It’s not just the clubs: Notting Hill Carnival soundsystems silenced

There’s been an awful lot of rubbish in the news this week about the reported decline in the number of UK nightclubs.

The better stories have highlighted just how complex the issue is, (the forces of regeneration, legislation, technology, uptight residents and stretched police resources all conspiring to clip the wings of our famous late night scene), while sadly, many more ill-informed, screaming headlines have tried to infer that the kids just don’t like dancing anymore.

Anyone with a funky bone in their body will recognise what rubbish that is. But unfortunately the party-pooping perfect storm currently affecting our club culture is all too real. And it seems to have finally caught up with one of the last truly free celebrations of London’s unique musical heritage: Notting Hill Carnival’s static soundsystems.

A few days ago, perennially popular house music system, Sancho Panza, were forced to make an official announcement: after 20 years of triumphantly successful appearances at the event, and with heavy hearts, they were throwing in the towel.

“To put a very complicated situation very simply,” says Sancho’s Matt Brown, “the negatives were outweighing the positives.”

Their legendary pitch, on Middle Row with the DJ booth perched behind a Victorian school playground wall, was rendered out of bounds last year as demolition of the whole building took place.

The same, sweeping regeneration of profitable West London real estate is why Norman Jay’s neighbouring Good Times (up on West Row) has also been wiped from the Carnival map for a second year running, with no replacement pitch found for his globally-renowned party bus.

“We had to make a decision and put out an announcement as we were getting loads of messages from people quite rightly wanting to know if it was going ahead,” says Matt.

“A new site for us wasn’t ever really on the cards, but we’d been busy looking at our existing site with fresh eyes to see if we could make it work… and we couldn’t.”

Over recent years, cash-strapped police have increasingly been putting crowd management in the hands of the soundsystems.

“That means the costs are spiralling every year,” says Sancho compadre Jim Angell. “We’ve been told to think of ourselves as an independent venue, responsible for everything except collecting the rubbish.

“That means more spending on stewards, security, fencing and things, but at the same time they are now trying to control people coming to the site.”

In recent times, access to popular sounds such as Sancho Panza’s and Norman’s has been cut off by lines of hi-viz vested officers using fairly comprehensive – and frustrating – crowd control tactics.

This greatly reduces the number of people buying drinks from the official bars, the only cash generator for soundsystems that have spent months planning, rigging – and then putting on – a completely free two-day party to the letter of the law.

“The first time we got ring-fenced in by the police, unannounced, six years ago, I remember looking at Jim and saying ‘this is the beginning of the end’,” says Matt. “I’m sad to say I was right.”

But both the Sancho DJs are keen to ensure the police aren’t seen as the bad guys in this complex situation. “There’s a lot of good will between all of us,” says Jim. “The police, the council, the organisers; everyone works incredibly hard to ensure Carnival happens every August. The fact it does, such a bonkers free event in the streets for a million people, is actually a miracle.”

Outdoor dance fests have never been more popular in this country, with more festivals taking place this summer than ever before. Brits today love an al fresco rave-up, and alongside Glastonbury, Notting Hill is the granddaddy of them all.

Yet delving into a few statistics reveals how under-resourced Carnival still is. MyNottingHillCarnival.com highlights some telling ones. Were you aware, for instance, that the event fits 1.5 million visitors into 3.5 miles, compared to Glastonbury’s 135,000 visitors across 8.5 miles? Or, that there is one toilet for every 27 people at Glasto, but only one for 5,000 at Carnival? No wonder some posh front gardens get thoroughly pissed upon.

A major factor in these logistics struggles is the ongoing lack of a headline sponsor, particularly when putting on an event that is totally free to attend, (as opposed to one charging a £225 ticket fee).

In part, that is the fault of our media, who still seem unable to cover the Carnival other than in the most perfunctory of ways. When not showing a standard policeman-dancing-with-costumed-beauty clip, they are gleefully totting up the number of arrests.

Social media is beginning to readdress the balance, with footage (such as the excellent viral police dance routine below) revealing what the energy and joy of a day dancing to thundering basslines in the streets is actually all about.

But people who don’t attend the event continue to be presented with a strangely warped view of it, framed through the outdated prism of simmering racial tensions that haven’t reared their head significantly here for decades.

That history is, of course, key to the identity of this uniquely London phenomenon. But it equally holds back its acceptance as a long-standing positive, influential cultural force, and therefore masks its true value to a potential sponsor. And that’s a crying shame.

Politics too, inevitably, play a part. “We’re represented by B.A.S.S, the British Association of Sound Systems,” says Jim. “I’ve been going to their meetings for 22 years, and they’ve been moments when the whole room is laughing at the ridiculousness of some of the political scenarios.”

In fact, while police, council and the DJ teams on the ground have pulled together to make it all happen, higher up the chain of organisation, there can be infighting.

“I’ve left other meetings really down,” admits Jim. “We’re talking about this amazing event, that should be a celebration for us all, and there are still cantankerous old voices bringing up the same old arguments.”

Ultimately though, the event does return every year, and every year it is fantastic. 2015 won’t have Matt and Jim’s epic contribution, or Norman’s, but it still going to be a roadblock of unbridled joy and dancing in the streets. Make sure you are part of it.

What worries me though, is that Good Times is being forced instead to take place in East London (Sat 29th at the St John at Hackney church) and South (Mon 31st after Carnival party at the Prince of Wales rooftop in Brixton), while Sancho Panza weigh up their options for throwing their own mini August bank holiday bash out of town next year.

If Notting Hill scatters its once-loyal crowds to other locations, then it might just start to fall foul of the same cries of ‘kids don’t want to dance any more’ that has hit nightclubs, making it even less viable to continue to operate.

I truly hope not. I hope we haven’t seen the end of a golden Carnival era, one where nobody – ravers, organisers, or the police – could quite believe the whole thing was happening. But it still did.

I’ve known people meet their future husband/wife on the podiums of Middle Row, then return to dance each year with the resulting offspring; seen people reduced to tears of joy when a special record drops at just the right time and taken foreign visitors on never-to-be-forgotten trips through the musical underbelly of London at its most exquisitely unhinged.

It would be tragic to see such a life-affirming annual fixture become a victim of risk-averse regulation, austerity and impossible bureaucracy.

“We put on some truly amazing parties, and got to work with lots of fantastic people,” says Matt of their two decades at Notting Hill. “So I will miss it greatly.”

As with nightclubs, it is success, rather than failure, that ultimately causes their demise. Let’s get one thing straight: the kids – and the old timers – definitely do still like dancing. They just don’t have as many places in which to do it anymore.

Certainly not for free, in the middle of the road, all bloomin’ bank holiday weekend.