shoutout to Meristem | Cresset, the presenting sponsor of the 2023 Fraser Gala. Our gala this year is at a new location, the Renaissance Minneapolis Hotel at The Depot, on Friday, November 3rd. This year, get in the game with our Candy Land theme.

Meet us on a magical path to King Kandy’s Castle. Chill out in the Peppermint Forest, or maybe you’ll bump into Queen Frostine in the Frosted Palace. You won’t want to miss a night that is sure to be sweet with specialty cocktails, a decadent dinner, enchanting entertainment, and most importantly, an inspiring testimonial from a Fraser family. 

We’d also love to give a wonderful shoutout to our Gala Entertainment Sponsor, the James A. Levine Trust.

Speaking… of entertainment, today’s topic is…

Disco.

To most of us, the word “disco” means the genre of music popular during the 1970s, blending funk, soul, R&B, and dance music influences. If you’ve listened to ABBA, the Bee Gees, Earth Wind & Fire, and even Daft Punk, you’ve likely encountered some timeless disco classics. Disco may have died in the eighties, but it is actually experiencing some popularity again today in the 2020s. Two of my friends got married last year with outfits and wedding playlist straight out of the seventies.

But we’re not actually talking about *that* kind of disco today. No, we’re talking… about silent discos.

Silent discos are basically dance parties where everyone in the crowd has a pair of Bluetooth headphones. There’s still a DJ, or even several DJs, controlling the music. It’s possible that you’ve already seen videos of what a silent disco looks like and at first glance, it *can* look a bit awkward. A video of a silent disco would look like any other dance party showing a large group of people getting down to the music, often wearing glowing Bluetooth headphones, except the only sound *you* hear is the squeaking of rubber shoe soles against the ground. Kind of like a basketball game. I’ll admit, it looked kind of surreal the first time I saw one, but these events have gotten pretty popular, and for good reason.

If you attended this year’s Fraser Festival that being our 2023 event, you probably saw a silent disco there by DJs from Generation Now Entertainment, including Tyler Thoreson, a longtime friend of Fraser who also goes by the name DJ Crozzworks.

There are a lot of claims to the origins of silent disco.

According to a UK-based silent disco rental company called The Silent Disco Company, a 1969 Finnish film seemingly had characters wearing headsets at a party. A Portugese man named Cisco Sa claims to have pioneered silent discos after dancing in the street with his cassette walkman due to being denied entry to discotheques as a teenager. Others claim that silent discos kicked off in the ‘90s to help curb noise complaints and keep from disturbing the wildlife when partying out in the woods. Perhaps one of the most popular instances of silent discos hitting the mainstream news was the 2005 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, where this four-day festival also had a silent disco tent to provide something new, different, and inclusive alongside a typical music festival experience. The Bonnaroo Music Festival has had silent discos for more than a decade now, which means this sensory-friendly activity has been sharing festival space with the likes of The Wu Tang Clan, The Killers, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Bruce Springsteen.

Either way, silent discos have been around for a lot longer than you might think, way before things like airpods and other wireless headphones started to become the norm. Maybe I’m just getting old.

So what actually goes on at a silent disco? Not too much, really. The beauty is in its simplicity and accessibility.

You show up and pick up a pair of Bluetooth headphones. You set the headphone volume and if there’s more than one DJ, you can even change the music you’re listening to, which changes the color of the lights on the headphone. You and your friends can even listen to the same music on your headphones and just have a good time. It’s not too much more complicated than dancing along to your own music.

The real magic comes from how inclusive a silent disco can be. A traditional dance party, music festival, or concert can be overstimulating, and there are a lot of things about these fun experiences that we don’t think too much about when we’re not overly sensitive to them ourselves.

The music gets pretty loud and a live band onstage can be a little much for some folks with sometimes harsh and sharp percussion sounds or noisy loudspeakers. There’s lots of cheering in the crowd, side-conversations, and that’s not even including any pyrotechnics and stage effects. Those are all things that we probably like out of our concert experiences. For kids and adults on the autism spectrum, who may also have sensory-processing differences, the things that are often the most exciting about these events are also what can make them tough to attend. Even if someone isn’t on the spectrum, they can still be anxious around loud noises, be sensitive due to trauma, or otherwise just don’t prefer loud environments. These folks will have a harder time feeling comfortable with the noise and other stimuli, and it can just be an overall stressful experience.

Silent discos help mediate some of those effects while still keeping the fun of listening to music and having a musical space to share with your friends. The aforementioned headphone volume settings mean that you can tailor the noise level to your liking. Not every live music performance you go to has the exact same setup or volume, so when you go to a silent disco instead, you can enter with the expectation that the noise stays under your control. Wireless headphones may also help isolate other sounds, so attendees can stay focused on the music. Of course, there’s other stimuli to account for such as sights. There can still be disco balls reflecting a ton of light at a silent disco or other uses of bright light and flashing beams, though I’ve read that some folks try mitigating that by wearing sunglasses, even indoors. As for smells… let’s just hope that no one on the dance floor went overboard with their cologne. I don’t know if kids still use those spray deodorants. Those were really popular when I was in middle school in 2006.

Silent discos have gotten popular enough that they have become their own niche in the party rental industry. If you did a quick Google search for silent discos, you might find services in major cities that provide DJs and equipment to rent. In fact, your favorite brewery might even host a silent disco night; I just did a quick search and the Minneapolis brewery Inbound BrewCo in the North Loop had one just this past February. Not bad considering how noisy your average brewery can get.

For younger crowds, some high schools have even hosted proms with a silent disco component to make prom more inclusive. That’s something you can always advocate for when it comes to your child’s school activities. There’s even a silent disco happening at the University of Minnesota on the St. Paul campus this Friday the 3^rd, the same day as the Fraser Gala. Seems like it’s gonna be a throwback to the year 2000, so please enjoy some Britney Spears and J. Lo for me while you’re out there.

For how unorthodox a silent disco may seem to the rest of us, I’m pretty happy that they’ve been getting more popular. I certainly don’t remember them being around when I went to prom or college in the bygone time of the early 2010s, but now, there are at least some options for folks with autism or sensory-processing differences who just want to move to the music in a more inclusive environment. It’s good for all of us and our families, and if large music festivals in America can get down with silent discos, you can, too.

 

That just about wraps up today’s episode of FraserCast. We hope you enjoyed learning a bit about silent discos. Once again, a big thank you to the presenting sponsor of the 2023 Fraser Gala, Meristem | Cresset and our Gala entertainment sponsor, the James A. Levine Trust. Thank you all for listening and we’ll see you next time.