Parklife Founder: The Truth About Gangs, Nightlife & The Hacienda

0:00The state of hospitality, the state of night time economy, it's not in a good shape. Statistically we're losing one pub every single day. I've been in this sector now for 30 years, I've never known it to be so bad. It's really, really bad. It's on a cliff edge. House music arrived at exactly the same time as ecstasy arrived. And I'm not joking, everybody was off their tits.

0:21Sasha Lord:What do you think was the first major problem that you were like, oh shit, I actually don't know how to fix this? Probably the first time I was petrol bombed. Some of the rider requests we've had over the years, MIA wanted a six-foot blue inflatable elephant. But there was one night in particular, Environmental Health told me if they get one more complaint from the prison, they're going to walk in, serve me paperwork, shut me down. They have to serve it on you. So we put a ladder up on the back wall. When Environmental Health entered the premises, I jibbed over the back wall on the ladder and I drove home and they couldn't serve anyone.

0:58Sasha Lord:Sasha thanks for being here no problem thank you for inviting me we always start the podcast off the same way so who are you and what problem do you solve so I'm probably best known as being the founder of Warehouse Project and Part Life Festival I was the first night time economy advisor for Greater Manchester I think the problem that I'm solving at the moment has moved on a bit over the last few years and that's the state of hospitality the state of night time economy it's not in a good shape. Previous to that, I mean, park life, 80 ,000 lunatics running wild in Eden Park. It's like whack-a-mole.

1:35You know, I was problem solving every five minutes, like portaloos are blocked or did all sorts of things that are going on. So yeah, I quite like problem solving.

1:46Sasha Lord:Nice. Okay. And what would you say then, you touched on it then, the current symptoms. So if someone's listening to this and they are in that sector, what are the things they might be feeling or doing daily? I think, you know, we're really lucky. We're sat here in Manchester today. Well, Salford, isn't it, actually? Not Manchester. Huge difference, sorry. So we're sat in Salford, part of Greater Manchester, and the city at the moment is buzzing. You go out on a Saturday night, it's vibing, it's packed. We're out shining other cities. We're head and shoulders above London, but actually no one's making any money.

2:21The reason being the overheads are so high, the national insurance increase. it's very, very tough out there. I think it's going to get worse. Statistically, we're losing one pub every single day. You know, for me, a pub is far more than just a pint. It's part of our social DNA. It's part of our fabric of society. I always think of my granddad when he lost my grandma. She passed away for years before he did. He'd finish work and at the end of the day, he'd finish work, go into the pub, not a great business model for the landlord. He'd nurse the same pint for two hours. but he'd see all his mates and you take that pub away and he'd be sat in his front row becoming lonely so you know these are really important things since the last budget we've had 240 000 job losses practically half of those are in hospitality and when you dig down into the minutiae a lot of those are young people who've lost their jobs so you think about people who are working in a pub to support going through college or university that that kind of thing so i've been in the sector now for 30 years i've never known it to be so bad it's really really bad it's on a it's on a cliff edge it feels like in every aspect of life so hospitality social media careers all these different things we're all we're all fighting for attention and that that is like the new oil so if you take us back to maybe the start of your career what what did you learn in the early days about capturing attention that has kind of stuck with you throughout so go back into the very very early days when I was starting at the Hacienda and places like that you know there was no social media there was no cesspit like Twitter there was no Instagram there was no bloody TikTok that I can spend hours on like it's so annoying it sends me down rabbit holes what put me what put my head above the parapet was I was prepared to take more risks than other people.

4:18So I was running nights at the Hacienda, but I'd do things slightly differently. Whereas other student nights that were going on in Manchester at the time, you'd have all the ridiculous tracks. Like the last track would always be House of Pain. That's it. You'd have half an hour of 70s and 80s music. And it felt really patronising. So I thought, well, why don't we play the music that they play at the Hacienda on a Saturday night, but on a Tuesday night, make it more affordable for students and it charged two pound fifty on the door and it worked and you know my nights at the hacienda my nights at paradise factory holy city zoo generation x we were selling out week after week after week and then i took the mental decision to reopen sankey soap in 2000 what what do you think it was about the the hacienda said like you you remove social media okay and obviously we're in our 30s we grew up in this world with social media So it was word of mouth.

