Has Midnight on Maui Returned Back to 9 p.m.?

A new study reveals that midnight on Maui appears to be nearing its pre-pandemic time of 9 p.m.

A prominent national research firm that looked into Why midnight on Maui is 9 p.m. released a report in October 2002 stating the true midnight on the Valley Isle was 8:26 p.m. ~ and even then, some locals felt it could be even earlier.

The Association for American Nightlife Preservation (AANP), a national nonprofit organization based in Portland, queried locals and visitors three years ago regarding a long-established sentiment that “9 p.m. is midnight on Maui.” The results surprisingly revealed that the actual perceived Maui midnight was earlier by nearly a half hour.

The AANP this week released an update on its 2022 Maui findings, and found that for 2024 through June 2025, midnight is actually 8:51 p.m. on Maui.

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“It’s a phenomenon we call the perceived midnight, when most adults in a community feel like it's midnight regardless of clocks,” said Horacio Bendick, chair of Pacific Island studies for AANP. “Our first study indicated that the actual perceived midnight for Maui was 8:36 p.m., but newer data reveals the current midnight is now 15 minutes later.

“It’s a fascinating discovery and one we’re still analyzing.”

The AANP conducted hundreds of interviews with randomly selected locals and visitors from mid-2024 to 2025. The update study was ordered due to researchers’ concerns that the 2022 findings were skewed because of ongoing pandemic restrictions and impacts.

The first study was ordered, in part, to investigate how early stages of pandemic lockdowns affected American nightlife, particularly in Hawaii where state pandemic restrictions were brutal and a Maui quarantine requirement remained way too long.

“Most American adults like to get out and whoop it up, as we all know,” said Geoffrey Roubidoux, a social studies specialist with the association. “Yet, we find an exception with Maui. That habit of mainlanders for bar-hopping all night and into the wee morning hours has not quite caught on with Maui.”

Bendick said the association's updated report has some theories for the shift back for the midnight feeling on Maui. Among them is that, with noticeably fewer visitors, Maui locals might be more apt to stay out later.

Roubidoux in 2022 surmised that midnight might shift to even earlier than 8:26 p..m. in the years to follow. The updated study shows the opposite.

“Oh well, can’t win them all,” he laughed. “Something is off. It seems Maui locals are staying up later. Maybe the fire catastrophes two years ago, and the tsunami scare of July 2025, were more influential than we assumed. Perhaps Mauians are fatigued by years of stress and feel a need to get out and let off steam. Who knows?”

At press time, Eric Clapton was completing an update to a single released in late 2022, “After Midnight on Maui at 8:37 p.m.” The revised single expected for release by the holidays will be titled, “After Midnight on Maui at 8:52 p.m.”

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