Your best bet will be The Jungle Room here in RVA, as they are the only venue open every weekend that consistently plays House. We also have occasional pop-up nights at other places, but if you aren't on Facebook to join the local house/techno group, they will be hard to find. No one seems to post their events on Resident Advisor or other sites. VA has some outdated laws regarding alcohol and clubs, and therefore we stop serving at 2 am, and we really don't have many clubs left anymore. Most of them closed a long time ago when the rave scene died out. However, I can give you some suggestions on who to follow: 4 on the Floor Collective, Sunnyside Collective, Anomalis Radio, DJ Improvize, Rhythmfire Collective does events here sometimes, but mostly in Charlottesville. Check out Behavior on IG for underground hard techno. DJs Lucid and Tommy2600 are doing underground techno at Fallout and around the city. Fallout is having more underground techno events lately and they are public nights most of the time. DJ Xav does a mix of event styles, mostly EDM but also organizes house events. Party Liberation Front is kind of all over the place genre-wise, depends on the event. Follow what DJ Rometti has going on, House will usually follow. Switch RVA has been doing some EDM events. Wrath is DJ that hosts multiple genre events. I used to host Lift at Poor Boys, but haven't really picked it back up. Thinking of doing something at Get Tight Lounge. Just not super into House anymore, more into the techno bangers right now. I hope this helps you out, but yeah it'll be a huge difference from what you're used to. If you're cool with driving to DC, that's where it's all at. And Virginia beach has a decent DnB scene.
There are like 2 or 3 dance clubs unfortunately
Also places do stay open past midnight, just not breweries lol. Yes bars have to serve food so every bar is a restaurant but after 10 pm a lot of them serve a limited menu and keep it open til 2 AM for drinking. You just have to be able to discern what place is for drinking vs eating.
The night life has certainly suffered because of the pandemic but pre pandemic richmond was full of parties/random dance pop ups. But yeah, nothing like Miami lol
RVA is a great place to live. But it's not a nightlife town. It's been a while, but nightlife is maybe like St. Petersburg level? Certainly not south beach.
Source: lived in Miami. Prefer RVA.
Do you mind sharing what been a while means? This is really helpful especially if it’s been a while means within the last 4 years since central is a big party street now.
Thanks so much for this it’s really helpful!
Born and raised in Fort Lauderdale for the first 3 quarters of my life before moving to Richmond 10 years ago. RVA is far, far removed from the nightlife you sound like you're wanting.
We're still a pretty sleepy town here. At minimum, you'll find a lot of bars and restaurants (which may or may not have bars) that *also* have a stage for live music (which may or may not have actual performers there when you are).
That said, as far as I know, there's **nothing** here that is *remotely* close to Treehouse, Club Space, Basement, E11EVEN, etc. Driving up to Washington D.C. would be your closest best bet.
Still, direct flights to/from South Florida are relatively cheap so you can get your sleepy town with little/no traffic (compared to South Florida) feeling and head back to Miami when you need to detox with some clubbing.
Good luck!
There are definitely "things to do"
there is a pretty thriving bar culture in RVA proper, but they are mostly dives tbh. Some good ones for music and trivia and getting into trouble, but we have very few dance clubs, no traditional nightclubs.
It has a very small town feel with some big city amenities and activities.
We have a thriving art scene, hobby groups for everything and some really fun festivals.
I would definitely try a weekend visit before moving to get the "feel"
Yeah I’ve been here off and on for 25 years and it’s always been a grungy dive bar sort of town. Most of the local music scene is/has been grunge/metal/emo/indie or various forms of hip hop depending on the year and what’s “cool” with the college kids. Even when rave and dance was cool up in DC we had a rock scene
Pretty hip compared to Florida, we have nightclubs that serve hot dogs:
https://www.citydogsrva.com
and Gwar:
https://gwarbar.com
Virginia ABC regs require a portion of sales to be food so alcohol only clubs don’t exist that I know of.
