Parquette, 2026.10.25
I used my blurriest image here because I didn’t ask anyone’s permission to take pictures, and technically was breaking the rules by having my phone out at all. But we all love to take little keepsake photos, no?
As I've mentioned before, it's difficult to write about dance music.
While I'm not a wallflower, I consider myself to be a marginal participant in Montréal's electronic music scene. I work full time and have chronically tight hips, which means I don't like to go out more than once or twice a month. Even that usually makes me feel like I'm pushing it, letting other parts of my life go.
For someone like me, determining which events and promotions are worth attending is tough. Without even considering the technical prowess of the DJs involved—something which I usually feel unqualified to judge—the collectively understood “vibes” of one space or another seem to change at a drop of a hat. I am a member of a rave telegram channel, I'm signed up for a few email lists, and, luckily, I still have some cool friends. (Cool friends are by far the most important source of vibe updates and gossip.) Despite these resources—which I'm not always up to date on, to be honest—I feel like I'm the last to know when a party or promoter I like has become over.
I will stop referring to this ten year old Portlandia sketch when it stops feeling like the best way to describe keeping up with trends.
For any readers who are not local to Montréal or part of “the scene” so to speak, Parquette was a venue located in an old converted gym; it had blue mats on the wall which made me think of playing handball on those little wheely boards in gym class. They ran a monthly 24h party called flip from 10 P.M. Saturday until 10 P.M. Sunday. The venue was also a café during the day, hosting a bunch of other events including (inexhaustively) listening sessions for classic electronic and ambient albums, Lunar New Year celebrations and local craft markets. The team that ran it only had a lease for approximately two years, so impermanence was built into it from the start. A keepsake given out at the last flip-style party (fin) records its lifespan as 2025.04.19 to 2026.10.31.
The flip wristbands I kept for my corkboard, and the keepsake (found in a ball dispensed by a vending machine at fin.)
I could go through my emails to find out exactly how many times I went to Parquette while it was open, but that would dilute my point (I'm certain it was more than 5, and suspect it was probably less than 10.) I had a good time every time I went. (Once there was some kind of incident with a guy being a creep that played out near me, but I couldn't really understand what was going on.) The nice thing about Parquette and flip was that one knew it was happening every month. They brought in consistently sick performers while bringing attention to local acts. There was a good amount of room to chill indoors when not dancing, and a lovely park nearby which was a great chill spot during warmer months.
Most of my flip attendance happened during a phase of my life wherein I described my dating strategy as “the bowerbird method;” surely if I can dance well enough, I can find a relationship. Because I am awkward around sex and romance, and don't really know how to dance with other people, this was a mostly passive thing. One might even say it was “just something going on inside my head, plus a phrase I could use when friends asked what was going on in my dating life.” That's not to say it was completely unsuccessful, I had a lovely young man tell me “I like the way you move.” (This had me both incredibly flattered and completely frozen up, worrying that I was queerbaiting or leading him on.) I convinced myself—as one does on the dancefloor—that I was going through complicated subtle flirtations with people I stood next to, brushing arms and hips. After I caught a whiff of an acquaintance I had a crush on, I spent a good amount of dancefloor time in a bizarre headspace about pheromones and sexuality. (Outside my head this looked like me dancing somewhat close to this person and continuing to never make a move.) Ambiguity and hints of eros are always in the air on a dance floor. To be clear, I'm not going out to get laid like a first year at Cafe Campus, (to be clear², not that I ever did more than make out a few times during Frosh. I have left behind a certain ~way of moving~ where you’re just on the prowl) but these small, possibly imagined moments of drama and flirtation are intoxicating thrills while they're happening, then vanish into “nah it was nothing” a minute later.
At Parquette, I also thought up dancefloor aphorisms such as “if it's not working, don't try harder, try softer” and “another word for a beta orbiter is a satellite of love.” I saw tons of people I know from around the city at Parquette, some of whom are quite tough to pin down normally, so I'm grateful for that. I got to know people in the scene better, although I'm actually just terrible at making friends at raves. I gained an appreciation for how many of my comrades in the postal service also go to raves. I did not manage to find a romantic partner through my elaborate display. This March, I left the venue, got a haircut, and then came back to dance for a couple more hours. That was a fun moment, made possible by flip’s long duration.
Haircut by Niko, who was also kind enough to take this photo. Not sure if they’re accepting new clients, but they did a great job.
I almost never stayed till the end. I often missed the entire first night. Sometimes I would get stunlocked by my social anxiety and waste half my ticket. At fin I got way too fucked up after a conversation in a bathroom line, and went home at about 7. I was familiar with Parquette, but less than many other people. And it bears repeating, I never had a bad time at Parquette, flip or otherwise.
