A plunge into the party scene and its trends, where lively bar-restaurants, pop-up venues and music festivals are where it's at.

Before, there was the disco, that near-mythic weekend outing when we hogged the dance floor 'til dawn beneath a sparkling disco ball. But in a few years there has been a nightlife revolution. "We've gone from 10,000 discos in the 80s to less than 2000 today," says Pierre Chambon, who heads the nightlife branch of the confederation of hotel professions and industries. Today's preferred party place is a hybrid venue where you can sip an aperitif, enjoy a meal then work it off on the dance floor. Such bar-restaurants are proliferating at an astounding rate. Nightclubs too are reinventing themselves by adding bowling alleys, film-projection rooms and suchlike, and creating a buzz with theme nights and live shows.

Meeting friends after work
This summer the Batofar Beach, a cultural complex comprising concert hall, restaurant and terrace, returns to enliven the Paris quaysides for the 15th year running. At the Bâoli in Cannes, you start your evening ensconced in canopied sofas sipping a peaceful aperitif, then after dinner the volume is pumped up, the tables morph into those of a club and the party reaches a climax! In Monaco, the Black Legend too combines lounge bar, restaurant and night club, in 650m². People in Europe are going out much earlier these days, like the British, and tending to patronise the same places. "Ninety per cent of our clientele are regulars," enthuses Serge Lo Monaco of the Before on Monaco's Port Hercule, where people come to wind down with wine and simple dishes after work, before the atmosphere hots up from 11pm thanks to a resident DJ whose programme of mixes involves house along with more underground variants such as deep house, tech house and deep tech. The traditional champagne continues to hold its own alongside the mojito, the number-one cocktail thanks to its refreshing taste and evocations of Cuban sunshine, while rosé wines and fruit-flavoured beers are also popular. Zero-alcohol clubs are becoming common too.

Dancing in the dark
In addition to night clubs broadening their horizons, the other leading trend is for pop-up clubbing: instead of being tied down to one address all year round, clubs appear and disappear like beach facilities. In the capital, more and more techno collectives are organising one-off parties in either dedicated premises, including the Yoyo in the Palais de Tokyo, or unexpected ones such as unused warehouses and buildings. These bright sparks are leading happy night birds off the beaten tracks. "The open-air party culture has really taken off," adds Gabrielle de Villoutreys, who books bands for numerous festivals. Terrace and rooftop parties have become the big must. In summer on the Côte d’Azur great vibes take over the beaches too, with the Plages Electroniques festival opposite the Palais des Festivals (Cannes) and the Hi Beach Parties on the Promenade des Anglais (Nice). Places only open a few weeks a year, such as the Gotha at the Palm Beach (Cannes), are now musts for the party set.

New technologies
"When we started five years ago LEDs were only just coming in. Now they've metamorphosed nightlife," says Jean Albert Vergnaud, cofounder of the Monaco International Clubbing Show being held in the Principality on 13 and 14 November. With the introduction of dance floors that produce electricity from their dancers' steps, even the idea of protecting the environment has penetrated this scene. Silent Parties too have arrived, as at the 3.14 Hotel in Cannes and the Stars’N’Bars in Monaco. At these get-togethers, which Dutch students invented so as not to disturb their house mates, everyone listens to their own music through headphones. Today's clubbers know exactly where it's all happening every night thanks to social networking sites and use mobile apps to book their places. The next step in the revolution? Ordering drinks from your table via a touch tablet.