After a night of partying, sipping your favourite drink and dancing to every song the DJ plays, by the time the clock strikes 4am you are probably exhausted and ready to call it a night.

With the promise of more of the same next weekend. The tradition is not to get to the club too early (not to be seen as an old person) but not too late (not to miss out on all the fun).

Therefore, to be on the safe side, people would often flock to the clubs at around 11pm and party until 4am or 5am, depending on their stamina.

As a result, by 5am entertainment venues are usually a shell of what they were a few hours earlier, with waiters and cleaners coming in to tidy up.

But as times change, it seems that the ideal time to go clubbing is also changing.

A spot check by Mtaa Wangu over the past few weeks has revealed a new emerging trend.

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At around 3am, after the main dj has finished his set and switches to soft RnB, reggae and soul music, we noticed a new group of people entering the club.

These people are not the usual club hoppers who are already drunk and moving from one club to another. But this new breed of people, who come to the club in the early hours of the morning, are sober and out for their first drink of the day.

Read: 'Aluta Sunday' finally makes it way to Nakuru

Hosea Wangwe, who we met at the club, reveals that he enjoys coming to the club just before sunrise when the chaos has stopped, explaining that he comes from taking a nap at his house which is close to the club.

"Personally, I like the setup of the club, but what I really hate is when the club is overcrowded. I would often opt to go home and get some sleep and come in around that time, just to enjoy the cool music and watch the sun rise on the horizon," said Hosea.

Another such reveller, Eli, shared the same sentiment, saying that for him it is the music that is usually played at this time.

"I'm usually a fan of soft rock, rhumba, reggae and rnb, and I always want to avoid the booming music with the MCs, so I find that coming in at this time is preferable to me," said Eli.

Ian, the social media manager at Space Next Door, confirms that they have indeed been attracting this new breed of reveller, who come to the club from 3am.

Perhaps this is why the Aluta culture has taken off in Nakuru.

Read: Inside Nakuru's clubbing culture and why you are likely to find this type of people

"Friday and Saturday nights are the busiest and we've noticed that there are people who come in from around 3am until the early hours of the morning and during that time it's usually soft music that's played," says Ian.

"The DJ's always know what music is best for the crowd at a particular time, so everyone would have their preference and decide when they want to be in the club," he said.

The next time you go out, try to gauge and know where exactly you belong, are you on the first shift from 8pm to 11pm, 11pm to 3am or the early morning shift.

bretsanya@gmail.com

Why revellers now prefer to go clubbing at 3am

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Bret Sanya