The sun is rising as the party starts at 6.30am for these strangely sober people, dressed in glitter, lycra and little else. So many sweat bands and high-cut leotards. It's like stumbling onto a remake of Xanadu and finding everyone on the planet is a young Olivia Newton-John.
"Remember to stretch" reads a sign by the door at Sydney's first pre-work drug-and-alcohol-free rave. Jiggling about inside are 20-somethings high on life and no illicit substances. Music pumps over a dance floor littered with rainbow balloons. There are hugs and smoothies.
Morning Gloryville raves are pitched towards health-conscious young people who enjoy sobriety and sweating - and sit neatly alongside recent statistics showing more teenagers are abstaining from alcohol.
Promotional material for the midweek dance parties promises "conscious clubbing, social change and good times". It is the only time I have seen the words "rave wonderland" and "sober love-fest" in the same sentence.
The pre-work parties started in London last year and have spread to cities such as New York, Paris, Tokyo and Barcelona. "We want to be high on being sober," says Sydney co-organiser Ola Moszumanska. "It's a very different way to start the day. People normally go to the gym or go on a jog, so we encourage them to come here and let loose on the dance floor."
She is dressed in multicoloured tights and an indulgent quantity of glitter. Dancing around her, inside the Paddington Uniting Church, on Oxford Street, are people wearing skin-tight leopard prints, smiley badges and hula hoops. It's like an aicd house music party, except no one is on acid and we're not in a house and it's not 1989.
Psychology student Danna Fain, 24, is wearing black tights and a bright parka, and is carrying a sign promising "Free compliments". "Your eyes are as beautiful as the colour of your sweater," she tells me, noticing my lurid blue hoodie. We hug each other, as one does at a substance-free early-morning rave. "I don't drink alcohol, so for me this is the norm," she says.
"I'm into keeping healthy - it's cheaper as well."
There is a room offering free glitter and a cafe selling skim coffees, protein balls and pastries. It reminds me of a gym, minus all that self-loathing. Young women in figure-hugging crop-tops lie on mats for a session of "Raveilates", which is just like pilates, except the instructor is wearing a tiger's tail.
People here seem happy to dance sober, despite all that awkwardness. Glebe artist Robyn Wilson, 30, reckons it is refreshingly different to the drug-assisted raves she used to attend. "You don't have that elevated experience here but I don't miss that because of all the darkness that comes with it," she says.
"I think it's so good this is the way the world is heading."
Sunlight streams through stained glass windows. The music is still playing as people grab bags filled with work clothes and go outside, to wait in bus queues.
