One of the best ways to get your own brand as a DJ out to the world is by hosting your own party and bringing in bigger DJs to headline while you play supporting slots. This model is easy enough to pull off in smaller cities but becomes a completely different endeavor if you’re wanting to start a fresh new party in a metropolis such as London or New York.
But Trutopia is one such duo that managed to pull off this seemingly-impossible feat and is not reaping the rewards. Their London-based party, NightMayors, was recently hailed by industry mainstay Ministry of Sound as being “the capital’s biggest house party.” and has not only helped the boys play amazing gigs but has also given them a platform on which to get signed with some of the biggest labels in the game.
Their latest release sees them teaming up with Greta Levska for a dreamy and atmospheric acid tune; out now on Get Physical.
Stream ‘Lights Off’ Below
The track is a tasteful blend of ominous melodies and dystopian atmospheres that interweave around a chanting vocal line that pockmarks the arrangement. The track’s breakbeat percussions are groovy enough throughout the first half of the track, but the breakdown’s moment of breathtaking clarity gives just enough reprieve from the rhythm to make its impact that much more forceful in the finale of the record.
Trutopia manages to extract the most value and beauty out of the few choice layers and elements included in this track and the end result is all the better for it, as this record begs to be repeated from first to last.
Plucking the courage & going for it
In the beginning, when we first moved to London it was like being on another planet, there was so much going on & we wanted to get as busy as possible behind the decks. We found this really tough as we had limited connections with promoters, and we didn’t even know how to approach them for bookings so the only way we could get busy, is by starting our own party.
NightMayors was born and we quickly become labeled as “the capital’s biggest house party” quoted by the Ministry Of Sound.
Start small
Don’t expect to just put a lineup & have queues down the street. Your crew, however small it is, is a great place to start. If you have a like-minded bunch of people, that would all share the same love & passion for the parties you’re putting on; this will resonate through friendship groups & next thing you know, your solid crew of 10, turns into garden parties where you have to rent your neighbors garden too!
As you suddenly can’t fit all the people that are turning up into yours…true story!
Consistency
A huge bonus about consistency is that you’re constantly in people’s minds if you’re feeding the WhatsApp groups, or posting on IG with weekly parties’ people will soon take notice.
We really wanted to get as busy as possible & grow our network, not just of partygoers but of DJs that we loved. We found through being consistent, we could rely on the fact that if certain people couldn’t make the party on one occasion, they had plenty of more time to be able to make it.
Having such an open diary really helped us book DJs that weren’t necessarily from London, but that was down for another gig over the same weekend and could slip in to play a free house party. Whether it’s the lineups you’re putting on to the PR you’re doing for the events, consistency is key.
Do something different!
This is one of the most important things to grow an identity that you’ll be known for. We wanted our party to be as fun as possible, giving people that Friday feeling!
It was the early days of live streaming, back when you had to get some mad gubbins to attach to your iPhone to get the sound straight from the mixer into the stream; we didn’t half lose our heads trying to get this up and running, but as it was getting a such big reaction, we knew we had to continue it. We partnered up with so many huge brands from the likes of Magnetic Mag, running multiple streams on their IG for brands like Desperado sponsoring the events, who sent us cases of beers!
All of these things contributed to having a different energy at the party, everyone couldn’t believe that a house party could achieve something that you’d usually expect at a top event where there’s usually a tonne of money been spent on all of this but we had spent nothing & neither did anyone that attended!
Mailing list
Having that network grow from 10 to 250 people and more, how do you make sure people stay engaged? Mailing lists are the perfect way to get people coming back & always kept up to date with news of the parties & projects you are pushing.
As easy as it sounds, this can be a pretty difficult thing to do when the music is pumping & everyone getting lairy, so we had to make sure there was a “Person on the door” so that when people entered they put their name and emails down as a way of free entry. This was such a good move for us & is a must if you’re starting your own party.
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
