Festivals can act as a jumping off point for any artist. A single performance can send an up-and-comer into the stratosphere overnight and the right Glastonbury set aired on the BBC at the right time to the right eyes can rocket you to number one.
But club culture is somehow exempt from that rapid domino effect, despite its huge influence. Sure, there are the stand-out Boiler Room sets and Tomorrowland streams played during pre-drinks, but a major part of club culture is that it hides in the shadows.
Performances take place in basements after midnight, hidden spaces away from prying eyes. That’s a major part of its appeal, but also doesn’t help DJs and producers break out from dark rooms. But as clubs and nightlife spaces continue to shutter at rapid speed, the need to reimagine what a ‘club space’ needs to be is vital.
This is the aim of AVA London. AVA London is not only a celebration of nightlife but a move to ensure it doesn’t cease to exist.
The idea behind AVA London is to share knowledge from cultural entities and major names from across the globe; a place where a young bedroom producer can learn from a global name. A conference sees keynote words from Bonobo, Oklou, Moby and the Avalanches, while workshops are being presented by the digital art institute TeamLab Japan, PRS, Ableton, the British Library Sound Archives, Resident Advisor and more. An after-hours series of parties then showcases why we fell in love with loud sound systems in the first place, with live shows and DJ sets taking place across the capital.
The person behind this is Sarah McBriar, who founded AVA in the Belfast docklands in 2015. Here, she tells us how festivals can help create new, year-long cultural spaces, and why we need to.
“It’s easy to say a festival ‘promotes culture’ or ‘supports new talent’; every festival does, in a way. The important thing is knowing what you are doing to support, build and grow, beyond putting an artist’s name on a poster and a slot at the live event.
Platforming has never been about a single slot. For us, it’s about connecting artists, industry, brands and creators through progressive conversations and spaces where cultural professionals and fans from around the world can exchange creatively.
AVA was born in Belfast, a city like many others across the UK where creative opportunities are not as common as they may be in London or another major city. For us, there’s a greate need for festivals to go beyond a line-up slot and really invest in creating and sustaining new spaces for culture.
But the question is, how can we as a collective group of festivals, conferences, clubs and ultimately artists ensure we are a part of creating new, shared culture? Rather than being reliant on outside observers watching trends and new talent rise?
I point to an Irish artist Sloucho as an AVA success story. He joined our AVA London Creator Forum in 2023, took part in the workshops, played our Boiler Room stage in 2024, then our ATN IMMERSE stage in 2025 and worked within our on-site festival team in 2026.
Since then, he’s built a career as an established artist crafting his own space within electronic music, his work transcending music and visual art. He’s done this through world-building, colliding ancient memories with visions of the future, alongside collaborations with much broader cultural names such as Gemma Dunleavy, Emby and Aisling Phelan 3D video creation.
Festivals also have the opportunity to connect brands to spaces that nurture and support culture and music, introducing them to industry contacts, clubs and artists to collaborate with. Club culture in its many incarnations has been proudly underground for decades, but as pressure mounts and clubs continue to close due to financial pressures, it’s important to bridge the gap between brands and music spaces for mutual growth.
AVA London’s ultimate aim is to help incubate spaces for culture. Platforming, done properly, is a two-way relationship, not a favour. I like to call this the throughline.
The heart of AVA London is in the variety and diversity of our line-up, which reflects the ever-expanding, dynamic cultural space that AVA is so proud to be a part of. But strip away the festivals, the shows, the events and the years gone by, what’s left is a single idea we’ve never really moved away from: create the space for new culture to happen, and then stay in the room long enough to help it grow.
That’s true of an artist getting their first real platform. It’s true of a scene that has had to fight to be heard. And it’s true of our aim to build creative infrastructure that creates long-lasting impact. Thirteen years in, that’s still the job.”
AVA London takes place 24–26 September across multiple venues in London. Tickets and passes are available now.
