Lose yourself: Why knowing set times in advance ruins a night out

Here’s a scenario.

It’s a Friday night, and the event that had you jumping online to catch an early-bird has finally come around. It’s a carefully orchestrated ritual you know all too well: an attending tick on Facebook, a couple well-timed humble brags filtered out online and a playlist purely for the pre, perhaps.

Chances are you start at home. Or at a mate’s. Because let’s face it, spending those three to four critical hours before the main event haemorrhaging money into a drinking establishment, for a night that will probably end with you curled up in a cold, duvet-less ball somewhere that is not your home, is not the answer (Afters or the after-life? It’s hard to tell these days.)

So, you warm-up for proceedings in the comfort of a sofa and Sainsbury’s finest. And then that question – what time do you leave the house? If the DJ, a favourite of yours and your mates, has been splashed across socials as making their 60-minute mark on your life well into the early hours, there’s no point heading out early is there?

Well yes, yes there is.

Last month I left a Night Slugs Allstars party liberated after an all-night b2b showcase with not a set time in sight worked wonders on opening-up the possibilities of an organised club night. It allowed the audience to experience the night as just that, an experience (peaking with Manara’s aptly-timed shelling of Born Slippy).

Now, before you sigh: “I have a life! I can’t just show up to a club straight from opening in case I miss my favourite act, you fool!” I get it. By publishing an evening’s schedule ahead of time, it means the responsible and the busy among us can work their social life around their actual, real, serious life stuff. Honestly, I get it completely. But is it really, truly, necessary for promoters to make such things known weeks in advance?

The Catch-22 of promotion is just this. Release set times to keep the party people happy, to give them their money’s worth and above all, to get them through the door. Problems arise however when that door is met with a 50-person-deep queue because everyone is conveniently arriving at the same time to catch the star of the show. We’ve all been there. In fact, sometimes it can even mean you miss the very act you came to see.

The spontaneity of a night out is often one of the best bits. At Evian Christ’s Trance Party late last year (complete with Danny Welbeck propaganda and posters of Tony Blair’s face), the night soared well into rush-hour figures the next morning despite having an earlier curfew advertised. It was a night of borderless dance and trance. It highlighted the beauty of carefree, spontaneous clubbing.

You take that tentative step onto the floor to escape reality, dance to release feelings of joy and forget the rigmarole of daily life. You trust that, while the biggest names on the bill will always be programmed in for peak times, the promoters do in fact know what they are doing. This relationship between promoter and punter should be strong enough to keep this information sealed until at least the day of the event, shouldn’t it?

So back to the question at hand, does having this information make your night better? I vote no. More organised? Yes. Structured? For sure. The disappointment of turning up to see an artist whose set has been and gone after paying hard-earned money is not what I am advocating. If anything, what I’m suggesting simply relieves the pressure of a night. The expectations.

It’s been said once or twice that the customer is always right; the old “give the people what they want.” So maybe we, the people, should stop expecting so much?

Catch Jasmine front left from the time doors open. Follow her on Twitter here

Patch Keyes is a freelance illustrator and regular contributor to Mixmag. View his portfolio here