Behind The Scenes At Pier Jam

Pier Jam is truly bringing something new and fresh to Blackpool. Taking over the famous Pier, a crew of experience party people put on great one day events with the biggest and best house DJs from around the world. With one event already gone this summer, there are more to come in September with DJs like Hannah Wants and Duke Dumont, amongst many others, all playing. Late September also sees the crew take over the pier in Hastings so we chat with the team behind it to find out more.

Does Blackpool have a history of house music events and parties or are you guys trailblazers?
Many years ago when The Syndicate nightclub was open. This was a huge part of clubbing to many in the area for a long time. There is not much going on up there currently on this scale, the only being similar is the guys over at Blackpool Rocks, who run events at Blackpool’s winter gardens.

What sort of crowd do you attract, or aim to attract? Do you have one in mind specifically?
I’d say we definitely cater more towards the young dance music enthusiasts, who are all up for a unique day time festival experience!

How much are you weather dependent? If it rains, have you any provisions or do you hope people just come party in the wet?
Very weather dependent it’s a open pier, there are 2 indoor rooms but they are small so they wouldn’t work for the artist or capacity that we have. However, in the case of heavy rain, we have got some partial cover. Unfortunately, the crowd would not be covered in this case, we would just hope they would embrace it and not let it ‘dampen’ there day 😉

What informs the booking at Pier Jam? Is it personal taste or giving people what they want or?
Dave Lee books our artists. He’s responsible for organizing huge shows all over the UK. We like to give the people what they want, and continuously strive to bring the biggest and best talent that’s available to us to Blackpool.

Tell us how many people work on Pier Jam and how long it takes to get it together?
James Cohen – Director
Dave Lee – Director
Janine Thompson – Marketing
Brian Murphy – Marketing
Jorge Meehan – Marketing

We all work full time together at Victoria Warehouse in Manchester. We have lots of events throughout the UK. Pier Jam is a full time operation, the hard work never stops!

How did you end up promoting and not DJing or producing? What do you love about the job?
Let’s leave this one out too mate please as a number of us involved.

What are your favourite memories from Pier Jam so far? What sticks in the mind?
DJ EZ in 2015 was a real highlight for us. He just took everyone on that pier by storm! We cannot wait for him to return on the 17th September! Also the sunset on every Pier Jam, it’s a beautiful setting being on that Pier when the sun goes down.

What has been the hardest or best lessons you have learnt?
The crowd is very housey/vocal, they’re in to there huge vocals and big drops! We booked an underground line up last year and this did not work very well, lesson learnt.

You are expanding into Hastings right – tell us about that, why there, what will be on offer?
Expect a very similar event to Blackpool. Hastings is a beautiful, historic coastal town on the South-East cost. As such, backdrop is perfect for a Pier Jam event. The Pier itself has just undergone a 14.2 million restoration, and we couldn’t be happier to bring Pier Jam to the South coast.

What else do you do aside from Pier Jam or is it a full time thing?
We work full time at Victoria Warehouse in Manchester. We work on many other shows from DLDK / Life In Color / Sankeys Warehouse / Awakenings / We Are WHSE / Bass Jam & Composit Music events.

Next Pier Jam Events

17th September featuring DJ EZ, Preditah, Low Steppa, TQD & Bontan

24th September featuring MK, Hannah Wants, Camelphat, KC Lights

Pier Jam host events at Blackpool North Pier and Hastings Pier – For more information – www.pierjam.com