OUR OWN TABLE
At Wheel Up!, Nina’s recurring garage night, emerging artists pay homage to UKG, breaks and garage. Image: Lucy Adams
Moving to a new city alone as a young person can be a shock to the system. A key part of mapping out a city is by experiencing the nightlife — but there are barriers no one prepares you for.
Newcastle is home to two universities, one being a red brick. It’s a true melting pot of all types of people from all different walks of life. However the classism from rich, privately educated students from the South is everywhere and somehow it’s so corrosive. They invade your space in every way and yet look right through you at the same time (even before we get into the structural stuff, the shortcuts). The spaces that we’d cultivated, grown up in, had become ours, are now the ones I warn younger girls are unsettling and alienating; you learn to avoid certain clubs, club nights and accommodations.
I recall going to a pre-party in my second year in Castle Leazes (an accommodation known for being two things: dirty and posh). Whilst half of the party shied away from mine and my friend’s Yorkshire accents, one lad asked us what schools we went to. A bizarre question, but his reaction was even more unbelievable. After responding with our school names he said “hmm… I’ve never heard of them, are they private schools?” – to which we, confused, replied “No?”. He huffed, turned around and left. We were gobsmacked.
Being in nightclub smoking areas or behind the decks getting accosted by boasts about which chalet a guy’s staying in for ski season doesn’t make you feel welcome. This is why I’ve always preferred going to raves, where no one cares who you are or what you’ve come from. Creating new places to come together, moving on from whatever’s before, bringing everyone along with us is in our bones up here; decks and USBs are portable, so’s the spirit of the underground, you monitor a couple of logistics and the party just unfolds of its own accord, more dazzling, warm and more of a mesh of ideas than anyone could have planned out. But even the rave is becoming gentrified.
Image: Nina Fravigar
As a promoter I always feel the need to make sure people don’t experience what I did going to my event. It’s my job to make sure my events are inclusive and safe for everyone.
Isn’t it funny how the privately educated, southern promoters don’t value these things? Pouring money into marketing and calling it ‘strategy’ whilst there’s inclusivity ethos, no contribution to the local scene, no giving fresh faces the sets they deserve, no education on the history of the music they’re playing, no reaching anyone but the same demographic every. Single. Time.
I will always call this out but it’s hard staying calm. Whilst I work almost every day alongside my uni course to afford to scrape by, run my own events and cover my own costs as a DJ, I am aware that these people are probably funding everything with their parents’ money. They can afford to fail whilst we can’t. They live off trust funds, I live off minimum wage and universal credit. Their Ubers to Jesmond are on a parent’s account, I’m walking back to Heaton after a 3am set.
Our efforts have been consistent and something is shifting, finally. The past year has seen a push from audiences all over for more inclusive line-ups, and the supporting of smaller events, particularly those ran by local women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people. There are a lot of people like myself who are noticing damage to the scene due to oversaturation of events made by rich students, who they don’t care to uplift the local scene they barge into.
I’m very glad to see people biting back and putting their money where their mouth is. Most of all, I’m glad to see our spaces realised instead of suffocated. There is so much more to come, so much more that has to come for anyone to understand the magnitue of talent about. The calls for events where everyone can enjoy and make music in a space where they feel welcome, safe and equal are causing the friction and pressure that change requires.
Alongside her degree and freelance graphic design work, Nina co-founded Wheel Up!, a recurring student night resurrecting 90’s garage and breaks. Tickets start at £3.
