I took my baby to an 80s rave in Gateshead, and it was better than a Saturday night out.

A rave before lunchtime? With a baby?

There was a time when Saturday mornings and raves occupied entirely different parts of my weekend. One was for recovering from the other. Yet there I was, a new mum in my 40s, preparing to take my baby to his first dance event, complete with disco lights, balloons and a soundtrack straight from my teenage years.

Forget muddy festival fields, overpriced drinks and the prospect of losing your friends somewhere between the bar and the toilets. This was clubbing for people who still needed an afternoon nap, although I wasn’t entirely sure whether that meant Cyrus or me.

Our destination was the Breakfast Club Coffee Rave, a family-friendly event organised by North East arts organisation Chalk as part of Q Festival on Gateshead Quayside. It promised an hour of music, movement and sensory play inside the magnificent Spiegeltent. At £7 a ticket, it sounded like a rather good way to spend a Saturday morning.

And judging by the fact that the event had sold out, we weren’t the only parents who fancied swapping nursery rhymes for something with a decent bassline.

From the 9am bus to the dance floor

Our adventure began with H, Cyrus and me catching the 9am bus into Newcastle. It wasn’t exactly the glamorous arrival one associates with the clubbing scene, but parenthood has a way of adjusting your expectations.

There were no high heels, elaborate plans for the evening or leisurely afternoons spent deciding what to wear. Instead, we had a buggy, a baby bag and the sort of organisational precision needed to leave the house with a small child before breakfast had properly settled.

I was really excited. As a new mum over 40, opportunities to enjoy live music without arranging childcare were few and far between. Most of my social outings revolved around baby groups, coffee shops and places with reliable changing facilities. The prospect of hearing The Cure or Madonna somewhere other than my living room was enough to put a spring in my step.

The rave was part of Q Festival, a collaboration involving Gateshead Council and Jesterval Comedy Festival, with Chalk bringing its creative approach to family entertainment.

We arrived early, giving us time to enjoy the sunshine beside the Millennium Bridge. The Quayside was looking rather lovely, and for once we weren’t rushing to get somewhere before Cyrus decided he’d had enough of being strapped into his buggy.

A waiting area designed for little hands

Outside the Spiegeltent, Chalk had created a colourful waiting area where children could draw, play and generally make themselves at home. Art materials covered the activity tables, and little hands were already busy scribbling, smudging and experimenting.

Cyrus made a beeline for the baby-friendly, Rubik’s Cube-style play tables, which kept him entertained while we waited for the doors to open.

I rather liked this approach. Anyone who has attended an event with a baby knows that waiting can be the most challenging part. Adults understand queues and schedules. Babies, quite reasonably, see little point in either.

Here, children weren’t expected to sit quietly until the entertainment began. They could explore, make a mess and enjoy themselves without anyone raising an eyebrow. It was a refreshing change from outings where you spend half the time apologising because your child is behaving like a child.

Eventually, the doors opened, buggies were parked under the watchful eye of a cheerful organiser, and we stepped inside.

Inside Gateshead’s magnificent Spiegeltent

I’d been curious about the Spiegeltent for weeks. The temporary structure had become a talking point on the Quayside, and I was desperate to see what all the fuss was about.

A Spiegeltent, literally a mirror tent, is a travelling entertainment venue traditionally built from wood, canvas, mirrors and decorative glass. With its roots in European fairground entertainment, it has the sort of theatrical charm that makes an ordinary marquee look rather underdressed.

Inside, the atmosphere was wonderful. Mirrors reflected the movement of the crowd, stained-glass details caught the light, and the wooden interior gave the venue the feel of a vintage ballroom. For one glorious hour, however, it belonged to an enthusiastic collection of very small clubbers.

A DJ provided the soundtrack while disco lights moved across the room and sensory projections illuminated the interior. A screen showed clips from 80s films, and children crawled, toddled and bounced around the dance floor as parents attempted to remember moves they hadn’t performed in public for years.

Watching a tent full of knee-high dancers enjoying themselves was considerably more entertaining than another round of the Hokey Cokey.

Nobody seemed particularly concerned about looking cool, either. Parents danced with babies on their hips, toddlers investigated balloons, and grown-ups enjoyed music they probably hadn’t heard at a party since their school discos.

It was liberating.

The Cure, Madonna and one very small clubber

The soundtrack was a gift to anyone who grew up in the 1980s. We had The Cure, Nena, A-ha, Madonna, The Human League, Dexys Midnight Runners and The Clash. It was the sort of playlist that transported me straight back to my teenage bedroom, complete with questionable hairstyles and the conviction that nobody understood me.

There is something about hearing the music of your youth while holding your own child. Songs that once accompanied teenage angst, school discos and dreams of independence suddenly become the soundtrack to an entirely different chapter of life.

