Drumsheds: Is Bigger, Better?
Yes, I'm talking about Drumsheds again
This is the first of two parts in which I want to share some final thoughts on my experience of London nightlife before I dive into more Berlin focussed stuff. You can find the second part here.
“Make Drumsheds IKEA Again,” says the cap.
It’s a few weeks into the new year and I’m mindlessly rotting on my bed scrolling through Instagram. I’ve just come across a post advertising a limited run merch drop by the promoters Keep Hush, a jungle / drum and bass party crew known for their iconic green lighting in their set recordings. The merchandise is a simple cap with the aforementioned words on it.
I chuckle and send it on to a few of my friends who react in similar fashion. It quickly gains a lot of traction online with numerous artists and fans reposting the cap to their followers. But, like all modern viral trends, its time in the limelight fades as quickly as it gained it.
It’s stuck with me since though.
This merch drop follows a rather tumultuous season for Drumsheds. I attended the Bicep x Hydra event at the beginning of December and we left with a rather sour taste in our mouths. Then, the following weekend, the UKF event was reportedly carnage with 2+ hour queues and stories of overly aggressive security. A petition was created shortly after this night to “hold the venue accountable” demanding refunds.
And now that the backlash has grown to the point where people have started to create physical items of clothing mocking the venue in only its second year of operating. It has become evidently clear that something has gone wrong. Clubs are currently shutting left, right, and centre in the UK yet people are still finding good enough reason to mock this new venue.
Where has it all gone so wrong? Why aren’t we celebrating new venues any more?
Well, this is what has stuck with me for so long now.
Maybe Drumsheds was better at being an IKEA than a nightclub
The Venue
“Fifteen thousand people?”
They were staring at me incredulously.
“Yeah,” I say, not quite believing it at the same time.
We are stood outside Landsberger Allee station and exchanging clubbing stories whilst finishing off our last cigarette for the evening. I had made some new friends at the Four Tet night at the Velodrom and my newfound Kumpels were listening to me talk about what the nightlife was like in my old home city.
“How does that even work?” one of them questions me.
“Not particularly well,” I reply.
“Is it even fun?” another asks.
“Sometimes?”
As you can tell, I’ve rather gone off the venue now.
Coming away from my last attendance in December of 2024 for the Hydra x Bicep: CHROMA IN THE SHEDS night, I (and many of my compatriots that night) left rather dismayed. For as much as the venue is an outright spectacle it just wasn’t what we wanted from the night. Other venues, we felt, ticked our boxes better which in turn resulted in better nights out.
So I want to talk about what the venue does right and, more importantly, where it underperforms.
The Pros
As I stated above, Drumsheds is a spectacle through and through. I showed some of the pictures and videos I had taken at Drumsheds to my friends from the Four Tet night and they noted that yes, it does look pretty cool to be there.
This spectacle only grows when looking at the lineups because you have to admit, they’re absolutely stacked. That Bicep night had me running from room to room, attempting to catch all the artists I wanted to see play. And it’s like that almost every weekend with each of its parties. I remember when the first season of parties was announced in 2023, I couldn’t quite believe my eyes.
One of the things I particularly love about the lineups (especially with the Hydra events), is that it’s often a combination of relatively big names and more up and coming names which I find so often lacking nowadays for events of that size. The big names draw the crowds in and both the smaller artists have a better crowd to work with and the crowd get to discover cool new artists to listen to.
And when you combine all of the above together with its nice and early finishing time of 10:30pm, it sells itself as a real experience to the more amateur clubbers. It introduces new people to a scene that really needs them at the moment in a literally spectacular way and guarantees the “big” in a big night out for them. For those who may be more intimidated by the idea of the “underground electronic music scene”, this guarantee is a real sell for actually committing to the motive. It lowers the bar to entering the community to a very accessible place for those who may not have always been interested in going out like that but were keen to try.
It also makes creative use of empty property in the city that would otherwise rot away. IKEA’s gone now, so may as well use the building for something. As much as it is likely to eventually end up turning into yet another block of luxury apartments, seeing such space go to a culturally beneficial use is inspiring.
The venue genuinely has the right setup, the right idea, and the right attitude to become this role model for nightclubs across the world. Its bold ambition to create this centre of music and culture in an ailing commercial building is a real testament to people’s creativity to create something good out of something forgotten.
I’m still not going to go back any time soon though.
The Cons
Now this is where it starts to get juicy. And long, bear with me.
Starting with the basics, it’s just too many people. And this creates so many issues.
At the Bicep night in December, shortly before Bicep were due to come on, I fancied a break outside to get some air. Two friends of mine decided to join me and off we marched from our relatively central spot to get to the doors.
