SMUT’s Guide to Throwing the Best Afterparty in the World
Words: SMUT Press
Make it stand out
After a lifetime spent in the club and more recently putting on parties ourselves, we know too well that sometimes the afterparty is where it’s really at. Last Friday we threw a special after party for Robyn as part of her Sexistential Tour after her O2 Arena performance here in London. While the main event is all about the spectacle, the afterparty is where everyone exhales. It's a chance to properly celebrate, to really connect and lose yourself in a more intimate setting once the lights from the big stage fade which is exactly what our Club SMUT last Friday felt like. Small enough so it felt intimate, filled with SMUT regulars and friends behind the decks and a really euphoric and energetic dancefloor. It was giving the kind of night that reminds you why you throw parties in the first place. Looking to throw an afterparty? Here’s our guide to doing it right!
There has to be a dancefloor
The best bit! Queer parties exist with a different function and context than their straight counterparts. For many of us, these are the spaces where we hang out with an extended group of friends and many of us know each other through these spaces. They are our social spaces but for many of us, they are also a lifeline as a site of belonging, freedom and truth.
A dancefloor is a space to connect with friends and with others. The best kind of dancefloor is the one in which there is cross-pollination - where the point of sharing space with strangers is to make them less…strange? We deliberately place the DJ booth in the centre of the dancefloor to avoid the dynamic of the performer vs. audience hierarchy. By literally de-centring the space, it creates a more relaxed and fluid crowd movement and people really connect on our dancefloor. It is like that feeling you get at a house party: the intersection between familiarity and intimacy.
Every afterparty is a special occasion
Our signature foil sheets have become a mainstay of our decor for our parties and now we continue to add to it with silver bunting and foil curtains. Decor can often be an overlooked aspect of a party but it can really set the tone of experience. It is the first thing that people see when they walk into a space. We put effort into it because every party is a special occasion for us and we want people to feel that too.
Make your party accessible
As promoters, we get to shape almost every aspect of an event: the venue, the lineup, the production, the people working behind the scenes. The one thing we can never fully control (and often the hardest thing to get right) is the crowd.
We have built up a loyal crowd over the years over our events, for us seeing a real cross section of our circles represented on the dancefloor is important. Parties are about a celebration of life and life is beautiful in all of its variety and difference. We know that life in London is becoming harder financially which is why we always want to keep our events accessible as possible. We always hold aside discounted community access ticket links for those who face financial hardship or social marginalisation.
Keep it cute and positive
There’s a fine line between witty and shady. We want our parties to feel intimate and friendly so we always try to make sure that we are generating a positive atmosphere. The best kikis happen when people leave their ego at the door. Our ideal dancefloor is one where people feel comfortable enough to lose themselves in a moment of suspended reality. It’s not about escapism but about being able to imagine different ways of living and connecting to people.
Make sure the music is on point
What is a party without music? The sound for our parties is the result of a shared dedication to the dancefloor and to collecting and playing music. No party exists in a vacuum and we would not have been able to conceive a vision for SMUT if it were not for the legions of parties such as Cocktail D’amore at Griesmuhle, the DDR parties at Jigsaw in Dublin, Adonis and of course, Radiant Love (an iconic party by our DJ from Friday night, Byron Yeates.) all helped shape our understanding of what a queer dancefloor could sound and feel like.The SMUT sits somewhere between sexy, sultry and euphoric: house music with depth and emotional weight. It's a sound built from years spent travelling to parties across Europe from staying way too long at the club and then bringing those experiences with us and putting our own twist on it to create what we have today.
Throwing this afterparty for Robyn, someone who is adored by so many, has been a really special experience. It also helps that it was the beginning of London Pride weekend, literally the biggest weekend in the queer calendar every year. It was really heartening to see the joy and excitement from our Club SMUT regulars when they found out about this collaboration of worlds - the arena-filling euphoria of Robyn alongside the fierceness of Club SMUT!
Do it yourself
SMUT is and always will be independent - that means no brand sponsors, big corporate deals and no secret big backer. We started self funding this project from our hospitality jobs and we have built it up slowly over the years. Being independent means every event exists because people genuinely want it to exist. Everyone who buys a ticket becomes part of keeping the project alive.
We want to keep putting on events for a wider community of friends and party girls as long as we can because who is your party for if it’s not for you and your friends?
Space is Important - but not everything
Our after party on Friday night was held at a not-yet opened venue in Seven Sisters called Radial. Stunning soundsystem, great dancefloor and an amazing team behind it all! For us we are always interested in testing the elasticity of SMUT parties; how does it work in a new space, how do we maintain this same energy in a new space and how to keep that feeling of euphoria and push it even further. The venue is an essential component of any event and we never overlook their importance but we do like to think of SMUT as transcending the boundaries of a venue and something bigger than a space.
“Would we enjoy this?”
SMUT is just two of us and we do everything involved with the events; from booking flights, liaising with welfare, figuring out artist installations, installing a space to lighting the incense sticks in the PrEP bottles. For us they are a real labour of love and we want to make sure that everything comes together correctly which is why we do them so irregularly. There are countless decisions involved in putting one together ranging from capacity limits to artist set times, production details to programming. Over time we've found ourselves returning to one simple question whenever we're unsure: Would we enjoy this? More often than not, the answer points us in the right direction.