Is London’s next superclub this warehouse by a sewage works in Barking? | Music

B.Between redevelopment, inflation, licensing and noise complaints, keeping a nightclub afloat in London can be difficult: earlier this month Corsica Studios at Elephant and Castle joined more than 50% of UK clubs lost since 2013.

Given this context, Eutopia’s opening this weekend Independent nightclub with a capacity of 4,000 people The cultural venue in a former shipping depot in Barking is something worth celebrating. But music fans stung by the repeated loss of the capital’s best dancefloors, from Plastic People to Printworks, may also be skeptical. Is Eutopia here to stay, or is it just another false dawn? So are people really going to go to the east end of the city, 12 miles from the West End, to the club across the river from the sewage treatment plant?

The Eutopia team includes some of London’s most experienced nightlife operators. Will Paterson, one of its four co-founders, has worked for venues and festivals such as E1 and Eastern Electrics for over two decades. Another, Tom Ranger, spent several years overseeing music bookings at East London’s Oval Space (which later closed following a shooting in 2022).

Paterson and Ranger are confident that Eutopia will run its course. “We have a long-term contract and are slowly growing,” says Paterson. “We expect next year to be a good year where we will learn a lot and do more shows, even more in 2027. When you look at a good thing, [London] For a venue like The Cause or Night Tales, it takes three years.”

Eutopia is also unusually timely. Unlike many other post-industrial superclubs of similar size, such as Canada Water’s Printworks, Tottenham’s Drumsheds or Manchester’s Depot Mayfield, this club was not created as part of a “meanwhile” scheme in which developers worked with developers to temporarily use a vacant site for cultural use before it was redeveloped. A venue like Printworks, which is closing in 2023, always had a firm deadline; Eutopia’s long-term prospects seem much more open-ended.

Another important factor working in Eutopia’s favor is that there are no local residents who can complain about it: their nearest neighbors are more than a mile away. This means they can avoid many of the noise-related problems that plague many of their colleagues and, in fact, directly contribute to the demise of Elephant and Castle’s Corsica Studios when new-build flats are allowed to be built next door.

“When we met with the municipality and the police, especially the police, they told us: We will support you because we prefer new entertainment venues to be in places like this,” Paterson says. “Their position was: Why do we issue a license and then let people call and complain for 52 weeks a year?”

While the Metropolitan Police declined to comment for this article, Barking and Dagenham Council said: “Nightclubs are often located in industrial or regeneration areas where land values ​​are lower and potential disruption is minimised. While transport links may be limited late at night, venues remain responsible for patron safety during dispersal.”

Their statements point to some of the compromises that come with Eutopia’s isolated environment: part of a long-standing trend in which cultural activities are being pushed further away from the inner city as neighborhoods gentrify, rents rise, and new housing projects are built. “The reality is venues will be pushed to the margins,” says Paterson. “We got this opportunity because it’s further away.”

Eutopia is perhaps the most extreme example London has seen in this particular process. Located just beyond City Airport, beyond even the London postcode area, this area is bordered by industrial units, wetlands and Beckton sewage works: it’s not the kind of place where you can hop from bar to bar. Public transport is irregular: Eutopia is a 35-minute walk from Barking station and a 25-minute walk from Barking Riverside, at the end of the Overground. Neither is part of the Night Tube and the only local bus service stops at midnight.

“Yes, coming here is more difficult than going to a place like this. [Charing Cross Road’s] Outernet,” says Paterson, explaining that visiting Eutopia might involve “friends getting together to share an Uber, or just one person driving in the new sober world we live in.” This is perhaps reminiscent of the early 90s, when London travelers had to get into a Vauxhall Nova and cross the M25 to find the party.

“If the venue is really special or the party particularly interests me, I’m happy to travel more than an hour,” says Charlie, a dance music fan in his 20s. “Especially if a venue is geared for longer events, has a variety of spaces and comfortable places to relax.” His views are shared by Daisy-Mae, a DJ based in Clapton. “If there was a really good squad, if there were people I could go with and I could do it for a good price, I would definitely choose to go to Barking,” he says.

Mixmag’s deputy editor, Megan Townsend, agrees that Londoners are more accustomed to logistically complex nights out: “There were more clubs in central London 30 years ago, so of course people are traveling further afield now. Venues like Drumsheds show that thousands of clubbers are willing to make such journeys.”

But Eutopia’s location in the middle of an industrial area, far from busy main streets and transport links, complicates matters. “I really don’t want to have to take a taxi or bus from station to club,” says Charlie. “I’ve also been to venues in industrial areas where there’s a long walkway, often without lights, which feels sketchy to me, even as a man.” Eutopia has clearly assessed security risks (from doubling the amount of time security staff are kept on shift after an incident to installing temporary pavement lighting from Eutopia to nearby stations); but it remains impossible to overlook the fact that such reductions are necessary.

Eutopia’s founders say they want to run things so expertly that the worries eventually fade into the background. They spent £1.5 million on the venue itself, designed by the team behind Glastonbury’s San Remo venue. Their 4,000-person capacity is split into a variety of more modular and intimate spaces, suitable for everything from club nights to film screenings to community events, as opposed to one huge, impersonal space. Tom Ranger explains: “I think everyone would say 600 is the perfect size: big enough to get lost in, but small enough to feel intimate.” “But the reality is that unless you’re Live Nation or AEG, which can afford to run a loss, operating a venue of that size is an extremely difficult task.”

Early signs look positive; Events from the organizers range from Gen Z up-and-comers Appetite to sold-out shows for the crazy World Dance. But Eutopia’s lack of corporate backing (another glaring contrast with other developer- and private-equity-funded spaces) means there’s little room for complacency. “It’s like when people see a new restaurant and say, ‘We should check it out,’ and six months later they find it’s closed,” Ranger says. “Go check it out, support it.”

Paterson and Ranger are keen to counter the pessimism that sometimes shapes Londoners’ perceptions of nightlife. “We know the economy is tight for most people,” Ranger says. “But we still have the ability to embark on something new and exciting. I hope people come on this journey with us.”