I’m not joking when I say it took 5 full minutes to just leave the crowd. It was wall to wall with people and attempting to push through them was a nightmare and a half. Sweaty, overheating faces rolled their eyes at us with exasperation as we pushed through their little throngs. For a space so large, people were packed pretty tightly and heated the place up to an almost extreme temperature. And let’s not start about trying to get back into the crowd.
People, or should I say human bodies, are also excellent absorbers of sound. And when you put a small festival’s worth in one room, they’re going to eat any and all sound that’s in there, and Drumsheds is where you really notice it. I’m usually one for ear plugs in venues, following tinnitus in the family and a distinct dislike of ringing ears, I’ve taken to bringing a pair to every night out. However, I didn’t need them in the main X Room as the sound felt like it was coming out of a bluetooth speaker at points. I remember watching a TikTok when Drumsheds first opened where it was mentioned that the venue knew about the sound absorption issue back in 2023. It’s a shame that it seems they haven’t been able to fix it yet.
Let’s talk about travel next. In short, getting there is a mission and getting back is carnage. We barely had time for pre-drinks (arguably the best part of a night out) and then we had to sit on public transport for a solid hour to get there. Leaving is so much worse as the only travel away is a train that runs every 10 minutes from one station (good luck getting an Uber). We were fortunate to have the idea to leave early from the Bicep night and made it to the station with relative ease in about 15 minutes with a coat check stop included. However, the other half we had left behind didn’t have as good a time getting out with the venue only letting people out in stages. It took them an hour just to get to the station.
Once you arrive at the venue, your ordeal isn’t over as you enter into what can only be described as airport style security. It’s true that venues need to take a proactive step in ensuring that clubbers are safe inside, but I was nigh on strip searched going in before being marched through a metal detector. The girls in the queue over from me had makeup confiscated, expensive stuff too. What harm does eyeliner pose? There are also roughly 16 security queues you could join there and you would think that this would at least make the experience quick. Well you would be wrong, an extra half an hour was added to our entry into the venue despite the 2-3 staff they had per queue.
And despite all of that security madness, I was offered drugs within about 4 minutes of getting inside.
One of the more poignant things that I’ve been discussing with a dear friend of mine is why the venue seems to lack that certain charm that Printworks oozed. And after a lengthy discussion, we think we have it.
The building isn’t actually that interesting.
Its prior use was infamously an IKEA and it was custom built for IKEA. So it was built with IKEA’s philosophical tricks in mind like walking shoppers along a maze to encourage them to buy more things and removing windows to make them lose their sense of time. It was built for one capitalistic reason: to spend. And capitalism isn’t anything new, so its history is utterly uninteresting once you get past the various forms of meatball jokes.
Some may argue: but hasn’t its repurposing given it a more interesting story now? Well I’m not sure I agree. Yes it’s true, that it’s no longer a place to “buy buy buy”, but has its overarching capitalistic purpose actually gone? There’s an odd poetry in how the aisles of flatpack furniture have instead been replaced by walls of corporate sponsorships and logos. It’s a surreal feeling walking along those halls and trying to convince yourself that this “underground scene” you once fell in love with all that time ago hasn’t sold out quite yet. And the brands aren’t even that “cool” and “underground”, I remember Budweiser being a sponsor.
Finally (I’m ranting I know), I mentioned Printworks before and I’m going to mention it again. Drumsheds never expressly marketed itself as “Printworks 2.0” so some would say it’s unfair to make a like for like comparison. But I sadly don’t agree. As much as the team at Broadwick Live may not have intended for the venue to be directly compared to its predecessor, I felt that the clubbers and media most certainly did. And this is where I believe the venue fails the most.
To start, Printworks’ building was honestly fascinating. The tall central printing hall with its marvellous array of walkways and that weird booth bit that stuck out on the left (if you’ve been you know the one) had you wondering what it was all for. This used to be a printing press, why was this room so big? And I would often catch myself wondering what stories had been printed here, what history did this place witness?
Printworks had all of the pros that Drumsheds has today. It was a pioneer in the Big Night Out Guarantee with its insane lineups and even promised a fantastically early bedtime.
And Drumsheds followed an infamous back and forth of Printworks announcing closures and then suddenly getting extensions. Almost like it was following in the venue’s footsteps.
Therefore you can’t help but compare the two places, and Drumsheds sadly comes out worse here. I can’t really see myself going back in the near future (without including the physical distance involved), and neither can many of my clubbing peers which is a worrying sight. As much as we may have individually had our issues with Printworks, we always went back. This doesn’t seem to be the case for Drumsheds.
Rant Over
Printworks opened in 2017 and it pioneered the idea of London’s “bigger is better” with its roughly 6000 people capacity. True, Ibiza is known for their superclubs, but London at the time was lacking in this department so Printworks was a welcome sight.
