In Session: Dan Beaumont

Dan Beaumont is devoted to nightlife. The born and bred Londoner has been a prominent fixture in the city’s musical landscape for over a decade, and in this time has strived to improve peoples’ experience of going out and dancing.

Whenever he feels like something is missing from the scene he steps up to provide it. The seminal Disco Bloodbath parties he began throwing with Ben Pistor and Damon Martin in 2007 were founded in response to the overbearing ubiquity of the minimal sound at the time. “Apart from Horse Meat Disco, me, Damon and Ben were struggling to find somewhere that played music that didn’t sound like a dripping tap,” he quipped in a 2015 DJ Mag interview.

The opening of Daltson Superstore in 2009 breathed new life into the area through the widely varied offerings the multi-purpose space provides. As well as serving as a club and bar, further events among the Superstore’s remit include queer art exhibitions, drag troupe performances, neo-cabaret and naked literary readings.

Building on this East London presence in 2012 Dan opened Dance Tunnel, and over the next four years it asserted itself as one of London’s premier nightspots, with the pull to bring DJs such as Steffi and Ben UFO to play the intimate 220-capacity basement room. Although the club sadly closed in 2016, citing the licensing climate in Hackney as unworkable, the prospect of “Dance Tunnel 2” on the horizon already has dancing enthusiasts hot with anticipation.