5:15What was it that people were saying that they kept coming back for? Why do you think it spread like wildfire? At the hacienda at the weekends? Yeah. Well, I'm going to be blunt with this. House music arrived at exactly the same time as ecstasy arrived. And I'm not joking. That was it. You know, and that was the explosion. Something happened below that roof that had never happened before in the UK. you know this music from america came over mike pickering graham park was playing it john de silver no one had ever heard that music before and everybody was off their tits on ecstasy and i i was a i went to a very good school but i left with really poor qualifications i left with two e's and a u no two u's and an e sorry two u's and an e um my first job was in a clothes shop actually everybody else went on to oxford or cambridge i was at manchester grammar um but when i was there in the sixth form, a friend of mine who was in the same class, Pete Armistead, who said, let's go to the Hacienda.

6:18And actually, the truth of the fact is, I'd heard all the cool kids talking about the Hacienda. So I borrowed my dad's suit, shirt, tie, queued up for two hours. We were really nervous about getting in, so I wasn't looking at what other people were wearing. Got to the front, and the doorman, who I now know is a guy called Damien Noonan, proper gangster, said, fuck off. And that was it. So I came back the following week in jeans and a t-shirt and we walked in there and there were 2 ,000 people going for it like we've never seen before. Because up until that point, all the clubs I've been going to, there was no mixing records.

6:53In between records, it was like, happy birthday, Sharon, he's 18 today. You know, drinks offers or, you know, Steve, your mum's waiting for the front door. Those kind of things. And then this was just like, sounded like one long, solid record. And it was probably only six months after that, that Pete and I realised we were the only ones not on ecstasy. I mean, it was rife. And I can tell you Greater Manchester Police didn't have a clue what was going on. They used to turn up en masse and walk through the venue. And the way they do it, and they still do it now, actually, for safety reasons, when they walk en masse through a venue, is they walk with their arms on shoulder to shoulder.

7:30But what the Hacienda Club used to do was to turn it into a conga. So you'd have Greater Manchester Police walking through in high-vis vests, and then you'd have 200 people behind them doing the conga. And they were like, why is everyone pulling these funny faces and licking the foreheads with no idea what's going on? And yeah, that was... But everyone thinks the Hacienda was this amazing thing for 10 years. It wasn't. It lasted for two years at best.

7:55Sasha Lord:Right. That was it. And then, you know, the story is sadly the gangs got involved because there's a lot of money in the drug scene and guns are involved and it just lost us. Wow. The bit that I'd be interested to know because again talking about like it's a total different time there's obviously in putting a night on so much networking that has to happen like you've got the doors to get on side you've got the people to actually bring in and make it work people behind the ball everyone's got to kind of be involved in that shared mission which is maybe a skill that you just naturally have that people would wish they would have but how do you get all those different people on the same page so from starting sankey's to selling the warehouse project and part life i always use the same suppliers from day one.

8:40I always made it my job to know every single person's name that was working at that venue. It was harder towards the end of warehouse projects. The capacity was 10 ,000. So you'd have 300 security, you'd have 400 bar staff. It's impossible for me to learn those. But obviously, when he was at Store Street and capacity of 2 ,500, I would know absolutely everybody's name. I'd make a point of going around and saying, are you okay? How are you doing tonight? You having a good time? How's work with you? And I just think that's I learned that actually. I have a few mentors that I really look up to. And I got that from Alex Ferguson, you know, at Carrington.

9:16And I know you've already said you're not really into football. We know who that is though. Alex Ferguson. Sir Alex Ferguson. So he would make an effort every single day at Carrington, whether it was the lady on reception who sadly passed away recently, you know, the people working in catering, and he'd know everybody's name and he'd spend time with them. I just think that's so valuable. And that's where promoters these days, I'm seeing young promoters come along and they're doing it so wrong because they get a couple of successes under the belt. And then all of a sudden the backstage popping the champagne, they've got the girls around them.

