Riverside Youth Club, Bristol

It’s human nature to get too excited for New Year’s Eve, but the night itself can often end with an anticlimactic feeling that doesn’t justify the amount of cash you’ve thrown at it. In homage to the days when disco was a way of life, Alfresco broke free from the usual all too organised fun of NYE.

Greeted with a line-up consisting of both familiar faces and out-of-town DJs such as Maxxi Soundsystem, Lukas, Seka and the like, guests soon found themselves to be in good hands. With their Studio 54-esque set up and overhanging lightboxes, Alfresco Disco delivered in decking out the space and transforming it into a retro-futuristic disco palace. Boasting an array of graphics and lazer-beam lighting, the visuals perfectly reflected Bristol’s love of quirk. The disco ball hung suspended above the wide-eyed, high-spirited crowd, ensuing an ambience overflowing with euphoric nostalgia.

Maxxi Soundsystem followed the New Year’s countdown with a remix of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, playing enthusiastically to a packed-out room of attendees taking to the occasion with amazing energy and even better outfits. It was rare to see a person without a smile plastered on their face, and rightly so.

The atmosphere at Alfresco Disco is quite simply unique. And with a theme which transported its guests to another, more magical dimension, there was a feeling around midnight that the future will most definitely be a good one.