I was no longer the teenager listening to those records. I was the mother watching her little boy discover music for himself. And Cyrus was having a wonderful time.

He crawled, tottered and rolled around the dance floor, fascinated by the changing lights and movement around him. At one point, with The Clash providing the soundtrack, he appeared to be making his own attempt at Rock the Casbah. Whether he appreciated the musical significance is doubtful. He was far more interested in the bubbles.

Still, I like to think I was introducing him to something culturally important. A proper musical education should surely involve more than nursery rhymes about farm animals.

Bubbles, balloons and a dance floor full of babies

Of course, an hour of 80s music wasn’t going to keep the youngest members of the audience entertained on its own. Chalk had transformed the Spiegeltent into a sensory playground, with dressing-up areas, arts and crafts, ribbons, hula hoops, large bouncing balls and balloons scattered around the space.

Red and blue balloons bobbed across the floor while children chased them with varying degrees of coordination. Ribbons became improvised dance accessories, and the hula hoops proved popular, even if they were rather ambitious for some of the smaller participants.

Cyrus was particularly taken with the bubble machine. He watched the bubbles float through the air, reaching towards them before becoming distracted by another balloon or an interesting patch of light on the floor.

The organisers had also provided quieter areas for families who wanted a break from the excitement. It was a thoughtful addition, particularly for younger babies who might find an hour of music, movement and flashing lights overwhelming.

Staff remained attentive throughout, keeping cables safely managed, watching over the buggy area and helping families make the most of the activities. The event felt designed around the needs of children rather than being an adult occasion that had reluctantly agreed to accommodate them.

Who says motherhood means giving up the dance floor?

What struck me most about the morning wasn’t the novelty of taking a baby to a rave. It was how much I enjoyed being there myself.

Becoming a mother at 40 had changed my life in ways I expected and others I hadn’t quite anticipated. I knew there would be sleepless nights, feeding schedules and a new appreciation for uninterrupted cups of coffee. What I hadn’t fully considered was how easily my own interests could slip down the list of priorities.

Before Cyrus, music and dancing had always been part of my life. I loved the energy of a good song, the freedom of moving without worrying too much about what I looked like, and the simple pleasure of being somewhere with other people enjoying themselves.

Motherhood hadn’t changed that. It had made finding the time more complicated. Yet here I was, dancing to songs I loved, with Cyrus beside me and H sharing the experience. Nobody was checking the clock because we needed to collect the baby. The baby was already on the dance floor, having a better time than most adults manage on a Saturday night.

We exchanged smiles, laughed at our children’s antics and enjoyed an outing where noise and chaos were positively encouraged. I wasn’t trying to recreate my younger years. I was enjoying a small part of them in a completely different setting, with two people who hadn’t been part of my life when those songs first appeared in the charts.

Admittedly, dancing now involved avoiding crawling babies and keeping an eye on a wandering toddler, but I could live with that.

A family festival that understood its audience

The Breakfast Club Coffee Rave worked because it didn’t try to turn babies into miniature adults. Nor did it expect parents to spend the morning pretending that nursery entertainment was the height of sophistication.

Instead, it brought the two worlds together. Children had room to explore, play and respond to music in their own way, while parents could enjoy familiar songs and a lively atmosphere without worrying that their little ones were disturbing anyone.

For £7 per adult and £7 per child, it offered an entertaining hour in one of the Quayside’s most unusual venues. More importantly, it gave us a shared experience that felt genuinely different from our usual Saturday routine.

By the time we left, Cyrus had enjoyed his first taste of clubbing, I’d revisited a sizeable chunk of my teenage record collection, and H had survived a morning surrounded by balloons, bubbles and enthusiastic tiny dancers.

Not bad for a family outing that began on the 9am bus.

Not every outing needs an educational purpose

I’ve always believed children benefit from being introduced to different experiences, whether that’s art, music, food or simply spending time somewhere unfamiliar. Not every family outing needs an educational purpose or a carefully planned activity. Sometimes an hour of music and a room full of bubbles is quite enough.

Our morning at Q Festival was colourful, cheerful and wonderfully unpretentious. There was no pressure to be the perfect parent, no requirement to sit politely through an activity that only the children enjoyed, and no need to leave the things we loved about our lives before parenthood at the door.

For an hour, we were simply a family having fun together.

And I came away with a rather pleasing discovery. My clubbing days weren’t necessarily over. They’d just moved to a more civilised hour, with better coffee and a considerably younger crowd.

More baby raves, please. Although next time, I might request a little Depeche Mode.

Over to you: Would you take your baby to an 80s rave, or does the thought of disco lights before lunchtime sound like a step too far? And which song from your teenage years would you insist the DJ played?

Occasional stories, experiments, discoveries and questions from Saffron & Cyrus.