On Friday the 11th October 2024, we hosted our first party under our new ‘OPEN’ brand. We were absolutely thrilled to be able to welcome UK deep soulful house & broken beat legend, Atjazz to join us at the Craufurd Arms in Wolverton, Milton Keynes for this opening account… pun intended.
Our custom amp rack. Crown amplifiers and DBX processing.
The night was a great success if we don’t mind saying so ourselves. In a time where many grass roots venues and promoters are feeling the pain of reduced attendee numbers, we really didn’t know what to expect.
Thankfully we welcomed just under 200 like minded and amazing people who danced with us from start to finish enjoying real underground house music in a dark room. Thank you to all for your support and great vibes on the night.
The other test of this first party was the first full run of the sound system that we put together for our events. We wanted to emulate the warm sounds of 90’s clubs we ourselves attended and loved. To be able to achieve this, the only way is to have full control over the sound system components as well as the tuning. Having our own sound also means we are able to (in theory), use any viable space for events.
To help with as strong a sound and atmosphere as possible, we also tried to reduce/nullify the rooms acoustical characteristics. This was achieved by the hire of free standing heavy serge wool drapes covering all walls from floor to ceiling. This did an excellent job in preventing reflections and reverb as we hoped it would. The net effect of this on the dancefloor is a tighter and punchier sound at all frequencies, without hearing the reflections off the hard wall surfaces at the same time as the audio from the speakers.
We took quite a few points of note around the sound & where we could tweak or improve things. We also sparked some other ideas from this first party. Over winter we’ll review, adjust & go again for our next few events in 2025. Watch this space for announcements on future parties!