Babie Club: Where Weeb Culture Meets the Rave Underground

What once started as two completely separate cultures has now transformed into a beautiful communion, a shared playground of fashion, hardcore bass, and friendship. This is the phenomenon of anime-inspired rave nights.

This fusion isn’t just about music and aesthetics, it’s about creating a space where weirdos like us can live out our best lives, connect with like-minded individuals, and celebrate both cultures that thrive on colour, freedom, and creativity.

Over the last ten years, I’ve noticed a rise in these blended events, from emo club nights, to “insert childhood movie here” raves (We know you have been eyeing that Shrek rave), and of course, themed aesthetic club nights. It would be insulting to the Australian cosplay community if I didn’t at least mention Hoshi, dominating cities with convention afterparties that encourage cosplay on the dance floor, pumping out anime hardstyle, and even creating their own convention in their hometown in Perth.

They’ve really grown as a company, starting as a cosplay lens and makeup brand before evolving into a full events team. Everyone at Colin is excited to see how far they’ll go.

Loner Online is also an important club event I want to mention briefly. With its roots in 2017 as just “Loner,” it began purely as parties by friends, for friends, with a focus on music styles.

During the pandemic, Loner ONLINE emerged, a club entirely hosted in VRChat, with acts performing from their own homes across the world. It became a place where anyone was welcome, everyone was united by their hyper-specific interests, and a hub for those against the mainstream who wanted to broaden their horizons with more niche internet music.

But in this article, I want to focus on a specific event, one that sits very close to my heart: Babie Club.

Established back in 2019 by Melbourne creative Ellie Nik, Babie Club has blossomed into an integral part of the Melbourne music scene, pioneering the way for similar nightclubs, creating a wonderful space for youthful clubgoers and veterans alike.

What inspired you to combine nightclub culture with anime and weeb aesthetics?

When I first got the idea for Babie Club in 2019, it was because I felt like there was a glaring gap in the market for young people like me. I had just started working in the club space again after being out of it for several years, and I was bewildered at how much clubbing had changed in that time, it seemed like the options for alternative clubbing had really thinned out.

It made me think of this new generation of kids hitting 18 who probably felt like clubbing couldn’t be their thing because it wasn’t “for” them. Kids that had amazing fun and creative streaks, loved to dance and dress up, but felt like they were sequestered to their online spaces, because where could they go and show that fully-realised version of themselves, outside of their bedrooms?

I had spaces like that when I was 18 and the way they made me feel, like there was somewhere I could really belong, was life-changing for me. I was kind of despairing at the idea that the new generation might not have that. So, I wanted to create one.

How did you go from the idea stage to actually launching your first event?

I was working at Laundry Bar at the time doing marketing and social media work. When I got the idea, the team there were looking for some new promoters so I presented the idea to them, back then I pitched it as a club for gamers, people who loved to be online, and “egirls”.

At the time “egirl” was still an emerging term, but they graciously gave me the opportunity to use their upstairs level on a Friday night to throw both the first and second Babie Clubs. These first two events were so experimental and early, but foundational in my learning and helped me tremendously to shape the idea of Babie Club closer to what it is today.

What’s been your most memorable or chaotic moment hosting these nights?

There’s been way too many!

Maybe dancing on stage with my friends and favourite artists during the surprise performance of Bunny Island with Mallrat and Oh Boy at the Donatachi show in 2022. Mopping up glitter in the club at 5am in my Demonias.

At one of the earliest Babie Clubs, I put together a compilation reel of softcore/ecchi to play as visuals in the club, the owner of the club happened to come by that night and demanded it get taken down, which led to me getting into a heated argument with him over the bar.

I once had someone try to get in for free by lying to me about who they were, they didn’t realise I was already friends with the person they were attempting to impersonate.

Or maybe when one of my friends inexplicably pulled a gladwrapped sandwich out of his pocket and started eating it in the middle of the club. That was pretty chaotic.

How do you balance keeping the event fun and lighthearted while also running it as a serious business?

I think just remembering that I’m doing this for fun. No one is making me do it, it’s not my “real job” so to speak, it’s just for the love of the game and because it sets my soul on fire to create something.

Any time I start to feel like it’s getting too serious, I just remind myself that there’s no point in doing it if I’m not having fun.

Running it as a business is something that kind of started happening organically, in the beginning it was just my sister and best friend working on the door as a favour to me, hand-ticking names off a paper list. It’s still just me running around and setting up the decor.

As my passion and interest grew, I started tracking my expenditures more strictly, researching themes more thoroughly, becoming more curious about the numbers, graphing when my attendees checked in to the party to better understand clubbing patron patterns, things like that. The more it became fascinating to me, the more I naturally started treating it like a business.

Where do you see the future of Babie Club, do you want it to stay underground and community-driven, or expand into something bigger?

This is something I ask myself often. On one hand, the dream is for as many people who feel safe and alive at Babie Club to be able to enjoy it as possible. If I can reach more people and make more people feel that way at one of our events, it’s unquestionably a win.

On the other hand, there’s so much magic in keeping communities intimate and keeping them, well, communities. I never want to lose that small community feeling, the focus on supporting local underground talent, because it was the whole reason I started Babie Club after all.

What’s the crowd like compared to a regular night out, more chaotic, more friendly, or just louder?

The Babie Club crowd isn’t necessarily more chaotic or loud, but the vibes are just sweeter and friendlier, I guess? It may feel more chaotic because everyone’s so excited and the music is high energy, but I think really, it’s because everyone’s there with good intentions.

It’s so easy to see when you walk into a club what the collective temperament of the crowd is, if they’re worried about looking cool, or there to be troublemakers. What I love so much about Babie is that our crowd is consistently a group of sweethearts.

I’m always hearing stories from patrons who rock up to their first Babie event by themselves, and by the end of the night they’ve met people, made friends and had the best time together. I’ve frequently seen patrons walk up to other guests and compliment them out of the blue.

It just feels safe and right. As someone who runs parties, there is literally no better or cooler thing in the world.

What is your favourite theme for Babie so far? And what is something you really want to do in the future?

I really enjoyed doing our more unexpected themes like gorpcore, Skyrim, and even SCP, but the heart of Babie will always be feminine and I’m really passionate about carving out a space for femme themes in clubs.

I think there’s still a lot of misogynistically-rooted fear of girlish aesthetics in the club music scene, with many just dismissing events that embrace femininity as less “serious”, but that’s exactly why it’s so important to keep championing it.

As for future themes, that’s for me to know!!!

What’s the hardest part about throwing an event like this that people wouldn’t expect?

The amount of time that goes into it and what that work looks like, and that’s different for every promoter. For Babie Club it averages out to about 100 hours per event.

A lot of the work is just sending emails, or grunt work like carrying heavy equipment, and not necessarily glamorous. There’s a lot of logistics and decision making involved. The actual event itself is just a fraction of the whole pie (albeit the most important fraction).

However, both the most rewarding and the hardest part is navigating the people. You’ll meet the best types of creative and enthusiastic people doing this work, but there are a lot of people you’ll come across for whom these parties are a business and a job first, and they’re less concerned with sharing your vision.

That’s okay, but it does mean that some people will have agendas that are at odds with yours, or will be less good-faith and enjoyable to work with.

Want to experience it for yourself? Babie Club returns on January 17, with our very own Psychi behind the decks. Learn more.