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

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.