How it felt to attend London's phone-free club night, Lost

Shuffling, wide-eyed and nervous, through a one-by-one queue, a faint whisper of bass is barely audible above the excited chatter about what unknown debauchery we’ll soon be encountering. As we reach the front, fingers are going at a million miles per hour in the effort to wrap up any last minute texts before an evening off-grid. 

In the last six months, one party has maintained a vice-like grip on its London's "worst kept secret" crown. What started with whispers around a new, out-of-this-world club night taking place at a "secret location" in Central London, has grown into Lost becoming the de facto you-had-to-be-there-place-to-be. 

Located inside an abandoned Odeon on Shaftesbury Avenue, Lost is a venture from the former owner of Secret Cinema. Yes, the same Secret Cinema that throws an immersive, Grease-inspired ‘Rydell High Carnival’ on Battersea Park every year. While it has primarily been marketed on its purported mysteriousness, crowds have been gathering in front of the Saville Theatre building since Lost was launched in October 2025 — and if the revellers could have been mistaken for a slightly lost (ba dum tss) gathering of people attempting to catch a late-night performance of Les Misérables, the various banners emblazoned with the party’s mono-spaced font logo have likely given the game away. 

The elusiveness has, however, been maintained by one of Lost’s most unique qualities; having taken the "strict no phones" policies installed by other nightlife venues in the UK of late and inserted a little despotism, detaining all attendees' devices in sealed magnetic pouches upon entry and only allowing retrieval from said pouch when exiting. Combined with its practice of informing attendees who will be playing via chalk boards inside the venue and posting an old school rave-inspired hotline to call in order to get tickets ahead of every event, Lost has been successful in installing a “what happens in Lost stays in Lost” air. 

Despite the relative mystery afforded by said smart phone-removal, Lost has differentiated itself from the Berlin nightclubs that created the blueprint for the now-widespread trend in being more willing to give outsiders a look at its debauched dancefloors, with black and white images depicting artists, musicians and other famous faces posted (and later deleted) on its Instagram page after events. It’s been the location of brand parties, album launches, after-parties and more. It's more of a "you had to be there" vibe than the exclusive approach we've seen at Berghain.  

Earlier this month Lost revealed it would be leaving its current home following the conclusion of its lease at the end of May. The future - as far as we’re being told publicly - is currently unclear, though Riggall has maintained the party does not begin and end with the venue, but instead is about spreading London's new, idiosyncratic club night concept around disused buildings in the city. Before it moves on, though, I took a trip to Lost 1.0 to see what all the fuss is about.

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I’m nervous as I hand over my phone at the entrance. For some this is Lost’s biggest draw, the ability to truly and completely immerse oneself within a club night. And yet, as I feel my phone clipped within its new home I feel as marooned as the characters from the ABC show that Lost’s logo eerily replicates. I have to admit, I have an unusual connection to my phone. “What Megan doesn't know about being on her phone isn't worth knowing,” is how Mixmag's Editor Patrick Hinton usually describes my rampant, insatiable texting on the dancefloor impulse. But within minutes, that marooned feeling has given way to something else, all my senses have become heightened, unsullied by viewing them from the vantage point of my phone. 

This clear-headedness both benefits and sometimes acts as a hindrance to the overall experience. With the mystery now revealed, the most obvious positive to Lost is its soon-to-be-former cinema home. Rooms fitted to maximise acoustic enjoyment for cinemagoers provide an incredible setting in its club spaces. The sound is crisp, all-enveloping. In Lost’s basement main room, the DJ booth is set high in the rafters on a balcony, likely used to maintain screens, away from the curious eyes of the dancefloor. We can barely see Canadian electroclash legend Tiga but I’m furiously dancing as he works through a bass-heavy hour of bangers. It's extremely satisfying to throw my wrist up to a waft - unburdened by my usual, comfort blanket-esque grasp on my phone - as he dishes out Jamie Jones’ ‘Hungry For The Power’ edit to the multi-level dancefloor. 

The venue is made up of an intricate maze of spaces, some are used for more live angled-offerings, others are utilised for cinema screenings; there’s a music video room, which during my time there is showcasing old school hip hop classics with bustling popcorn machines at the back. Another is showing actual films, which vary from night-to-night and are kept under wraps in the same manner as the musicians on the bill. The cinema addition, while a usual fixture at Secret Cinema’s events, feels novel in a cub setting, like a sort of expanded chill-out room where you can go and take a breather before descending back into the fray. Of course, everything at Lost comes with that “expanded” feeling. From the carefully-built bar, to the overt lighting, to even its inclusion of a cheeky “powder room” light above one of its toilets. 

We settle into the cinema room for the last throes of Gaspar Noé’s Charlotte Gainsbourg-starring art film Lux Æterna, only discovering as the lights come on that the Argentine avant-garde director is in the room. Gaspar Noé takes the stage, turns out he’s hosting the room for the night. Up next, he introduces his 2018 psychological horror Climax, about a troupe of French dancers whose rehearsals descend into psychosis when they’re spiked with LSD. Commanding the room, he tells candid tales about his own clubland excess, safe in the knowledge the audience will not be recording the specifics.

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Not everyone is taken in though. There are groups of mates sitting around us arguing about who has been keeping hold of various bags, giggling - perhaps in awkwardness - at the meeting of cinema and party. As the lights go down and Climax begins its frantic opening, with the troupe central to the film’s plot on-screen dancing to Cerrone’s ‘Supernature’, around 20 people run down to the screen and begin dancing in front of it. I become instantly irritated by the fanfare. Why are these fashion students posing at the front - in the way of the screen with the literal director in the room - when there’s a club room, audibly rumbling next door? Is this crowd unaware of the irony of running up to dance to the film’s opening sequence, seemingly oblivious to the all-out gorefest that will be starting soon? Am I growing annoyed at this sight because I’m a cinema purist? Is the separation from my phone unearthing a long-buried asociality? Or am I just less malleable to my fellow attendees good time because the drinks are too expensive? 

Maybe as a dedicated clubber I’m more critical of parts of the experience that don’t fit into my nightlife preferences. Because, sure, Lost has a “what happens in Lost stays in Lost” vibe, but sometimes, it feels like even Lost isn't quite sure what does happen. One leg is firmly within the nostalgia-driven push to bring clubbers back into the moment, away from smart phones and cult of personality around musicians. But once inside, Lost slots its other leg snugly into its Secret Cinema heritage, with its veiled facade feeling kitsch when matched up to how manicured and intentional it all is. It’s billed as a club night, and the “in the moment” policies encourage us to behave in a way that revisits the golden-era of clubbing, but at its real core, Lost is ‘experiential’. 

There are undoubtedly moments where the lack of phones feels like a blessing though, people are snogging left-right-and-centre, people are having the deepest of DMCs at the bar. But as I’m queuing for the toilet while drunken girls are shouting at each other as they attempt to use a magnet to unclip their phones from their wallets, or watching people roll their eyes and declare “who’s that” in front of the live room’s stage, it feels less so. 

Regardless, even with its slightly-garish, tongue-in-cheek elements, it feels like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. For even the most seasoned clubbers, there is something in Lost that feels like a revelation, that’s why it's not just become a conversation topic among London’s dance music heads, but further afield. It’s the type of party that you will be telling everyone to try, without being able to explain exactly why and what they should try it for. And that’s why, even as it departs its first home, I sincerely hope it doesn’t get Lost. 

Megan Townsend is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, you can contact her here.