Standing in the queue at Amber’s, one of Manchester’s newest nightclubs, before your bag is searched or your ticket is checked, you are asked to take out your phone and a white sticker bearing the club’s name is placed over the camera.
Once through security and before heading downstairs, following the sound of pounding music from the dark rooms below, a doorman again asks whether phone cameras are covered.
“On a basic level, as a club, we believe that just having phones away creates a better vibe in the room,” one of the directors of Amber’s, Jeremy Abbott, said.
“People feel a lot more present in the moment, and we feel that you’re really able to connect with the people around you, the DJ and the music.”
Amber’s is by no means the first club to do this. Some of London’s top clubs including fabric and Fold have already enforced similar bans, and it has long been standard practice in Berlin, the clubbing mecca of Europe.
“We understand that people might want to capture footage to remember the night, but we have a team that roam around the venue, and we’ll be able to create content from that,” Abbott, who is also one of the club’s resident DJs, said.
“We also want DJs to be able to express themselves to everyone, to feel that they’re part of a special experience, and in our case, we think that phones on the dance floor kind of detract from that.”
The first time people were seen filming or taking photographs once, they would be asked to put their phone away, Abbott said. If they did it twice theywould be asked to leave, but staff hadn’t had to do much in the way of enforcement, he said.
“The response has been great so far,” he said. “People have really respected the concept and kept their phones away, and it has contributed to a much better vibe on the dancefloor.”
BBC Radio’s 6 Music festival returned to Manchester this weekend, with Amber’s hosting the festival’s Rave Forever club night.
“As the newest venue in town, Amber’s is already well-loved by clubbers and DJs for being phone-free, encouraging connection and immersion rather than clubbing becoming a disjointed spectator sport,” said Kath McDermott, a producer on the 6 Music music team and a prominent Manchester DJ.
“Clubbing has changed in Manchester immeasurably over the decades but Manchester, and increasingly Salford, have maintained the reputation as the home of rave. The energy and community here has always felt unique.
“It’s particularly positive to see the strong return of underground, grassroots parties and promoters who are interested in promoting unity over profit as the next generation of clubbers and DJs come through.”
At festivals, gigs, and club nights, the view of the stage is often obscured by a sea of phones held aloft in the air. Smaller, more underground nightclubs have closed, giving way to day parties and superclubs such as Manchester’s Warehouse Project.
The 6 Music DJ Jamz Supernova said this was likely to be down to the rise in social media.
“I’ve always loved the grittiness, and the clubs that are grimy, sticky floors, but I guess that doesn’t serve the Instagram generation,” she said. “Because it’s dark, it’s smoky, you’re not going to get the best images.
“I think that’s what has kind of given way to the rise of, obviously, festivals, but then, outside day parties and things like that, or more gigs that feel more like a show rather than a club.
“Wanting to be seen out has always been a thing, but I don’t think there wasn’t as much pressure on how you looked.
“There was an expectation that when you go raving, you’re going to start sweating, your hair’s going to go frizzy, your makeup is going run,” she said. There “wasn’t this kind of pressure to look maintained all the way through, to maintain an image all the way through.
“And I think that’s probably why, a lot of people kind of feel a bit more self-conscious nowadays,” she said, “because there are so many phones on the dancefloor.”
Jamz Supernova also notices a generational divide when playing to younger clubbers. “I think the way we use phones has changed our attention span,” she said. “So if you are playing to a younger audience who are waiting for that drop, often it’s kind of like an instant grat[ification].
“They have 20 seconds of a moment of dancing, and then in between, it’s kind of like you’ve lost their attention.”
Mobile phones may feel like an integral part of clubland, but the rave scene has already shown it can successfully instigate behavioural change.
“The behaviour that you would just tolerate 10 years ago, inappropriate touching or harassment, there’s so many different things that could have happened on a night out that you just expected and brushed off,” Jamz Supernova said. Now “the crowd look after each other a lot more, that’s been a really cool thing to see”.
In a similar way, she thinks clubbers may adapt to keeping their phones away on a night out, particularly young people who may only just be turning 18.
“You’ll have a different appreciation of raving because that’ll be the status quo, you won’t know any different,” she said.
“So I think [a no phones policy] is driven towards a better future. So let’s make it the best for the people that want to rave, and the next rave generation.”
