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!

Canton Mambo! The salsa aficionados are not easy to please, but Gia’s erudite, authentic and infectious love of Latin rhythms have catapulted her around the globe. This Jam Jar session’s both a dancer’s dream and a digger’s delight - packed with the rarest Afro-Cuban discs designed for dizzying footwork and hip-swirling spins. Gia Fu at The Jam Jar.

Proper wiry, wonky goodness coming from the Beacon’s basement for another solid Trust Excercises lineup of loose techno hybrids. Manchester’s Henzo performs deconstructed garage and assorted bass wobblers in live formation mode, an essential combo with Georg-i’s hi-speed post-funk futurism FFO: Yushh, Toumba, re:ni, Metrist, aya. Trust Exercises x Dynamics - Henzo at Bristol Beacon.

Bristol’s finest queer techno haven does it again! This time enlisting Harmony Rec’s Zeynep for a deep, body-melting session of psychedelic techno, intergalactic house and proggy trance. Plus Queerky residents Diszko, Obra, and Spot MY G amplifying the sexy and hypnotic techno synergy. Queerky w/ Zeynep at Loco Klub.

Two of Bristol’s finest amen wreckin’ crews unite! Krunx unleashes his dizzying live breakbeat and bleeping hardtek from a tabletop of rave-ready hardware weaponry. Plus Distant Planet’s esteemed hardcore historians Louise +1 and Hughesee, gabber and raw tekno from DJ Doubt + more raw euphoria. Distant Planet & Dissonance at Green Works.

Tickets Available

Sun 18th May
Downbeat Melody Day Party at Lost Horizon
Thu 8th May
OKO Presents Eight Five Two at Lost Horizon
Thu 22nd May
MIRAGE at The Trinity Centre
— The Trinity Centre

MIRAGE Tickets

Sat 14th June
RnB & Wings at Lakota
Sat 17th May
Dismantle: Lost Horizon Yard Party at Lost Horizon
Sun 11th May
PASSAGE X TRINITY: The After Party at The Trinity Centre
Fri 6th June
Reggaeton Party 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

Sell out warning! Heavily ingrained into Romania’s folklore of minimal house and techno, sonic groover Raresh has been an integral part of this community for over two decades. His endless collection of wormhole rarities will be a treat and rare outing for Bristol. Huge FFO: Ricardo Villalobos, Nicolas Lutz, Margaret Dygas. Afterthought presents: Raresh at Loco Klub.

The day and night party Bristol really needs (and very appropriately named) ft. an array of cosmic alchemists and low-key chameleons. The Dirtytalk supremos bring their weirdo disco sleaze, matched with Oliver Kay’s smokey, dubwise downtempo. Softi’s spiralling and weightless techno bring us up to speed for the night, plus Amaia’s cauldron of sub-driven oddities on wax. If you know, you know. WORMHOLE at Green Works.

As half of Commix and all of Shifted, Guy Brewer has plumbed the dread depths of tunnel techno and experimental dnb more than most mortals. His Carrier alias is a deadly fusion of both those projects; icy mutant slowfast snares crawling with microtonal life and Spaceape-worthy vamps. Easily the best cyber-club clobber of the past few solar cycles FFO: T++, Photek, Felix K, UVB-76, 2562, Demdike Stare. The Probe w/ Carrier & Lynne at Strange Brew.

Forget re-watching Skins, get your fix of y2k sleaze and swag with the season one party finale of Ar-Lein. Expect murky cloud rap, witchouse, drain gang, hyperpop and garage blasting out the Basement 45 speakers. Huge FFO: Snow Strippers, Crystal Castles, 2hollis, Bassvictim. Ar-Lein V4 at Basement 45.

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.