By the time the lights come up at the end of a Speakeasy Dance Party, the floor is slick, the crowd is hoarse, and no one seems remotely concerned with how they look—or how they will look on social media. Ten years later, the formula is still working. This January marks the 10th anniversary of the Speakeasy Dance Party, a once-a-month DJ night that has become one of Oklahoma City’s most enduring nightlife institutions.  The event on January 31 will be the 125th individual party. Organizers estimate that they’ve hosted more than 25,000 attendees and, even ten years on, the party reliably draws a few hundred dancers each time it lands on the calendar. “It’s wild to think it’s been ten years,” said organizer Ryan Drake. “We’ve been doing this once a month for so long that it just became part of people’s routines.” The packed dance floor is the place to be on the last night of every month. | Photos by Alexandra Dugan That consistency—same bar, same ethos, same low barrier to entry—has been the backbone of the party’s longevity. From the start, the event wasn’t designed as a one-off or a trendy pop-up. It was meant to be repeatable, accessible, and unpretentious: a place people could return to month after month. Attendees get to party like it’s 1999, as the $5 cover charge has remained unchanged since the beginning. Early on, that repeat attendance surprised even the organizers. The music was largely the same from show to show, especially during the first three or four years, when playlists leaned heavily on 1990s and early-2000s hits. Instead of burning people out, the familiarity became part of the appeal. “People kept coming back, even though they knew exactly what they were going to hear,” Drake said. “That was when we realized the consistency mattered more than constantly reinventing it.” The packed dance floor is the place to be on the last night of every month. | Photos by Alexandra Dugan The party’s origins are tied closely to the venue it’s hosted in, 51st Street Speakeasy. The first DJ night coincided with a change in ownership and Speakeasy’s reopening after a short closure. “It’s been cool to see that I’ve been a part of it throughout this whole ten years. They’ve had the bar for a decade, and I’ve been doing the party for the same amount of time,” Drake said. It’s a good pairing; the party doesn’t feel imported—it feels embedded. Musically, the early inspiration came from high-energy mashups and crowd-driven DJ culture. Drake counts Girl Talk among his favorite artists and tries to bring that energy to the monthly event. The party is the antithesis of “scene culture”—the kind of curated nightlife experience built around being photographed and observed rather than participated in. Instead, the goal is a sweaty, dive-bar dance floor where the only expectation is a raucous good time. That approach was tested, like everything else in hospitality, in March 2020. Speakeasy held what would become its last pre-pandemic party just days before venues across the city shut down. Within a week, the entire live-event ecosystem went dark. The packed dance floor is the place to be on the last night of every month. | Photos by Alexandra Dugan For more than a year, the future of the party—and the venue itself—felt uncertain. Speakeasy survived the shutdown, but the dance floor sat empty. During the hiatus, Drake stockpiled new material, collecting remixes and tracks he planned to unleash once it was safe to return. That return came in June 2021, and with it, a noticeable shift in the room. “The crowd got younger,” Drake said. “A lot of the people who came for the ’90s stuff didn’t really come back, and we started seeing more 20-somethings.” Rather than resist the change, Drake adapted. While the party still preserves its core hits—music that, in some cases, is now 30 years old—the timeline has expanded. Post-COVID playlists have moved steadily toward 2010s and even 2020s tracks, reflecting the audience now filling the floor. The packed dance floor is the place to be on the last night of every month. | Photos by Alexandra Dugan “We knew if we wanted it to keep going another ten years, we had to evolve a little,” Drake said. “It’s been hard to figure out how many iconic songs to play, and how much of the more recent stuff, like Charli XCX or Chappell Roan, I can add in.” What hasn’t changed is the party’s accessibility. Admission remains $5, with the sole exception of New Year’s Eve when it bumps to $10—perhaps the best deal in town on a night when many proprietors charge $100 just to get in the room. Marketing flyers and online promotions are produced in-house, maintaining a DIY spirit that predates the city’s current themed-party boom. The packed dance floor is the place to be on the last night of every month. | Photos by Alexandra Dugan For some, the party has brought more than an excuse to dance. “I’ve been the DJ at two different weddings for people who met at my dance party,” Drake said.  The January anniversary show, set for the last Saturday of the month, will nod to both past and present. The night will feature a return of pre-COVID tracks alongside the current rotation, plus a few celebratory touches and the same packed-room energy that has defined the party since its earliest nights. Party #125 doesn’t come with a dramatic reinvention. Instead, it reflects what Ryan Drake’s Speakeasy Dance Party has always done best: show up, turn it up, and let the crowd take it from there. “Ten years in, it still feels good,” Drake said. “As long as people keep dancing, we’ll keep doing it.” Visit 51st Street Speakeasy for more information. 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