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Why clubbers and ravers are increasingly choosing a community, a scene and an experience before choosing a DJ.
This title isn’t ours. We’ve all seen it pop up several times in our feeds, often slapped over a video of a sweaty dancefloor as if it were some great universal truth. And we’ve probably all thought: “that’s so true.” But what does it actually mean? And above all, what does it say about us, our nights out and what the electronic scene has become? We thought we’d unpack it a little, in our own way.
First, one thing needs to be said: today, in Paris as elsewhere, going out without knowing the line-up, or at least one of the DJs playing that night, often means accepting the gamble of spending twenty euros (and we’re being generous with twenty euros) on the possibility of having a really shitty night. Or exactly the opposite: discovering three unknown artists, getting completely blown away and being able to tell all your friends the next day that, personally, you never look at line-ups. Everyone has their own way of gaining social capital.
For many people who don’t go out very often, the question barely even comes up. A night out costs money, takes time, sometimes involves an hour of travel there and back. So if you’re going to go out, you might as well see someone you know, someone you follow and someone you admire. The headliner remains a guarantee.
And for promoters, the problem is exactly the same. Making an event exist without relying on a recognisable line-up has become difficult. A big name sells tickets. It reassures venues, partners and the public. In an industry where everyone is fighting for a few hours of attention, a name probably remains one of the most effective marketing tools.
So what can still compete with a big name? Not much. Except the community.
Sometimes the venue too. The identity of a collective. A reputation. An atmosphere you’ve heard about. A way of partying that you know you won’t find anywhere else. RAW, for example, brought this mechanism back to the forefront with RAW XXS: small capacity, secret line-up, the promise of a more intimate experience. A genuine desire to return to something rawer, or a perfectly calibrated marketing argument built around the fantasy of the “secret rave”? Probably a bit of both.
Because we’ve seen plenty of secret raves. Underground parties with early-bird tickets, sponsored content and 4K aftermovies. At this point, the word underground has been used so often that it has sometimes become a little ridiculous. Because the underground, well, if it really were underground, we wouldn’t even hear about it.
But behind all of this lies the desire of an entire generation: to find an experience again.
A generation that seems nostalgic for an era that, for the most part, it never actually knew. The 90s, the warehouses, the phone numbers you had to call to get an address. We crave the stories of those who came before us, we want the struggle, we’re looking for the rave at all costs. (So we can film it.) Basically, we’re full of contradictions.
Obviously, that era is largely romanticised. The 90s may not have been any purer, any more equal, or free from business and all the problems that come with partying. It was different, and it depended on the place. Just like now. A party depends on the people there who make it what it is.
A little purist?
Like a little girl who suddenly stops liking pink just to be contrary, we hate anything commercial. We hate hard techno, sometimes with good reason, especially given the openly political leanings of some of the communities around it. The presence of shirtless macho guys, not to mention the whole idea of subversion being sold through harnesses and other accessories. For some people, looking for a community means looking for safety at a party. A community can serve exactly the same function as a big name: it reassures. But not in the same way. When you want the guarantee of a good night, others are looking for the guarantee that the night won’t go wrong.
You know what kind of crowd you’re likely to find, or, more importantly, what kind of crowd you’re unlikely to find.
You’re also paying to join, for a few hours, a group you want to be part of. It’s much more sociological than we might think. Émile Durkheim used the term “collective effervescence” to describe those moments when a group gathered together produces an emotional intensity that an individual could never generate alone. He obviously wasn’t talking about Parisian basements at five in the morning, but the idea works pretty well. The crowd creates the ritual.
By trying so hard to avoid the commercial side of things, haven’t we created a kind of closed circle?
But as soon as we start looking for a specific crowd, we also start looking for a specific scene. Certain codes, a style of music. That’s also when we can see just how fragmented the scene has become. We need to stop talking about “the techno scene” as if it were still one homogeneous whole. You only have to look at line-ups, collectives and audiences to see how scattered it has become. Hard techno, hardgroove, hypnotic, trance, schranz, industrial, minimal, queer scenes, vinyl-only collectives… as many communities as there are styles, and they rarely mix.
These micro-scenes eventually create their own codes. And that’s normal. Obviously, there is something deeply reassuring about that. In this case, staying within your own circle does not necessarily mean shutting others out. It can be a condition for freedom.
But we also have to be willing to look at the other side of the phenomenon. That closed-circle mentality can very quickly become a tool for distinction. The more a scene develops specific codes, the more it also creates ways of identifying those who don’t know them. We end up separating the “real” ravers from the tourists, “real” techno from techno considered too commercial, those who have known the DJ for five years from those who just discovered them on TikTok. There is always a way to show that you were there first, that you know better, or that you belong to the group more than someone else does. The utopia of techno for everyone feels a long way away.
But the reality is, we’ve become really snobbish.
Just look at the way a party is promoted today: sweaty bodies, passionate crowds, ultra-trendy looks… What is being sold is also the possibility of joining that crowd.
Sarah Thornton had already described this phenomenon in the 1990s through the concept of subcultural capital. Within club cultures, certain kinds of knowledge, tastes or behaviours provide status precisely because they allow people to distinguish themselves from the mainstream. This search for freedom and intimacy, for a connection with a crowd, for belonging to that community, today, that is also how we distinguish ourselves. It also works through a hierarchy of genres. Today, listening to “real techno” and knowing the cool parties and the important people means listening to groove. This isn’t a criticism, it’s an observation that is pretty easy to understand. This style has become the main representative of the underground and the subversive, and the king of the community that listens to “real techno.”
We created small communities to escape an industry seen as too standardised, and sometimes ended up rebuilding, on our own scale, boundaries that are just as rigid. We readily criticise the VIP logic of large-scale productions, but knowing someone at the door who can get us backstage is still a form of privilege. We reject the standardisation of the mainstream, while sometimes all adopting the same way of dancing, dressing, the same references, the same afters… It isn’t necessarily hypocrisy. It’s pretty inevitable.
So, in the end… yes, the crowd is the new headliner, because now this closed circle has become the first selling point.
An industry that used to sell names is now selling belonging. And belonging, unlike a DJ fee, is not negotiated in the same way: it is cultivated, worked on and shaped over time. A collective that spends years building its community understands that very well. It is also a question of power. Choosing a scene rather than a name means shifting value away from individual talent and towards the group surrounding it, and therefore towards the people who know how to build a collective: the collectives, the crews, the residents, the people working the door. Increasingly, they are the ones deciding who gets in and who stays outside.
One question remains: have we simply replaced a line-up elite with an elite of good taste?