9:53I'm like, mate, that's your job. It's your job to be running that event. Anything could go wrong at that event. You have to be sober. You've got to be on the ball. You've got to know what's going on because if the shit hits the fan, which it will do. you're the one that's responsible for it and i you know i just see them come and go and it just doesn't last it's very very small-minded mentality what what do you think was the first major

10:18Sasha Lord:behind the scenes problem that you were like oh shit i actually don't know how to fix this um probably the first time was petrol bond uh which was the night the night before we opened Sanky's and the old door team. Did you say the first time I was petrol bomb? Yeah.

10:38So Salford used to run the door and they wanted the door back because in those days, whoever ran the door ran what was going on inside as well. And, you know, I'm talking about drugs. So the police said to me, there's no chance of having Salford on the door. Not a chance whatsoever. At the back of Sanky's was a power generator and it was in a car park and it was surrounded by a metal fence and on the cctv you see this two little scumbags jump over the wall with a drag a bed mattress over it entwine it in the the metal thing pour petrol all over and set it like the whole thing blew up but what was really funny was because sankey's was in a mill we ran off our own generator so actually that weekend the whole of anko's was out was just in pitch black and we were raving and he was like yeah there's one rave in the middle um which was yeah quite funny so you said earlier about like one of the things that you've always kind of has been in your wheelhouse is this taking risk so if i was a fly on the wall when you're having that initial conversation about sankis what what would i have heard um we decided for when i say me my business part at the time guy called david vincent we decided to hire everything because we were getting being intimidated by the old gangs at that point.

11:56And for the first few months, I was picked up by security from my home. I was dropped off by security. We weren't allowed on the front door. Plainclothes police were constantly driving around watching what's going on. And we made the decision that if it gets too much, if it gets too full on, we'd just stop it. So for the first three, four months, we hired everything. And in fact, we opened Sankey's in 2000. are you doing all the painting all the legal work stocking the bar having the float putting the deposits down for the rental deposits for the sound systems lighting everything cost 38 grand which these days you couldn't open a club for less than a million quid really you know proper a proper club so we just did it on a complete shoestring so we we have so many different entrepreneurs on the podcast and and one word that comes up all the time is obviously this mindset piece but that's like the risk so i've got to have this strong mindset because suppliers might let me down but you're talking about like actual intimidation so it's not just your business that's probably at risk that's probably like your life at risk how how did you if you think back to a younger sasha how did you kind of manage that mentality of what could go right what could go wrong and and the pros and cons with that do you know what i just every time something happened it made me feel a bit stronger.

13:19The opening page of my book was, I had a call before I opened Sankey's from Mr. Big at Salford. And I mean, number one guy, he's now dead. It was Paul Massey, actually. And he said, I want to meet you tomorrow at two o 'clock outside Drybar, which is on Oldham Street. It's closed now. Drybar was owned by the Hacienda. I was like, right. And I was putting student nights on for like 300, 400 people at the time. So I'm like, what does he want with me? Anyway, these two big seven series BMWs pull-up and I got in the back seat of the first one and they set off. They turned around and gave me a Tesco bag and I opened it and it was 20 grand in cash in a Tesco bag.

14:04I'm like, I don't understand. It's like, well, it's like this. So New Year's Eve, you're going to hire the Academy and you're going to put the New Year's Eve show on and you're going to sell it out for us and that's the money to fund it so we'll split the profits 50-50. I was like, right. Capacities at the Academy is like 2 ,000. It's like, it's a bit out of my reach this. It's like, who do you think is going to DJ? And he's like, well, you, you can DJ. I said, I can't DJ. He said, you sold out the Hacienda last week. I was like, no, that's DJ Sasha, S-A-C-H-A. I'm S-A-C-H-A. They literally screeched, opened the door, grabbed the bag off me and threw me on the pavement.

14:46So that was my first. Wow.

14:50Sasha Lord:Bloody. How did you, because obviously there's been some run-ins, right, with gangs and stuff over there, especially in those early years. Was there a point where you managed to sort of find the balance and get people on the side? I think they gave up with me in the end. As the bigger I became, when I grew out of Sanky, certainly into warehouse projects, they kind of, because my head was above the parapet, they didn't really want to come up to that level. They were still at that point. So Wales Project started in 2006. They were still going for the smaller guys. But it's not like that now. It's completely changed to how it used to be.

15:29Completely changed.

