Anybody else bored of Origins in London?
As a disclaimer, I have gone to origins parties to see some great DJs and had a good time, but it seems like no other promoter gets a sniff for a lot of the DJs they book. They just announced 17 parties in October at pretty much every medium sized club in London of that category other than fabric. 8 of them all are night longs and there’s no interest in them pushing grassroots / upcoming talent in the slightest. Only thing they seem to do is have free ‘residents parties’ every now and then which does nothing for the scene. The monopoly of booking these DJ’s for 3-4 different clubs in London over a calendar year reminds me of the impact on the scene that Warehouse Project had in Manchester/Liverpool where everything started to feel more like a profit-focused event rather than having any benefit for the culture.
I remember a couple of years ago I was looking for something to do on a specific night and Origins had 4 parties on that night - two of them all night longs. The closer it got to the time, and two weren’t selling well and got cancelled. This can obviously happen to smaller promoters too but anybody starting from scratch without a good financial backing wouldn’t have been able to do this, and it’s obviously only a thing they can afford to do by having so many parties going. It’s been like this for a few years now and guessing that there’ll be a lot of small promoters / DJs / producers who’ve given up because of them. Less cash-focused monopolies on the London scene from now on please