CELEBRATING 5 YEARS OF CHRONICLES
Holly Wilson
March 29th, 2022
Former BIMM project and popular Bristol event celebrating rave & music culture, Chronicles, is due to celebrate it's 5th birthday and 20th event
After the success of our debut post lockdown returning event, 'The V for Vendetta Masquerade Ball’, Chronicles are back and excited celebrate our 5th year and 20th event on Friday April 1st at our new home of Dare2Club, Bristol.
Chronicles began as a result of founder Holly’s final dissertation at Bimm Bristol University. After witnessing the resurgence in UK Garage, Holly wanted to pay homage to the genre by not just showcasing it, but also honouring aspects from 20 years ago such as an exclusive dress code, encouraging attendees to step out in their finest threads.
The first event, ‘Garage Chronicles’ took place on Wednesday the 29th of March 2017 at The Love Inn, Bristol, with all profits going to the national charity, Youth Music.
’’I decided I wanted to put on my own events back in 2013 when I was 17 and still lived in Brighton. At the time, I was a prominent raver living in a youth hostel and studying at college. Where I lived, studied and partied meant I was often around adults who had some sort of involvement in the 90’s rave scene, from being former party goers, to ex record shop owners or even promoters at the time. Although in the mist of my own scene, which at the time was the jump up d'n'b and free parties, I had a fascination with the era of raves such as the ‘Exodus Movement’, ‘Dreamscape’ and ‘Helter Skelter’. 4 years later Chronicles was born out of my final Bimm Bristol uni dissertation." - Holly, Founder.
Since Launching back in 2017, Chronicles gained a reputation as a popular mid-week club event hosting around 16 events at our former home of The Love Inn. Other venues such as Crofters Rights, Park street's Taboo and Jack of Diamond’s have also been trialled over the past five years.
We became known for the energy and vibes at our events, as well as our distinctive artwork, dress code’s (such as Kings & Queens of the Jungle) and of course, our infamous ‘VS’ events (such as Liquid VS Rollers). In 2018 we hosted our second charity event ‘Urban Soul’ which saw us raise money and awareness for local charity, Help Bristol’s Homeless.
While 2020 saw the whole events industry fall to a standstill, behind closed doors, I began making changes to Chronicles and plan for the years ahead.
Chronicles was always a one woman project with myself, Holly (now 27), doing everything from bookings to promo videos with a ‘DIY’ approach: “In the very early days, being a low budget start up meant that I had to get creative with utilising my resources by offering trades of services to artists such as press shots and writing articles about them. Even after the first couple of events, I'd use programs like Word and Power Point to create content and still to this day use iMovie and smart phone footage to create engaging fly on the wall style/ home movie promo videos.”
After relying on myself and helping hands from friends most of Chronicle's' life, 2021 welcomed my brother (from another), Lewis, onto the team as co-manager, offering a whole new perspective and skill set to the brand.
The first Chronicles event back since lockdown (at our new home of Dare to Club) was a joint project and a huge success, Lewis said: “Growing up with such diverse genres of music, alongside studying music tech at college, has given me an eclectic taste and has really enabled me to understand music, its impact, influence, and power. As co-manager of Chronicles I bring a fresh pair or eyes and ears’’.
WHAT ELSE HAS CHANGED AND WHAT CAN YOU LOOK FORWARD TO?
We are formerly a mid-week event, showcasing our popular nights such as Garage Chronicles, Jungle VS Rollers and Liquid VS Rollers, every couple of months at The Love Inn. We now have a new home at Dare to Club where we showcase multi-rave genres, spread across two rooms on either a Friday or Saturday. We also want to page homage to other rave genres that get overlooked due to the popularity of drum and bass in Bristol. Additionally, we have plans to welcome back the second edition of our charity event 'Urban Soul', branching out to bring focus on live, improvised and acoustic style performances as well as rave genres.