15:30Sasha Lord:What's different now? So if you were starting now, what would you be dealing with?

15:35Just a business. That's it. None of that scare tactics, none of the taxing that was going on. It just does not exist these days. The police, Greater Manchester Police, really got a grip on it.

15:45Sasha Lord:Right, right. They really did. And I suppose looking back now at where you're at, where was the point where you thought, oh, right, this is actually really starting to work? So the warehouse project was never supposed to last more than one year. Oh, really? Yeah, it was supposed to be a warehouse project. A project, that was it. so we'd sold Sankey's I'd sold Sankey's and then we decided to put a few events on we actually put 24 on that year we sold 100 ,000 tickets so we're like hang on we've sold 100 ,000 tickets we've done alright here to be honest we'll carry on again the problem I had was Bonnington's Brew where we started off was right next door to Strangeways Prison so the only night 6th October 2006 we had public enemy on it was a Thursday night and my phone started ringing and it was a withheld number I never answer my phone if it's withheld in fact people are lucky if I answer it I don't like talking to people these days but it rang consistently over an hour so in the end I answered it I thought it was going to someone asking for guest list it's like is that Sasha Lord yeah it is yeah it's like it's such and such a body the governor of Strange Rose Prison it's like alright hi how are you doing he said not too good to be honest I was like why is that he said well all we can hear is your music coming through the prison um what time do you close tonight so I said well it's a gig actually so we close at 11 p.m he's like right okay and I said but we're open again tomorrow night and Saturday night he's like what do you mean I said well actually we've got 24 events over the next 12 weeks we're going to be operating he was so pissed off with us he went on record during those 12 weeks to say that because of the warehouse project, the spike of drugs in Strange Ways prison was purely down to us.

17:39And on a Tuesday and Wednesday, we'd get letters on Strange Ways letterheads in the office to say, I've just been on the internet, love the sets last Saturday night by Annie Mack. I don't suppose you're recording it, you can send me a tape in. We're like, this is just nuts. So I had environmental health all over me to say, look, you can't, you're causing major problems with the prison here. They're all raving every single Friday and Saturday. So that's why we moved it to Store Street, because I started Googling stuff, and it was the biggest air raid shelter in Manchester City Centre during World War II.

18:14The walls were 12 foot thick. So, yeah, we moved it there. Wow. Did you do anything in those moments there to, like, handle that, like, controversy, or were you just, like, young and fuck it, bring it on? You know, I did things to try and corner the council a little bit. I thought, well, first thing I want to do is a PR exercise here. And it was really sad. So Bonnington's, you're probably too young to remember this, but Bonnington's was known as the Creaver Manchester. There were loads of adverts on the TV.

18:46And generations after generations had works in those factories, in the breweries. And a few months before we moved in there to the warehouse project, TV was showing grown men, elderly men with boxes of their stuff, leaving, crying, you know, that had been their job. It could have been their dad's job, the granddad's job. So I thought, you know, what we'll do as a nice thing, but also PR exercise, is I'm going to invite all those people that used to work at Bonington's to come down, put a buffet on, put a free bar on, and they can enjoy the rave as well if they want to after. They didn't stay for the rave.

19:25But it got front page of the evening news. And then how do you kind of shut something down when you've done something like that? There was one night when, by the way, what was really bad is I paid for police to work on those nights. Police work every single warehouse project now or used to when I had it anyway. And the old fellas were getting in their car after like eight free pints and driving off. I was like, oh my God. But you'd see them before they were leaving stuffing sandwiches in their pockets as well and things. It's like, oh, the police aren't watching this. But there was one night in particular where Environmental Health told me if they get one more complaint from the prison, they're going to walk in, serve me paperwork, shut me down.

20:08And you have to serve the paperwork on a director. I was the only director. They were parked outside in the car. We all saw them. So we had a plan. we put a ladder up on the back wall because I phoned my lawyer up when I saw them at nine o 'clock and said, Lord, environmental health has sat outside here. They're going to serve me papers tonight because it's a drum and pace night. So he said, well, they have to serve it on you. They can't serve it on anyone else because you are the only director. So we put a ladder up on the back wall and when environmental health entered the premises, I jibbed over the back wall on the ladder and I drove home and they couldn't serve anyone.

