an underground hard techno night should not be a paradox

EXIT is for people who like hard techno but hate the scene around hard techno. this is what we actually do about it.

ok so we have a problem with hard techno, which is that we love it.

the distorted kicks, and that stretch around 3am when the room is one big ugly beautiful noise and your legs stopped asking for permission an hour ago. we love that. it's the reason EXIT exists.

what we can't stand is most of what grew up around it. at some point hard techno went commercial and got TikTokified, and now a lot of the big nights look exactly the same. a celebrity influencer dj up on a platform, lit like a product launch, and a floor full of people standing completely still with their phones in the air, recording a drop they are not dancing to, for people who also weren't there.

EXIT piece: a concert crowd holding phones up to film the stage — not our floor. this is a stock photo, that's how easy this view is to find.

we hate that shit. properly hate it.

and for a while it felt like you had to pick. either the big shiny hard techno thing where you stand in the phone forest, or a proper underground night where the room is right and the people are right but nobody is going to play you anything that sounds like a washing machine full of bricks. which, sorry, is what we want sometimes.

an underground hard techno night should not be a paradox. so we made one. underground-ish?

what we do about it

we tape your camera lens at the door. you keep your phone, it just can't see anything. no mobile use on the dancefloor at all, and if you need to text the friend you lost, the lounge is right there. it's a gentle reminder more than a punishment. you're at a club night. there is nothing up front that you need evidence of.

the dj booth is not the center of the night, the dancefloor is. we mean that pretty literally, there's a stage at House of Q and you're welcome to climb up and dance on it.

EXIT piece: the dancefloor in red light, arms in the air — the floor at EXIT.

the lineup is secret and there is no headliner. people find this one weird so let us explain. the djs are local and they're very good, and none of them is the main act. the music is great all night because the night is planned as one long journey, six hours of it. when djs compete with each other on the same night everybody plays their biggest hour and the night has no shape. and when you don't know who's on, you can't turn up at 01:30 for one name and leave after. you have to just come and dance to whatever's happening, like an animal.

also no genre police. it's mainly hard techno, but if a track isn't technically hard techno and it's hard as fuck, it's getting played.

EXIT piece: legs mid step on the dancefloor in red haze — kicks.

if you want the long version of why we think a club is not a concert, we wrote that already, with occupied paris and record libraries and everything. this is the short practical one.

the rules on the floor are short.

no talking on the floor. there's a quiet lounge for that, go yap there, we love a yap. just not next to someone who has finally stopped thinking.

no selfies, no photos, no filming. see above, re: tape.

just INSANE DANCING. the kind that would be embarrassing on video. good thing there isn't any.

EXIT piece: silhouette of someone dancing hard in green light, hair flying — like this.

EXIT is September 26 at House of Q, Malmvägen 1, about ten minutes' walk from Gärdet on the red line. 23:00 to 05:00, 18+, presale only. tickets and the free membership are on blackplanet.se. get the membership before you come, we can't do it at the door.

tape's at the door. see you in there, hopefully.

what we do about it

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