Reaching for utopia
Reflections on community building after 2 years of ROJAK parties and workshops
The weeks leading up to an event is nerve wrecking. There is a seemingly endless list of tasks to execute from liaising with artists to coordinating tech with the venue. Then there is the actual promoting work which nowadays heavily involves content creation (reels! reels! reels! *cries*) in addition to the IRL strategies like physical posters and flyers.
After two years at it, I wish I could say that it has gotten easier! As an independent party run by a volunteer team with day jobs, finding the time to do all this can be challenging.
Most promoters in the UK can relate to how rough nightlife is at the moment and the toll it can take. In the lead up to our last event, I developed this neurotic behaviour of checking the ticket page every 10 minutes to see if the counter has changed, and had to draw stricter boundaries around that this time for my sanity.
It has been a point of reflection for me, as these feelings come up each event cycle. Why am I doing this? Where is all this anxiety and fear coming from really?
There is the obvious worry about ticket sales, which is the main way we fund our production budget and pay our artists. I throw up a little every time I look at our balance sheets.
Ticket sales are so unpredictable. More and more I’m noticing the trends of tickets being purchased at the very last minute. For example, our recent collab event with Haven for Withington Pride sold out, but with most of the tickets being bought the night before and on the day itself.
Then there is high production costs, and the awkward conversations we should really be having around headliner DJ fees. We’ve been really lucky to have established artists support us by offering a fee that is viable for the size of our event, but more often than not the starting offer for a DJ who have played internationally and at major festival circuits is £1000, expenses not included.
Within the depths of my most recent spiral, I unexpectedly find myself empathising with these bigger capital funded operations. I totally get it. From a financial point of view I can see why these decisions are being made to book artists that can ‘bring in a crowd’ and managing risk by booking from a ‘reliable’ pool of talent. The downside however is a certain hegemony, and a very limited perspective of the exciting tapestry of electronic music.
This is why the idea of failure scares me. I started this project because I want to prove that queer people of colour can create our own spaces in nightlife and electronic music. Hence, when presented with these numbers, it is hard not to feel like I’ve fallen short. Or even worse, that this is a reflection of our worth.
This particular emotional landscape is one I’ve found myself circling back to over and over again, like those levels in a video game where you’re stuck in until the objective is achieved.
I keep asking myself, what is the lesson here?
There is this idea that whatever destination I’m reaching for, this magical utopia, will somehow dissolve all these difficult feelings within me and that I’ll finally be free. In my fantasy, the moment looks like that sequence in every gay movie, when the twink ingenue dashes to the middle of the heaving dancefloor, hands in the air, twirling around in ecstacy to the soundtrack of Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody.
But perhaps reaching for utopia is less about getting there but the act of reaching itself. If you asked if I would to do the past two years all over again, I would say yes in a few heartbeats, but yes nonetheless. It’s the camaraderie and sense of solidarity I experience in these spaces that gives me hope for the future.
From a historical perspective, the queers have always been at the frontlines fighting for social change. It is really impressive the way we’ve built communities and mobilise around causes. I like to think that the success in that is less about the landmark moments but the fact that we found each other, and became part of something bigger in the process.
It was nice to have our first sold out party at the start of this year. But the moments that will always stick with me are the small ones. Cutting every fringe into tinfoil with Huss. Chats with Levi while plastering posters all over town. Hugging friends as they arrive on the door.
Our next and final party of the year is on Friday. I’ll be there on the door to greet you if we’re lucky enough to have you join us.
Link to tickets here.