When I first went in 2019 I was blown away with just how cool it was to be surrounded by so many people indoors of all places. Its lineup was so good week after week that it kept pulling in more and more people and this was what it did so well.
Big.
And Drumsheds has come along and said “why not bigger???” and ran with it. But I’m not sure it’s been having the effect that I think it’s been trying for. As much as I went on a bit above about my gripes with the venue, I just wanted to get across everything that I felt it underperformed in. They’re all individually excusable offences if you ask me, but combined make for quite an exhausting and uninspiring visit.
And most of that is compounded by just how big the place is.
It’s just too many people.
And this is where I begin to question, have we gone too big here?
So what do I want instead?
Something Different
And that’s about it really.
It’s not that I hate Drumsheds and don’t want it to exist (I was joking earlier about turning it back into an IKEA), I just don’t think that it’s really adding anything new to a scene that needs something new. It ran on “big” in every sense of the word and now that charm has worn off for me. All the little niggles that were so easy to initially look past are much more glaring today.
But what to do with the place? I say keep it for now, but please make it a more enjoyable experience.
I want to be wowed with big rooms and amazing lineups and I want to take my newbie clubbing friends there for their first big night out experience. It gets so much right but also so much wrong at the same time.
I’m not suggesting things like “Drumsheds is solely responsible for the transport arrangement” at all, it would be unfair to. But if the venue were more worth all the little niggles, I wouldn’t be so hesitant to return.
My follow up post to this one will go into detail about other parties that I believe are “doing it differently” well.
“But what would you change, Phil?”
As someone who doesn’t work in the industry I can’t really offer expertise or experience here, but there are things that I think could work well in a venue like that.
Firstly, logistics, make it a much smoother entrance and exit experience. Security is absolutely necessary but make the search feel less like airport security. It felt close to an interrogation going in. At least let people take in makeup.
Secondly, the rooms, make them more interesting. They’re essentially big window-less boxes with screens at the end. Screens can be cool when used well but I find they can often steal focus away from the music. Maybe a light show could work well instead. I found that the latest addition to the Y Room was neat with the rolling ticker tape displays above the dancers. It was a fun new addition that I felt added to the room and it worked well for the space, it added some new audiovisual experiences, and wasn't just a screen.
Another new interesting thing that could be done to the X Room is adding verticality. The walkways that were present in the 2023-24 year were a fantastic way of adding interest to the space. Maybe more vertical space could work well in the room and give people alternative places to experience the space from.
Thirdly, more variation outside of the rooms. The rooms are three boxes at the moment and all the seating / chill out areas are in the smoking area and the bits between the rooms are essentially empty space and bars. Printworks’ second hall alongside the main room was a great place to sit with friends and chat whilst still being able to listen to the main room. More of this please! Sometimes it’s nice to sit down and relax and maybe even make some new friends in the meantime. Having all the seating outside means that you’re subjected to the elements and that made for a rather harsh experience in December.
And finally, the people. As much as it pains me to say this, it’s just a few too many people. Granted it’s an insane experience being in a room with 14,999 other people in it, but it makes the venue a logistical nightmare. As I’ve said before, the sheer volume of people makes all the little niggles all that more worse and cutting this down could really benefit the venue.
To Conclude
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for listening to me rant away. I had such high hopes for this place when I first went and it saddens me to have lost that magic optimism I once had for the venue. I hope to regain it some day.
So to conclude, I’d like to clarify that I have nothing against the Broadwick Live team and what they do. The work they do for the electronic music scene has been nothing short of miraculous and there’s lots for them to be proud of there.
However, saying that, I think that Drumsheds needs a long and hard look at. As much as it may still seem to work on the surface with the events they’re posting from the current SS25 season in full flow, the fact that none of my clubbing peers are overly keen on returning is a telling tale of the venue’s potential future. Word of mouth is a powerful force in the electronic music community.
In fact, I don’t actually recall whether any of the AW24 season shows actually sold out. I’m sure there must have been a few, but I could always find tickets to the upcoming weekend’s shows on the few times I checked even only a few days in advance. This is a far cry from the year prior where the Bicep x Hydra show sold out completely within minutes months prior. I remember vividly as I was trying for a ticket.
So Drumsheds, make me want to come back. After all, for those readers who know me, I do love a Big Night Out and your halls are (almost) perfect for it.
One Last Thing
In a weird twist of fate, after initially finishing this post, I came across a few Instagram posts from Drumsheds covering their SS25 season and I had the urge to take a look at the comments and see what people were saying in there. And to my delight, I saw many commending the improvements that venue has been making. It seems like they’ve been taking on the feedback from the AW24 season and have done a lot of work to improve the venue especially in the queueing department.
One can only hope that it isn’t too little, too late though.