The club promoters that go the extra mile for their crowd

While DJ's are the highly celebrated heroes of our clubscene, soaking up much of the limelight and the glory, give a thought to the people behind the scenes. Without the promoter, a club event would not even exist. It's about more than just hiring a venue, booking the artists, printing some flyers and organising the guestlist.

Since the dance music revolution of the late eighties, we've seen promoting evolve along with advances in technology and the expansion of the mass media until promoting an event has become more than just a couple of guys handing out flyers. An entire team can be at work on the best club nights covering various different aspects and marketing an event as acutely as possible.

Much of this is thanks to the gizmo you're using right now, this internet malarky. Club events have their own websites and of course social network pages on the likes of MySpace and Facebook. PR companies are plugging club brands is if they were any other commercial product, and are effectively promoting the promoters.

Here in Manchester we have some of the most creative, progressive and hard-working promoters in the country if not the world. AfterDark's knowledge of promoters isn't limited to our city alone and we know that there are plenty out there across the globe that haven't a clue.

Clique's promotional efforts include all of the above plus their website has embedded YouTube videos that can give you an idea of the club's atmosphere, music and what the clubbers are wearing (plus how good-looking they are). You can study the latter in closer detail in the image gallery and check the playlist by downloading a 'mixtape' to your desktop or mp3 player. As if that were not enough, members of some of the event's favourite bands, including Mystery Jets and The Whip, have been known to pop in and take to the decks.

At the opposite end of the music spectrum, metal event Caged Asylum like to theme their parties around such American stereotypes as truckers and rednecks, adding to the flavour with fancy dress giveaways such as mullets and trucker caps while also presenting tribute bands on their rosters.

We're sure that you feel that there's a party that you go to regularly and that they pull the stops out every time. Each Saturday night is like a New Year's Eve because the guys at the controls paid attention to those details that complete the whole package. So let us and the other readers know in the comments box below, what do your favourite events do that makes their party stand out from the pack and smash it for their crowds?

Words: Justin Richards

Comments:

07 Jan 2010 Paul

Hi Just read this article on promoters and would like to add that for going the extra mile its got to be the guys at Audio Farm, theyve got a fancy dress stall every month, free facepainter who is really really good! Mad decorations everywhere, and once they even handed out umbrellas in the cue when it was raining! if thats not going the extra mile I dont know what is! :)

5 out of 5

28 Aug 2009 Jon

analoguetrash, formerly of Moho Live was great for putting on those extra touches to make the night work. Alongside bands, the OTT club decor, free sweets, free glosticks and collectible flyers added loads to the music (which was already pretty damn good). I hope it comes back soon :-(

5 out of 5

Got something to say? Tell us here:

Please complete the form below. Mandatory fields marked *

1. Name *
2. Email *
3. Rating out of 5 * 1 2 3 4 5
4. Review *

Thank you