The creators of Catacombs say they’re doing things that have never been done in the iconic Queen Street music venue.
Out back of Auckland Town Hall is the venue’s offical green room, an area reserved for artists before their shows. “It’s normally where whoever’s playing on stage would be drinking and hanging before their set,” says Gus Sharp, a part-time music promoter. It’s off limits to audience members, and isn’t used as a public space.
That changes on January 7 when Catacombs: A Rave New World – a one-night dance festival billed as a “synapse-warping inferno of rave” – takes over the venue. Called off last year because of Covid lockdowns (it was last held in 2019 at the Civic’s Wintergarden), it promises to deliver a summer line-up of dancefloor-filling underground DJs to the Town Hall at a time of year when Auckland severely lacks shows and festivals.
Sharp estimates about 300 people can fit inside the green room area, one of three areas hosting DJs and a crowd of up to 1,500 on a night that will run from 9pm until 4am. “It’s going to be a totally different use of that space,” he says – a chill out zone complete with an array of dub DJs, beanbags and a 360-degree hand-crafted sound system.
Opening up the green room is just one way Sharp and his festival co-founder Tom McGuinness promise to upend the Town Hall as we know it. DJs will spin tunes from the floor instead of the main stage, allowing punters to get up close and personal, Boiler Room-style. Instead of hanging backstage, punters might find the night’s headliners – Dutch DJ Job Jobse and the UK’s Palms Trax – dancing beside them. Smoke machines, pulsing strobes and intense light displays will seal the deal.
But the night’s biggest showstopper is a pyramid being built in the middle of the Town Hall’s main floor. This, the pair hope, will provide better vantage points and areas for fans to climb. Don’t worry, it’s all safe. “We’ve worked out with health and safety what the maximum increments you can have without handrails,” says Sharp. They persuaded Auckland Council to hand over the keys thanks to their history of hosting trouble-free, inclusive events.
Why go to all this effort? Sharp and McGuinness admit they’re not in the promotions game for the money. Both have day jobs – Sharp runs Wellington Council venues, and McGuinness works for Universal Music in London – so promoting shows and festivals under the name Friendly Potential, including the very good waterfront dance party Beacon, is a total side hustle. “We’ve never paid ourselves a cent,” says Sharp. “It’s a hobby that pays for itself.”
But there is a point to it all. McGuinness wants to bring back the magic of the massive raves he attended when he was in his late teens and early 20s. He’s sad that they’ve fallen out of fashion, and wants to help bring them back. “We don’t get those big raves anymore, those big multi-room dance parties,” says McGuinness. “They haven’t existed for a long time.”
So this is, partly, a throwback to their youth, a chance to keep the dream alive. But it’s also a chance to cater for ravers who haven’t yet grown out of spending a night dancing in front of compelling DJs. “When you think about dance music festivals, you think about 18-year-olds who are ripped as fuck [with their] shirts off,” says Sharp. “I’ve got two kids and a pot belly. I want to be where people look like me.”
They also want to “push the Town Hall into a different mode”. He hopes groups of friends gathered around the venue have very different experiences across the night. “I guess the feeling might be to get a little bit lost in the whole space,” he says. It’s why they called it Catacombs. The idea was, “If the Town Hall was empty and abandoned, what would we do with it?”
Even if they lose money, the pair say they’re not worried. Thanks to advance buzz, they’re anticipating close to a sell out. Besides, they’ve done the math and worked out it’s cheaper to host their own festival and lose a little money than fly to Melbourne and enjoy someone else’s. “It’s very much fan-first stuff,” says Sharp. “We’ve really leaned into the fact that this is big, and stupid, and awesome. The reaction for this one has been massive … It’s worked out so far.”