Honouring how we started up as a stand-alone UK Garage night, we also aim to regularly host smaller events showcasing specific rave genres, with us welcoming new (and old) genres into the mix such as Trance, Happy Hardcore, UK Funky, 00’s Bassline, House, Dance Anthems, Breakbeat and Jump Up.
BRANCHING OUT TO FOCUS ON LIVE, IMPROVISED
AND AND ACOUSTIC STYLE PERFORMANCES
The dance music scene is thriving, however its popularity also creates a level of saturation. We are very lucky to be part of Bristol’s reputable party scene, but we have started to notice how easy it is to attend an event purely based on what names are on the line up. This often leaves other 'less established artists' who have just as much to offer as 'headliners', overlooked.
Another perspective that we can all be guilty of at times (but is also down to there being so many events to choose from each week), is when us as attendees cannot remember the name of the event they went to, only the acts we saw. This in turn leaves the brand and the promoter’s hard work, overlooked. We are looking to change that.
We have always focused on having fresh or underground talent on our books, but in a bid change the psychology of what drives the above 'going out behaviours', we're stripping away the concept of 'line ups' on our poster artwork and promo videos and placing sole emphasis on the music we showcase. Our new approach is to list genres instead of a line up.
You may ask, ‘how will this benefit the artists'? But the idea is that it is more interactive, because it encourages people too find and listen to the artists themselves using Chronicles as a platform, either to get a feel for their sounds prior to the event, or chase up a particular act or set that was memorable to them on the night of our events. We will make this easy and accessible to do!
Our posters and promo video's won't feature our line up, but we are very excited to show you our new flyer and set times format, in the form of a descriptive 'Artist & Music Menu' (see attached) listing artists and the type of genres that are due to perform. We will also be gracing you with some new artwork styles and concepts for our existing events as well as our newer format of multi room/genre events.
With our emphasis being upon offering a fresh new sound by showcasing up & coming/ underground artists, combined with Lewis now on board and having a management background, Chronicles will not only be a platform for artists to perform at our events, but also act as a bookings and artist development agency. We are aiming for this to be in development within the next 12 months. Lewis mentioned: “With us aiming to transition to - not only showcasing our events - but also acting as artist/booking agents for our up and coming artists, I’ll really be able to apply skills from my management background into developing our roster of artists’’.
CHRONICLES FESTIVAL
Even since university days, Chronicle’s end goal has always been to develop into a festival taking place in its home of the South West! We won’t give everything away, but look out for what’s listed above and all will be revealed in the not-so-distant future.
CHRONICLES PRESENTS: 'HER MAJESTY'S BALL'
June 3rd see's us welcome the 21st Chronicles event and our 3rd joint project at Dare2Club. With brother-sister duo, Holly and Lewis running things together yet again! This lands on the national 4 day bank holiday, which celebrates 70 years of The Queen's service in the form of her 'Platinum Jubilee'.
Whatever your views are on the Royal Family, this weekend is set to go down in history as one of the biggest British party weekends of the decade. If you already enjoy our events, are keen to check them out, this one, and the 'The Royals' themed dress code is also not to be missed!
WHAT MAKES CHRONICLES STAND OUT?
We are implementing ‘old skool’ principles, approaches and styles to our brand and the way we market it, yet we encourage our artists to play their own or material from other up & coming or less established artists as well as dubplates, to ensure that we deliver the dance floor with those 'new skool sounds’ that will have attendees asking for track IDs at every opportunity.
We also care about the psychology behind hosting events, and put a lot of thought into creating a a vibe and ambience that makes people want to come back.
Regardless of what an artist's following is, large or small, a lot of factors are considered when putting together our events. When it comes to bookings, we only choose artists based on their suitability for our brand's sound and ethos, the crowd they are performing to, and the artists they are being paired with.
Thank you for reading, we hope to see you at our up-coming events.
Chronicles 5th Bday Bash- 1/4/22
https://www.facebook.com/chroniclevents/events/?ref=page_internal
Her Majesty's Ball- 3/6/22
TBA