It took several minutes later than usual, but the 10th and final block of Dance Marathon is underway in Club DM. The tent’s back section, housing the dancer changing area before this block, now welcomes more dancers, the thin curtains replaced by open space, more than enough to hold the record-amount of dancers in this year’s event. Unfortunately, the tent only has one entrance, meaning all those hundreds of dancers passed through the same entry point. Dancers simply couldn’t spill into Club DM like they had in the Louis Room in year’s past, they had to wait in a large group until they could squeeze into the large tent. This lag time meant dancers couldn’t get right to shaking, but had to wait, many sitting down and staying quiet.

Once a large amount of dancers got in, colored lights and “Stacy’s Mom” blanketed dancers, who awoke quickly from their silent states to pump fists in mid-air and scream about how badly they want to sex up a middle-aged woman. Every participant wears the official shirt of DM, this year’s version a white tee with purple font, the slogan being “It’s times like these.” Even though all the dancers haven’t filed in, the energy slowly picks up in Club DM, where dancers can now celebrate lasting so long. A Cher song plays, and the crowd erupts.