20:48so we just carried on raving that night.

20:50Sasha Lord:Oh, wow. Oh, God. I'm so tired. I've just been talking to qualified prospects all day without any wait time. How have you been doing it? Because I've been cold calling people on my mobile and I reckon I've spoke to one person. No, no, no. Stop that right now and use Nooks.ai. Why? What does Nooks do? It finds me the right people to call and it calls them and it connects with them over and over and over again. So you're saying it's Nooks.ai and I can just be speaking to qualified decision makers all the time. Know with a better connection, right? Wow, Nook's at AI. I mean, the story is amazing.

21:26So it feels like you just strike me as one of these people that whenever you get that bug, you can't shake it off you. You're like, I'm on this. You've done this first year of warehouse project. At what point did you decide, I feel like there's something bigger? I feel like we could really run with this now. I think we knew Warehouse Project was going to hang around longer than a few years, probably in about probably about 2010, 2011 that's when we started to win accolades, win awards and people started to travel, not just from Manchester but all over the UK and abroad on sometimes, you know, they'd come from Amsterdam from Germany, from France.

22:10And that's when we realised something's really special is happening here. So yeah, I reckon about that period.

22:18Sasha Lord:What do you think's been the relationship between music, drugs and nightlife? How do they all connect and what have you seen change based on each one? They're so entwined with each other. It's not a new thing. They won't admit to it, but your mum and dad, when they were going out partying back in the day, I'm not saying they did it, but they will have known it was around in the venue. Oh, they did it. Oh, sorry. Hard. You know, any person, any operator in the UK that runs a nightclub that says to me, I've got no drugs in my venue. Either A, they're stupid or B, they're lying because they are in every single nightclub in the UK.

22:58You'll never stop it, ever, which is why I've always been a big advocate of drug testing. Because I'll talk about strange ways. Again, if you can't stop drugs getting into a category A prison like Strangeways, what are you supposed to do with a nightclub with a front door? You've got, you know, six lads from Wigan stood there and or part life. Think about how many entrances there are to part life. 80 ,000 people. It's a field. There were always going to be drugs there. And that's why I said drug testing is the way forward and education. I even take it a step further that some people have a go at me on social support.

23:33But I think it should be part of the curriculum at school. You know, I think it should be part of, listen, there's this drug out there that somebody will offer you when you start going clubby called ketamine. If you do ketamine, this is what's going to happen to your bowel over a period of times. And people don't know that. They just do it. And I, you know, we used to say stuff at Warehouse Project, like we don't condone the use of drugs. But if you're going to take a tablet, then crush dab weights was the slogan. What does that mean? well rather necking a whole tablet in one go that could have poison in it you've got a pma or something that's going to you know affect you badly crush it try a bit wait half an hour 45 minutes then do a little bit more and that is educating people the best way to take drugs and

24:17Sasha Lord:the safest way to take drugs i wonder about that because the trade-off isn't there's that initial boom of ecstasy that probably stopped a lot of violence in clubs yeah initially yeah but then it probably stopped people buying as many drinks so there's like a business almost trade-off there of like well the doorman seem happy because they're not having to batter people all the time and chuck them out but then we're not spending as much money on the bar have you noticed there's almost like business changes that seem to go hand in hand with drug culture as well there is at the moment people are taking less drugs and in fact i mean this stat would have amazed me when i was 16 17, 18, going out, you know, going to a club and then ending up buying a kebab and then probably throwing the kebab up on the floor somewhere in the corner.

25:02Now, people under the age of 25, one in five don't drink any alcohol. And I put it down partly to obviously it's very, very expensive to go out now to buy. I was in London a few weeks ago,£8.20 for a pint they were charging in London. Manchester now averaging around£6. It's pricey. they're just not drinking as much not taking as many drugs and I think the likes of Instagram and TikTok that I mentioned you know everyone wants to look great it's about what you're wearing it's about you know what you're eating going to the gym that that kind of thing I actually I'll go on a slight rant I have a big problem I also think Instagram and TikTok is ruining clubbing and it was a great article actually in the Telegraph a couple of days ago by a journalist called Poppy Platt, who I've spoken to about this.