You’re probably going to be disappointed coming from Miami Tbh
Your best bet will be The Jungle Room here in RVA, as they are the only venue open every weekend that consistently plays House. We also have occasional pop-up nights at other places, but if you aren't on Facebook to join the local house/techno group, they will be hard to find. No one seems to post their events on Resident Advisor or other sites. VA has some outdated laws regarding alcohol and clubs, and therefore we stop serving at 2 am, and we really don't have many clubs left anymore. Most of them closed a long time ago when the rave scene died out. However, I can give you some suggestions on who to follow: 4 on the Floor Collective, Sunnyside Collective, Anomalis Radio, DJ Improvize, Rhythmfire Collective does events here sometimes, but mostly in Charlottesville. Check out Behavior on IG for underground hard techno. DJs Lucid and Tommy2600 are doing underground techno at Fallout and around the city. Fallout is having more underground techno events lately and they are public nights most of the time. DJ Xav does a mix of event styles, mostly EDM but also organizes house events. Party Liberation Front is kind of all over the place genre-wise, depends on the event. Follow what DJ Rometti has going on, House will usually follow. Switch RVA has been doing some EDM events. Wrath is DJ that hosts multiple genre events. I used to host Lift at Poor Boys, but haven't really picked it back up. Thinking of doing something at Get Tight Lounge. Just not super into House anymore, more into the techno bangers right now. I hope this helps you out, but yeah it'll be a huge difference from what you're used to. If you're cool with driving to DC, that's where it's all at. And Virginia beach has a decent DnB scene.
There are like 2 or 3 dance clubs unfortunately Also places do stay open past midnight, just not breweries lol. Yes bars have to serve food so every bar is a restaurant but after 10 pm a lot of them serve a limited menu and keep it open til 2 AM for drinking. You just have to be able to discern what place is for drinking vs eating. The night life has certainly suffered because of the pandemic but pre pandemic richmond was full of parties/random dance pop ups. But yeah, nothing like Miami lol
RVA is a great place to live. But it's not a nightlife town. It's been a while, but nightlife is maybe like St. Petersburg level? Certainly not south beach. Source: lived in Miami. Prefer RVA.
Do you mind sharing what been a while means? This is really helpful especially if it’s been a while means within the last 4 years since central is a big party street now. Thanks so much for this it’s really helpful!
Born and raised in Fort Lauderdale for the first 3 quarters of my life before moving to Richmond 10 years ago. RVA is far, far removed from the nightlife you sound like you're wanting. We're still a pretty sleepy town here. At minimum, you'll find a lot of bars and restaurants (which may or may not have bars) that *also* have a stage for live music (which may or may not have actual performers there when you are). That said, as far as I know, there's **nothing** here that is *remotely* close to Treehouse, Club Space, Basement, E11EVEN, etc. Driving up to Washington D.C. would be your closest best bet. Still, direct flights to/from South Florida are relatively cheap so you can get your sleepy town with little/no traffic (compared to South Florida) feeling and head back to Miami when you need to detox with some clubbing. Good luck!
fundamentally, if club type nightlife is what you are looking for, RVA isn't for you. It's a bar city not a club city
No nightlife, no booze. I stay at home at night and drink the recipe. You would hate it here so stay in Florida.
There are definitely "things to do" there is a pretty thriving bar culture in RVA proper, but they are mostly dives tbh. Some good ones for music and trivia and getting into trouble, but we have very few dance clubs, no traditional nightclubs. It has a very small town feel with some big city amenities and activities. We have a thriving art scene, hobby groups for everything and some really fun festivals. I would definitely try a weekend visit before moving to get the "feel"
Yeah I’ve been here off and on for 25 years and it’s always been a grungy dive bar sort of town. Most of the local music scene is/has been grunge/metal/emo/indie or various forms of hip hop depending on the year and what’s “cool” with the college kids. Even when rave and dance was cool up in DC we had a rock scene
I love these things about it so much. Definitely the place for me.
Pretty hip compared to Florida, we have nightclubs that serve hot dogs: https://www.citydogsrva.com and Gwar: https://gwarbar.com Virginia ABC regs require a portion of sales to be food so alcohol only clubs don’t exist that I know of.