WOW! In barely 2 years, we have grown from 75ish members pre-EDCO ’21 to, now August 2023, over 7500 members with nearly 7% being outside the US. That is a huge percentage considering less than 2 years ago new members questioned if the group was an Orlando group because of our saturation of Orlando and central Floridian membership at the time.

The best part is that many responses are the same to this day.

I’m so glad I found this group!

members in open chat after joining

I’m so glad to have found people my age

members in open chat after joining

I love this group!

members in open chat

This is the only group I follow on Facebook

members in open chat

I haven’t “poached” any members from other groups since early 2002. Currently, we approve 100 new members each week. The group’s natural growth has sustained that number for quite a few months now.

As leadership, we are constantly astonished at what we’ve accomplished so far. When this all began, who would have ever thought it would grow like this? We knew it was “possible” but didn’t know it would really do all of this.

Our membership is extremely diverse too.

Of course we have many members who Raved in the 80s, 90s and 2000s. But, we also have a huge number of members who only recently discovered our music and our scene. Plus, we have some huge names in the industry as members. I hope that, one day, we have many of the legends of our beloved Rave scene as members.

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I was walking around EDCO, twisted af, talking to people and screening membership requests. The Admins who didn’t go, were screening like crazy from home wondering WTF was going on. The number of requests skyrocketed to say the least.

Post EDCO was absolutely brutal, especially in January and February, to say the least. We quickly broke 500 members, then 750, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500. By the end of March”ish”, we had nearly 3000 members. 3000 old souls who always had the same thing to say. OMG, I’m so glad I found this group. I thought I was the only old Raver out there!

Even today with over 7500 members, the sentiment is still the same. New members constantly introduce themselves and say how happy they are to have found us and how wonderful our group vibe is. This is SO profound to our Admins/Mods and the reason we run such a tight ship,

It was such an onslaught that we had nearly 400 membership requests in one single day. NEARLY 400 in.one.single.day! It blew mine and our minds when I screenshot and shared it with leadership. Needless to say, I quit “poaching” other groups once we hit about 2500 members.

Now, keep in mind. We’ve never just let anyone join. We have and always will screen every.single.member before we let them join. Why? We want a peaceful environment in the group first and foremost. We never have and never will put up with any dumpster fires in the group.

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Growth is an understatement to say the least in the beginning. Myself and the couple of Admins helping were brutalized during and after EDC Orlando 2021. It was bad fam, really bad.

I was very active in many Facebook Rave groups at the time so, I started discretely “poaching” new members in comment threads. Any time I would see one of those “over 30” memes, I would post a link to our group. Sorry Admins.

This yielded us about 40ish members by September/October of 2021. It was all good. We would be happy if we could find 500 lost souls to bring together so we were happy with our growth. Things were simple and every member basically knew each other online and started planning how we could actually meet in person sometime.

I was a member of some EDCO groups, so I chatted with a lot of people and told them about our little group. All of a sudden, we started seeing more member requests. Cool! One of our long time members, now Moderators, reminded us of how we had no membership questions when she joined “long” ago. LOL

By the end of EDCO, we had 250-300 members. We were astonished to say the least. The group was still a very small tight knit little community and we were all loving it. No one could believe that “so many” of us old souls not only existed, but had found each other.

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We are an ever-growing group of older Ravers who love electronic music, the culture and dancing the nights and weekends away. Most of us have been Raving since the 80s, 90s or early 2000s and share the nostalgia of the scene’s heydays. Yet, many members have only recently entered the Rave scene after discovering our music and culture while adulting as parents.

We regularly go to and support invite-only underground events, local shows and festivals as well as large commercial festivals. While we go to many across the US and abroad, EDC Orlando has been the group’s home festival since our membership exploded during EDCO 2021. If you see us somewhere, come up and say hi. We love meeting and dancing with new friends, young or old.

You’re never to old to Rave and we’re proof, with some members being in their 70s and still dancing the nights away. We’re just old souls loving music and life while spreading old school PLUR (Peace Love Unity Respect). While things have obviously changed over the years, the Rave scene is still the most inclusive, supportive and wonderful scene for all ages.

Most of us are not only Rave Moms and Dads but seasoned parents of older teens and adult children. Some are lucky enough to have grandchildren too, so safety and well being is important to us. Whether it be concern about hearing loss, experimenting with Rave favors, safety at events or other topics affecting our scene, we care deeply about everyone’s safety and well-being.

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Our little alien friend is old like us. He was big in the Rave scene during the 80s and 90’s, typically wearing a pair of JNCOs, dancing in Adidas, with his arms covered in Kandi. Like many of us, he hasn’t been out dancing for a long time while doing the adulting thing.

Now that his littles have grown up and are flying around the cosmos, he’s back and dancing away at local events and festivals. He’s always been hilarious and comes up with all sorts of funny ideas. Please don’t take offense to his humor, he’s just a Gen-Xer who laughs at about anything and tries to put a smile on people’s faces.

While he loves to laugh, even about “favors”, and have fun, he has a serious side depicted in his “Test It b4u Take It” slogan. After getting back into the scene, he realized how dangerous some things can be today and wants to do his part to help promote safety.

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40+ Ravers, later rebranded to 40up Ravers, started in the comment thread of a Lost Lands group in June or July of 2021.

Of course someone posted one of the “over 30” memes so young and old alike were commenting and I noticed something in that thread., There seemed to be a lot of older Ravers there who were active in the scene. Like most “seasoned” Ravers, you always think you’re the only one your age still doing this.

You could tell a distinct difference between the older and younger commenters. There was a different demeanor and experience level between the two. So, I posted a comment and asked if anyone older would like to have our own group to chat with our peers. A few people said “that would be cool”. So 40+ was born.

As I’ve had to emphasize in our Facebook group on a few occasions, 40 is not a hard cutoff for us. It never has been and never will be. In those initial moments of naming the group, I realized that 40ish seemed like a reasonable break point between old school vibes and new school vibes. So it was named 40+ Ravers – Aged And Raving People [AARP].

By September(ish), we had less than 75 members. But, we were an incredibly close group of new found friends. We had no idea if or how our little group would grow but we enjoyed it as it was.

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