WHATS ON / Bristol Club Nights

Bristol Clubs & Nightlife

— All Bristol's electronic & dance music listings.

The best place to buy tickets for dance music events in Bristol.

DJs playing at Bristol's nightlife hot spot.

Bristol’s best club nights

Dance music dominates Bristol’s musical landscape with the city’s electronic music producers and DJs considered some of Bristol’s finest exports. Outsiders and bloggers frequently fail to understand Bristol’s dance music, using resorting to sweeping statements about dubstep, disco or house music or cringe-inducing references to the ‘Bristol Sound’. The truth is that Bristol’s musical integrity is a direct result of sheer variety and the passion of individuals working in the music scene today.

Like Manchester’s Warehouse Project, Motion is the first nightclub many visitors to Bristol will be introduced to. While Headfirst is generally focused around the city’s smaller nights and events, the value Motion adds to Bristol’s musical culture in undeniable. The ability to book DJ’s like Ricardo Villalobos and Laurent Garnier or live acts like Moderat, inspires the next generation of promoters that will bring their own talent to venues like dare2, Lost Horizon and Lakota.

Bristol Club Listings

Buy club tickets

Since 2016 clubbers have been able to buy tickets for events at venues like Coroner’s Court, Lakota and The Small Horse here on Headfirst. We work directly with the club promoters providing an ethical and independent place to buy your club tickets. Headfirst provides barcode-based club night tickets which are scanned by staff outside nightclubs and venues in Bristol on a nightly basis.

DJ Culture & Nightlife

Stokes Croft’s Idle Hands record shop has earned international recognition from both international and Bristol DJs and is frequently listed alongside Rush Hour Records and Public Possession as one of Europe’s best sources of electronic music. The rise of house music (and with it disco) has seen the club focus begin to shift from headline producers to experienced djs and record collectors. Where true DJ bookings were once the domain of small niche nightclubs like Cosies and Take 5 Cafe, recently promoters like Simple Things and PTS have brought international dance music purveyors to larger venues like Propyard and The Island’s prison cells. Clubbers rush to buy Dropout Disco tickets before the full line-up is announced while Dirty Talk and Alfresco Disco’s innovative approach to the typical ‘nightclub venue’ sells out on the promoter’s reputation alone.

Bristol's lesser-spotted unicorn DJs at our favourite nightclub. Club night at the Thekla in Bristol.

Sell out warning - buy tickets while you can!

The aptly named Wibbly Wobblaz are on a mission to provide ‘unfiltered fun’ - this bank holiday bash is set to get the Packhorse’s Victorian basement walls shaking. Expect a full-blown blast of bass wubz, donk, 4x4 and speed garage from a stacked crew featuring Konehead whipping up a hard-trance mosh-pit storm + Off Me Nut’s Phatworld and Selectress on the tek-rave bounce. Wibbly Wobblaz - Launch Party at The Packhorse Pub.

Bristol’s OG hard dance enthusiasts Nyce1 unleash their 90s/00 credentials on the general public for the first time in a decade! With wallopping hard house from the iconic Amber D, new skool hard trance euphoria from Guyver, 160BPM nastiness from Bristol’s WhiteHayz + much more. Nyce1 Unleashed - The Return at Dare to Club.

This is not a drill! A core member of Chicago’s Teklife with releases on Hyperdub, Brainfeeder and Planet Mu, the myth and legend that is DJ Paypal returns to Avon to unleash their idiosyncratically frenetic and kaleidoscopic juke and footwork revelry. Wear your bounciest shoes, it’s gonna get rowdy. PTS ϟ DJ Paypal, Yokel, k means x i-sha at Strange Brew.

Club Love go big and bountiful for their 2nd cycle round the sun, delivering their sex-positive, queer-run, alternative play-party with extra lashings of tight-ropes, contortionists and freakshow kink cabaret. Soundtracking the frenzy with fantasy disco starlet Bentley and Club Blanco’s acid sleaze aficionado Chez de Milo. Dust off your latex, lace and PVC, whatever your vibe is, Club Love loves you right back. CLUB LOVE BIRTHDAY at Loco Klub.

Tickets Available

Sat 30th August
Hyperactive World Bristol at Lakota
Sat 2nd August
BreakHaus: Face2Face Day Fest at Lakota
Tue 29th July
Boxxed Off Rave at Lakota
Fri 5th September
Reggaeton Party at Thekla
Sat 27th September
UG25 Opening: Ghetts + More at The Underground
Fri 19th September
Bushbaby at Thekla
Sat 25th October
Hospitality x  Halloween Carnival of the Dead at The Prospect Building
Fri 18th July
A Night At The Musicals at Thekla

Electronic music in Bristol

Experimental dance music and boundary-pushing techno will always be found in Bristol’s smaller club venues. The Island’s cells space for example, continues to provide opportunities for new promoters that have vision beyond simply booking a DJ and running a publicity campaign. With no permanent sound system or DJ equipment, the old prison cells is blank canvas club - at it’s very best when an innovative event organiser puts in the time to transform the whole dancefloor space.

Club audience bought their tickets on Headfirst Bristol.

Editor's club recommendations

Our editor's top live music recommendation

A bonafide acid legend’s in the building for THE old skool operators at Vinyl Destination. Longtime Stay Up Forever fiend and Chris & Aaron Liberator collaborator; Sterling Moss knows a thing or three about 303 belters. He’ll be pounding the dancefloor at another dopamine-fueled Dare2 day party alongside deviant free-party juggalo Pierrot the Acid Clown. Vinyl Destination 15 at Dare to Club.

Support and celebrate your local strippers! Have your dollar bills at the ready as Sexquisite and Bristol Sex Workers Collective transform Loco Klub into a queer sex worker utopia complete with pop up cabaret, steamy performances, an exhibition and pumping sxc club anthems to get down and dirty to. SEX WORKER PRIDE FESTIVAL BY SEXQUISITE & BRISTOL SEX WORKERS COLLECTIVE at Loco Klub.

Bass femmes to the front as contemporary dubstep icon Introspekt comes to town for DOLLSTEP’s next party. The NYC-based DJ and producer’s deep expertise in all things bass translates to a truly magnetic, gnarly club workout packed with UKG, four-to-the-floor, breaks, house samples and warped experimentalism. CLIMAXED presents: DOLLSTEP w/ Introspekt at Exchange.

Prepare for super fresh sounds curated by NTS musical archivist Cheb Mimo. With a collection deeply rooted in the sonic landscapes of North Africa and the Middle East and a laser focus on disco, rai, jazz, street soul and intricate percussive rhythms, this is essential digging FFO: anu, Pender Street Steppers, Zakia, Dar Disku. Arabesque w/ Cheb Mimo at The Jam Jar.

Alternative Spaces and New Club Venues

One of the main strengths to Bristol's club scene is it's relentless dynamism, every year enthusiastic new promoters bring new experiences to the table. Unlike raves of the previous decades, new events shirk the crusty, rebellious connotations of free party culture in favour of organised, party-centric events in interesting locations.