Drumsheds in crisis: What's really going on at London's biggest nightclub?

The 15,000-capacity venue has been allowed to remain open after defeating efforts by the police to substantially cut its capacity following two drugs deaths.

Welcome back to the first London Centric edition of 2025. I’ve spent today at Enfield council, where the local authority has been debating the future of Drumsheds, London’s biggest nightclub.

The venue has been allowed to remain open for now, after defeating attempts by the police to massively reduce its capacity and impose heavy security requirements. The story speaks to the challenges at the heart of the capital’s nightlife, with legal and regulatory pressures combining with increased costs to create a toxic mix.

It also shines a light on Broadwick Group, an increasingly powerful business backed by money from the makers of Grand Theft Auto, who control an ever-growing number of venues across London.

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Saturday 12 October was a big night at Drumsheds, the country’s largest club, which is located in a former IKEA near Meridian Water, north London. The 15,000-capacity venue was filled with people who had paid more than £50 to attend a massive drum and bass night celebrating a decade of events by promoter Worried About Henry, featuring 40 acts and headlined by Hybrid Minds. Then things started to go wrong.

With the evening in full swing, a 27-year-old man who had taken drugs was treated in Drumsheds’ on-site medical facility. What happened next is unclear, although he was allowed to return to the dancefloor. Some time later the same man returned to the medical treatment room and was taken to the nearby North Middlesex Hospital in a private ambulance, along with three other Drumsheds attendees that night. The 27-year-old later died in the hospital, while another hospitalised clubber required intensive care.

According to the Metropolitan Police, the death of the man was not reported to the authorities on the night, which led to their response and subsequent investigation being delayed. They said it was worrying that a clubber seeking medical treatment due to the effect of drugs had been allowed back into the event “instead of taking him to hospital or arranging for him to leave the venue”.

According to an account by police constable Francis Peters, who asked for the Drumsheds’ premises licence to be reviewed, this was part of a pattern of lawlessness at the venue.

In November officers were called following a knifing inside Drumsheds during a night headlined by Jamie Jones. The victim was left with “several lacerations over his body” but Drumsheds’ security staff “were uncooperative” with police on the night. Peters said officers considered shutting the entire club down that evening but ultimately decided to let it continue “due to the size of the crowd and the lack of resources” to safely disperse them.

Then during a night headlined by Bicep on 7 December, a 29-year-old woman died after allegedly bringing MDMA into the premises and heading to the toilets where she mixed the drug into a can of fizzy drink and drank the concoction through a straw. She was later found by Drumsheds’ medical team, taken to the medical facility, then transferred to hospital where she died shortly afterwards. Another clubber was hospitalised the same evening after taking something called a “multi-mushroom pill”.

The police concluded that there was “poor searching of customers at the venue” which allowed drugs to be easily brought inside, linked to the “sheer logistical problem of searching 15,000 people” on their way in. They said that “hundreds of thousands of people have been to venues across London over the last two months, and there have been no reported drug deaths apart from the ones at Drumsheds”. In a bid to stave off closure, the venue offered to do “anything” to remain open — resulting in extra-strict security checks that left people queuing for hours to get in to the following weekend’s event, setting off a round of negative press.

What most of the thousands of people queuing to get in probably didn’t know was that, in a quirk of licensing rules, the night out that was likely to cost them hundreds of pounds wasn’t at a venue owned by a private company but by a registered charity called Nine Point Eight.

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Drumsheds is an oddity in London: a mega venue licensed to stay open until 3am in a city where the supposed death of nightlife is a hot, albeit disputed, topic. It attracts a more casual crowd than many smaller clubs that cater for the niche music obsessive, promoting mega events with big name headliners. Drumsheds is also known for its corporate partnerships with mainstream brands such as Red Bull and Netflix.

The club’s owners are usually described as being Broadwick Group, the mega promoter that started off organising festivals such as Mighty Hoopla in Lambeth’s Brockwell Park and Field Day in Tower Hamlets’ Victoria Park. Over the last decade the company has shifted focus towards property and permanent premises, specialising in opening “meanwhile” event venues on sites awaiting development. Broadwick turned a disused south London building into the widely-praised Printworks venue, while investing in physical “spaces” that are suitable for everything from club nights to corporate promotions, creating value by “realising new centres of cultural gravity".

A venue run by Broadwick, the company says, is "fluid and flexible", making them suitable for a "wide spectrum of powerful content". In London they operate a range of spaces, including Battersea Power Station’s control room and The Beams in Docklands, while outside the capital they run the Depot Mayfield venue in Manchester and are looking to open in New York.

This £200m expansion has been part-funded by a 2022 investment by Rockstar Games, the publishers of the Grand Theft Auto series, with some of the money from the game flowing into Broadwick’s bank account in return for a stake of more than 25% of the company. As part of the deal Rowan Hajaj, Rockstar’s chief financial officer and the man who will soon be counting the billions of dollars from the impending launch of the latest instalment of the world’s most profitable ever entertainment product, joined the board of Broadwick. Other major shareholders include club licence holder Simeon Aldred and chief executive Simon Tracey, as well as co-founders Bradley Thompson and Gareth Cooper.

