About us – Speed Dating Social
Speed Dating Social is an events company that runs dating nights at bars and nightclubs across Australia. Starting in 2021 amidst the Covid19 lockdowns, they were founded by Darcy (a formal personal trainer from Brisbane) after noticing his boot camp attendees had far greater attendance at their social bar nights rather then early morning workouts, go figure.
Originally starting with little more than a Meetup group, Melbourne Meetup, imaginative – I know. Now since moving to Melbourne in December 2019, the events started with free meetups. The first event was hosted at Welcome To Brunswick (a 100 burgers group venue) with a turnout of 120 people.
While their first ever singles dating event was crossed with a boot camp producing the worlds first speed dating workout. Yes, originally 36 attendees turned up to F45 Northcote on the 12th of February 2020 to preform partnered sets of push-ups, sit-ups and soul gaze as they cycled on stationary bikes.
However starting was slow given the lockdown closures which gave way to more mainstream free social nights reaching up to 300 and even 400 attendees on any given night at venues like Ladida, Black Rabbit and Storyville. With events still posted on Melbourne Meetup group formally known as Melbourne Social Singles (which also inspired a 20k singles Facebook group).
The first speed dating event was held 1 year later at the former Golden Monkey, a oriental themed basement bar on Hardware lane in Melbourne. Due a faithful following from the free weekly Saturday night Meetup events and a hefty does of luck, that first event instantly sold all 40 tickets in one afternoon. This sparked the momentum that would ultimately connected and introduced up to 20,000 attendees throughout Australia.
Fast forward to 2023 and the events have been going for 3 years with no end in site. Most recently Speed Dating Social has gone digital and national. That is Attendees can meet at a variety of cities and have the chance to scan a QR code where they can select any favourable dates from their phones.
With the success of the Melbourne Events, Speed Dating Social now runs weekly dating nights in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. External events are hosted by remarkable staff such as Edward & Christine in Brisbane, Kunal (a former Melbourne attendee) hosting the Perth dating nights, leaving the amazing Katie to look after the Sydney diversion. And of course Darcy still hosts the Melbourne events because he’s now pretty good at saying next every 5 minutes.
With 4.7k followers on Eventbrite, Speed Dating Social has hosted over 582 events in the last 2 years and is only just getting warmed up. So if you’re single and would like to find your next fling or even love, why not try an event and get 12 fun mini dates in 1 night!