Day Fever's largest party yet sees over 30s take over Nottingham's Rock City

Day Fever's largest party yet has been lauded as dreamlike by attendees to the Nottingham event, who drank and danced but were on their way home by 8pm. On Saturday, April 20, more than a thousand clubgoers piled into iconic venue Rock City after queuing up in Talbot Street in Nottingham city centre.

However, unlike your typical club night where teenagers and 20-somethings booze and dance into the early hours of the morning, it was just 3pm in the afternoon and some of the people lining up were retirees. The reason these visitors, some of whom had not been to the venue in decades, flocked to the club was to enjoy the increasingly popular pastime of daytime clubbing.

The Day Fever concept was masterminded by filmmaker Jonny Owen and his actress wife Vicky McClure, who wanted to give those over 30 years old the chance to dance to hits that came out between 1975 and 1995, but still be back by a reasonable hour. The second Nottingham event, which attracted the most people yet to 1,600-capacity Rock City, followed a smaller sold-out experience at Stealth in the city centre on Saturday, March 30.

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Catherine Allcock, 41, and Jennifer Booth, 36, were amongst the first people onto the dancefloor. "It's like a dream - we have got kids so we can't be clubbing into the night," Catherine said.

"We need a good night's sleep so this is perfect." The pair explained they were looking forward to some R&B and pop from the 90s being played, with Jennifer adding: "That's the music we grew up with so it's nice to relive that a bit. It's obviously been really popular with our generation and older people."

As the floor and balcony facing the DJ started to fill up, the growing crowd started to sing and dance along to a selection of songs from the 1980s. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, you are already the biggest day fever in the UK," the host announced to cheers and clapping, adding: "You are the spiritual home of Day Fever."

One of the over 30s in the crowd was Vicky McClure's uncle Phil, who had just returned from Australia where he said 'boogie days' for older people were more common. "The concept is just great, I have been talking about this for ages," Phil McClure said as he looked over at hundreds of people dancing to Karma Chameleon by the Culture Club.

"It's proper party music, music everyone a bit older can enjoy," 67-year-old Phil added, describing how he was hoping for some Motown and Northern Soul tracks. Jeff Woolley, 70, who was having a drink with his friend Phil, said: "My granddaughter will be here listening to the same music, so it's a bit different to a normal club night.

"It's obviously proved very popular with Nottingham. We'll definitely be staying until 8 o'clock."

Fiona Walker, 51, who came to the event with her friends Kate, 54, and Lorna, 55, explained they had not been clubbing at Rock City for decades - but were looking forward to dancing a few hours away to some timeless songs. "I haven't been here for about 30 years to go clubbing - but it hasn't changed much," Fiona laughed, as I'm Coming Out by Diana Ross played in the background.

"We can dance the night away, but then come outside afterwards and it's still daytime. If you're older or you've got children I think it's just a really good idea - you can go out and listen to some good music without having to be around a load of young kids."