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ENTITY · CULTURAL PRACTICE

The all-inclusive party

Probable

Pay once at the gate, drink all night. Somewhere in the 1990s Jamaican promoters made the all-inclusive the default for a certain kind of party, and it changed more than the price list.

It moved drink from a running cost to a fixed one, which changed how people paced a night. It made the bar the product rather than a concession, which put the promoter, not a brewery, in charge of what was poured, and made the rum house a title sponsor rather than a vendor. And it drew a line: an all-inclusive is a ticketed, gated event with a guest list, which is a different social proposition from a street dance where the bar is a cooler and anyone can stand at the edge.

YUSH in 2003 is the format at its clearest — J$500 at the door, Appleton on the banner, free rum — and the series that followed, up to Dream Weekend, are built on the same arrangement. The 1990s dating here rests on community recollection contributed to the archive; the YUSH detail is first-party.

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In stories

Story · Well supportedThe bar in the dance: how liquor built, named and paid for the music

A brewery, a rum house and a tonic wine have shaped Jamaican music as surely as any studio — and what the dance drinks has changed twice, from a crate at a man's foot to bottles held up in the video light.

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Compiled and researched by The Jamaica Music Atlas music desk. The sources that informed it are credited above.

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