I don't know if this was everyone's experience, and I can say for sure that by April 18th of this year, people were already talking about how nice it was to go to a party that wasn't Parquette. Fatigue had set in. The tenor of the conversations was “I love Parquette, but...” then something about vibes, age of the crowd, how crowded it was, room to dance etc. etc. etc. Rave culture thrives on the frisson that comes from novelty and danger. That sensation may have been eroded by the monthly nature of flip. The sense in conversations I had was that people appreciated Parquette, but it was no longer a hot young debutante, stunning the scene.
Not long after I noticed that shift, there was a dust-up with the city over the liquor license. I'll save the details of that for people who know more than gossip. The main result was that they were not able to have as many events. flip was much less commercially viable without alcohol sales. I believe there were also some substance related incidents that also meant they needed to be more proactive about keeping people from visibly consuming drugs or appearing intoxicated, again, I don’t want to speculate too much. All of a sudden, you couldn’t take Parquette for granted. Past that point, I went to an event called “flip forever” before the space got taken over by a film shoot, and the final, 48hr long event, fin. Both of them had incredible atmospheres and appreciative vibes. (I also went to the cafe a couple times during work hours to pick up merch and a lost coffee mug, don’t tell my bosses.)
Plenty of people have documented flip in photos and videos across social feeds. There’s other writing about it. I know there’s things I’m missing—kids on the dancefloor! cakes! third space discourse!—and I hope other people document that themselves. I know I’m not giving enough credit to the performers, though I’ll take a second to shout out Lis Dalton, Hiroki, Ciel, and Anabasine. I’ve been feeling early nostalgia over the last few weeks or so watching the instagram feeds of Parquette and Montréal artist Priori, who closed the last event as part of a duo named Jump Source with Patrick Holland. I suspect for those of you who attended, I'm preaching to the choir. I'm certain that behind the scenes, there was drama and bad vibes that I was lucky enough to miss. I know I saw some friends on shift who looked tired as hell, at least.
Part of what makes dance music and raving hard to write about is how intensely immediate it is. In the moment, when you are dancing and feeling the vibe, it feels like an important, nay, essential part of culture, necessary to a truly actualized life. When looked at from a wider perspective, it's a somewhat niche interest, mostly centered around young people in cities. I've pulled my older brother along to a few raves, but most people in their 30s have real bedtimes, and don't want to be awake at 3:45 a.m. When I talk to my sister, the eldest of us, who has two kids, about raving, I become aware of just how non-everyday it is. Tons of people never do it, or maybe go out clubbing from time to time, or maybe did so in their early 20s. I began this piece by talking about how I feel like a marginal figure in the scene. I've definitely described myself as a “weekend warrior” from time to time, and I have always known I don't have the stamina to be truly dialed into the scene. The result is, I'm stuck in some weird middle-ground between a hardcore and casual experience of dance music.
You might also detect from my writing that I find the endless rise and fall of venues and promoters a little bit exhausting. I simply can't keep up. I think one of the little things that made Parquette nice was that it had an expiration date. Once people realized it was really going to be gone, they went back to appreciating it more than ever. The frisson of flip came back in the last few events because we knew it was only going to be forever in our hearts.
I'm a bit nervous commenting on raving because I'm not particularly hardcore, and because I still have some holdover anxiety about being a straight white guy 1 in queer spaces (as exhausting as that sentence is, it's in the back of my mind.) Nonetheless. What was wonderful about Parquette for me was that there was an opportunity to enjoy it as a casual—dare I say swagged out—white boy. I could be overcome by my social anxiety, or my tiredness, or my fear that my knee was going to hurt on Saturday, and stay home. Then I could screw up my courage, throw on my pink Adidas track pants and pink longsleeve shirt, bike to bellechase by 2:00, show up and dance for 5 hours straight on Sunday. I could go until late Saturday, and then chill during the day after. I could do a really intense couple hours, leave, get a haircut, and come back despite being exhausted because I was hoping to see funny reactions from people who had seen me before.
The real meat of the matter is this: as someone who wants to just absolutely lock in on the dancefloor, getting my sillies out and my steps in for hours at a time, I could do that at Parquette. I could forget my fears that I'm an outsider, and throw down. The dance floor at Parquette, even when crowded, was full of dancers. Not people who push into your area, peer above the crowd, then push back behind you. (They're always there, but were pretty sparse at flip.) Not people there to show how cool the thing they are attending is, before chatting and looking at their phones. Everyone involved in Parquette came together to create something that worked for the real heads and for more casual aficionados like me. So this is me thanking Parquette, and everyone who was involved in making it such a sick part of Montréal for 18 glorious months. May 1000 Parquettes bloom from the seeds that were sown in that time. flip forever.
Hiroki, performing on 2025.03.29
I first got clued into him at the best out of town festival, and think he’s the shit, check out that mix here.
1 I've had people try to crack my egg before, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
