La Luna Social Club

With their cosmic blend of partying, community and fundraising, Dean and Sarah from La Luna Social Club have been cooking up a storm in Sheffield for several years. I caught up with them to hear about their plans for 2022.

Hi Dean and Sarah. Good to meet you. For those folks not already in the know, can you give us a brief history of Sheffield’s favourite kitchen disco?

We threw some parties in 2018 and realised there was a big appetite among our crowd – essentially grown-up partygoers who still wanted a good night out – for dancing to great music, meeting up with old faces, making new friends in a welcoming, party atmosphere, and appreciating an early start and early finish!

But La Luna Social Club was always conceived as a community-focused project: a non-profit, fundraising event. 'Partying with purpose' or 'conscious clubbing' as we call it. Our tagline is, “Kitchen dancers of Sheffield: unite and be social(ist)." We don’t disguise the fact that we’re left-wing and we believe in community: bringing people together, making them aware of the work that the charities are doing, and supporting local independent businesses.

As well as the music, fundraising is a big part of your events. Who have you been able to help so far?

We always pick local independent charities. We’ve raised a decent amount so far for Roundabout, Learn for Life, Sheffield Foyer and Sheffield Flourish – over £2,000 in total. We’re very proud of that. Our next recipient is Nested, which provides support for victims of domestic violence.

The funk, soul and disco genres are bursting with incredible tunes, but if you had to choose three favourites, what would they be?

That’s like choosing your favourite child – can’t do it! But these are three tunes that smashed it at La Luna #4 in December:

Dreams – Fleetwood Mac (Psychemagick Remix)
Mercy – The Third Degree
White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It) – Grandmaster & Melle Mel

La Luna #5 is set for March and early bird tickets have been flying out. What’s in store for your inaugural outing of 2022?

We’re at the fabulous Sidney & Matilda on Saturday 12 March from 7:30pm ’til 1am. Tickets are available now. Expect the full La Luna sparkle and cosmic ambience, with drinks promos for early birds while the yacht rock sways for the first hour. The dream DJ team – Tim Lionel-Vinyl, Hangbeard and Moonrise – had their first outing at La Luna #4 and it was perfect. If you weren’t there, come down and find out for yourselves in March. Enjoy this sample mix by Hangbeard on Mixcloud.

Looking further ahead, what are your hopes and dreams for La Luna next year?

We’re planning four La Luna Social Clubs in 2022, ’vid willing. We’ve got it right, we reckon, so nothing needs fixing. We don’t want it to get too big and it has to be fun. We’ve got a core group of La Luna faithfuls now, who are lovely people, and that’s growing as word gets around.

Watch this space for details of all upcoming events:
facebook.com/lalunasocialclub
@LaLunaSocial (Twitter)
@LaLunaSocialClub (Insta)