Many individuals in the capital’s dance music world who were approached by London Centric were worried about speaking on-the-record about Broadwick as its influence spreads far and wide. Some muttered about their impact on smaller clubs. But others noticed something else about Drumsheds: The scrutiny following the deaths at the venue has highlighted how the venue, which is operating on a five year lease from IKEA, is not run by Broadwick Group or its subsidiaries.

Instead, last summer, the venue’s licence was transferred to Nine Point Eight, a registered charity named after the gravitational pull of the earth. According to its governing document, the charity was founded to provide access to arts venues for the benefit of “mankind” as the board of trustees see fit. These trustees include the senior staff of Broadwick, plus the addition of a handful of other individuals who have had associations with either the company or the nightlife industry.

Why ultimate control of London’s biggest club, where typical tickets cost over £50 and turnover from a single night can be well over £1 million, is held by a charity is less clear. In practice, there does not appear to be much difference between the charity’s operations and Broadwick. London Centric’s calls to the charity’s phone number were answered by an individual who identified themselves as being in the finance department of Broadwick and promised a call back which never came.

Charitable status, also used by venues such as the Royal Albert Hall and Camden’s Roundhouse, comes with extra regulatory issues but also makes it far easier to apply for state grants to support the arts. Another potential benefit of charitable status for a venue is highly preferable tax treatment. Under English law, if a commercial building is instead used for charitable purposes then up to 80% of its business rates bill can immediately be reclaimed — something Drumheads’ operator is expected to claim in the future.

According to the charity’s website, Nine Point Eight fulfils its tightly-regulated charitable purpose by operating Drumsheds and providing a “dynamic platform for local artists and ensure that music, art, and culture are accessible to everyone”. Nine Point Eight says it have given away 5,000 tickets to events, including to individuals from low income households or groups wouldn’t have access otherwise have had access.

Charitable events held at Drumsheds include a motorcycle gathering to promote men’s mental health and prostate cancer research, as well as an event where local schoolchildren were invited to the venue to see an orchestra in action. Attendees at Drumsheds’ next event, the Red Bull Culture Clash in March, where tickets rise to £120 for VIP access, may not know it but they are, on some level, taking part in a charitable endeavour by attending the venue.

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On Tuesday around thirty people gathered in Enfield council’s post-war Civic Centre to spend hours discussing the future of Drumsheds in front of three councillors on the licensing committee.

Despite objections from London Centric that the hearing should be held in public so that the hundreds of thousands of people who have attended Drumsheds’ events can understand the safety issues at play, we were asked to leave after five minutes by committee chair Mahym Bedekova. This was a decision made by council officers on the basis that some of the discussions could impact a police investigation, although it is not believed that either the police or the club objected to most of the hearing being held in public.

The Met’s licensing team argued for extra conditions on the club, including a restricted capacity of 9,999 people, mandatory scanning of IDs for all attendees on the way in, plus a substantially increased number of welfare staff on site.

Nine Point Eight, the charity which holds the venue licence, was represented by a team of top lawyers including a King’s Counsel, with a council officer noting the charity had brought “many representatives” in the face of a more modest number of people from the police.

Some objections to the venue’s licence were received from members of the public — including one local resident who complained they kept encountering clubbers on drugs while shopping in the nearby Tesco — but there was substantial institutional support for Drumsheds remaining open.

Sadiq Khan’s deputy mayors Justine Simons and Howard Dawber wrote in support of the venue, arguing that “London’s nightlife and cultural venues provide important spaces for people to come together, socialise, express themselves and be part of a community”.

They said Drumsheds is "part of what makes London one of the most diverse, inclusive and exciting cities in the world", praised the work of Broadwick Live, and said restrictions on Drumsheds would hit “the hundreds of thousands of people who safely enjoy music, dancing or immersing themselves in London’s culture at the venue every year.”

Closure of the venue would have been politically embarrassing for City Hall, which is preparing to launch a London Nightlife Taskforce, following the departure of night czar Amy Lamé.

Dozens of members of the public also wrote in to support the venue. One individual, who said they had attended 20 events at Drumsheds and had a degree in crowd safety management, told the council that the “attention to detail, seamless execution, and commitment to safety set it apart from other venues”. Another man who attended a Chase & Status gig said they felt secure at the venue: “I celebrated my 70th birthday this year, so am above the average age group for this venue and have felt safe when attending.”

Other representations to the council were even more effusive. Joanne Cox-Brown, who identified herself as CEO of Night Time Economy Solutions, wrote to the council to say she had reviewed Drumsheds’ operations and the “venue sets the gold standard for safety, operational excellence, and contribution to the local and national nighttime economy”. What she did not mention in the submission is that she is a trustee of Nine Point Eight, the charity that holds the venue’s licence.

Ultimately, the councillors largely decided to side with the club’s operators. Drumsheds will continue to put on nights with a few changes to its licence, with varying levels of security at its gigs depending on the size and nature of the event. A request by the Met to have explosive detection dogs present at gigs was rejected.

Councillor Susan Erbil, cabinet member for planning and regulatory services, said: “Enfield Council's primary concerns remain the safety and wellbeing of its residents. Today, the licensing sub-committee heard the representations provided to them by the police and representatives on behalf of the venue management and agreed that the premises licence holder should retain their licence with modified conditions. Council officers and the police will continue to monitor the premises and undertake compliance checks but it is the premises licence holder’s responsibility to ensure the conditions are upheld.”

As one member of the Drumsheds team was overheard saying as they left the venue: “We live to fight another day.”