Gatecrasher
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Gatecrasher is an international clubbing brand made famous by the Gatecrasher (later Crasher) dance music events held at the Gatecrasher One nightclub in Sheffield, England during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The event picked up awards such as "Club Of The Year" at the Ericsson Muzik Magazine Dance Awards in 1998. The promoters were Simon Raine, and Scott Bond until 2004. As of 2009 there are three permanent Gatecrasher venues located in the cities of Birmingham, Leeds and Nottingham.
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[edit] History
Since Gatecrashers creation in 1993, Gatecrasher has rapidly become the UK's most outstanding and influential dance club and youth culture brand, changing the face of club culture globally.
Its first venue Gatecrasher One in Sheffield burnt down in early 2007. Plans are already underway to rebuild the Club bigger and better than before.
Gatecrasher has hosted some of the largest-capacity parties throughout the UK; Leeds, Cardiff, Milton Keynes, Glasgow, Dublin and Birmingham to name but a few. In a revolutionary move, a clubbing first, one of the most talked-about events ever was Gatecrasher at Lotherton Hall, Leeds in 1999. 10,000 people congregated to listen to over 20 leading DJs and artists from all dance genres.
Gatecrasher’s Summer Sound System event in June 2000 was hailed as the event of the year. The blazing sun accompanied the antics of 25,000 clubbers as they enjoyed the talents of 50 DJs. The same event in 2001 and 2002 saw an increased capacity of 40,000 people enjoy the music of a wide diversity of artists in addition to the usual top DJ’s, these included acts like The Chemical Brothers, Craig David, Miss Teeq and Faithless.
Gatecrasher’s "2000GC" Millennium Eve event at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield is still possibly the most praised and talked about event to date by any club. The massive arena held a sell-out crowd of 25,000, and had the look and feel of a stadium rock concert. The staging, musical enhancement and visual effects created an adrenalin-fuelled atmosphere and a night never to forget. According to Gatecrasher promoter Simon Raine, 2000GC was "ten years of promoting parties, ten years of production knowledge and ten years of contacts all put into one very special night."
Due to the success and strength of the brand name, Gatecrasher launched itself into the CD market in August of ’98 with a series of compilation albums released through Sony: ‘Black’, ‘Red’, ‘Wet’, ‘Disco-tech’, ‘Global Sound System’ and ‘National Anthems’ to name a few.
2001 then saw the launch of Gatecrashers own record label and the first album, "Digital" released in October went silver in the UK within the first 10 days and gold in Australia within the first week. All albums featured a 20-page clubbers’ booklet and were available in limited edition packaging, triple vinyl and shipped worldwide. Gatecrasher’s albums draw inspiration from the dance floor and do not rely on ‘big name’ DJ to endorse publicity or sales.
Record sales have continued to be high for Gatecrasher and the brand's recent release on Rhino Gatecrasher's Trance Anthem's (1993 - 2009)achieved gold selling status with the follow up Gatecrasher's Club Anthems (1993 - 2009) due out in November 2009.
2003 saw Gatecrasher embark on an ambitious World Tour, taking in such locations as Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong, Amsterdam and Tokyo to name a few. Gatecrasher also made in-roads into America, resulting in a series of monthly residencies: at Arc in New York, the cosmopolitan Space in Miami and the underground-feeling Turbo in Toronto. In total, 2003 saw over 1.4 million people attend a Gatecrasher event.
2004 saw the launch of "GCX, 10 Years with a Vengeance" a series of events and club nights to celebrate the last ten years of Gatecrasher. As well as moving into new territories including Russia, India, China and Lebanon, we’re also working in association with major beer brand Corona on a series of 10 UK and 17 World dates under the banner "The Ultimate Party Tour" including London, Manchester, Glasgow, Rome, Oslo, Rejakavik and Prague featuring some of the Worlds top artists including Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk and Ferry Corsten.
Gatecrasher has also spent the last 7 years building a club empire. The flagship £5million club was built in Birmingham in September 2008 and since then over 1/2 million clubbers have been through the door. To build the club, Gatecrasher enlisted the services of internationally celebrated designers Big Time Design to create the ultimate Miami style club experience, devised in Ibiza, designed in New York and built in Birmingham. GB (Gatecrasher Birmingham) incorporates four rooms of music, the most technologically advanced light and sound systems in the world and an awe inspiring design.
2009 also witnessed the rebrand of Gatecrasher Loves Nottingham to Gatecrasher Ultra. Each of the club’s three levels and the main auditorium were redesigned. A more modern design approach contrasts with the stunning backdrop of this listed 1920’s theatre. Most significantly, the main auditorium was given a complete face lift becoming darker and more edgy. The main stage was rebuilt to accommodate live music and on the technical side, a cutting edge Audio Visual system designed and installed by Gatecrasher’s Gary Howard & Chris Bailey continue Gatecrasher’s tradition of production excellence. State of the art features include a hand-build, custom designed Opus Sound System, and the seven metre Dream Panel will be reinstalled in the main room. In its quest for technological excellence, Gatecrasher has also imported a revolutionary state of the art full roof LED lighting system from Berlin’s infamous Watergate club.
Gatecrasher in Leeds was rebranded as Gatecrasher7 in 2007. The downstairs room was fully overhauled and branded as BED. As well as forming part of the venue, Bed is utilised as a self-contained 400 capacity venue with a separate entrance, toilets, DJ booths, Bars, with stylish sunken booths and designer Italian furniture.
Gatecrasher also overhalled their Watford venue Area in 2009 adding a pre-bar called Bed. Designed by legendary international designer Matt Rawlinson (Living Room, Apres, Gatecrasher, Mechu) Bed is a twist on a standard classical bar with a contemporary urban edge. Bansky style graffiti wall art collides radically with individual classical style portraits in carved black lacquered frames creating a spectacular effect. The scheme is a piece of living street art, the entire area has been sprayed in a dark graphite base colour then graffiti painted with a mixture of stencil art, colour splashes and dribbled paintwork.
Gatecrasher's first club Gatecrasher One in Sheffield was destroyed in a fire in 2007 but plans to rebuild the club are in place. The club became revered across the world amongst DJs and club-goers a like.Since the fire at Gatecrasher One, Gatecrasher have held one-off events at the Magna Centre near Rotherham and Carling Academy in Sheffield.
[edit] Spin-off successes
Gatecrasher has held several extremely successful large events including Summer Sound System (40,000 Capacity), Gatecrasher NEC (15,000 Capacity), Crasher N/Ice (at the Nottingham Ice Arena) (7,500 Capacity), Gatecrasher Sound System (Australia) and Fort Dance in Russia (40,000 Capacity). The promoters also ran a popular Gatecrasher night for one season at Eden in Ibiza during the summer of 2000. This was revived for 2006/7 with the award winning "Gatecrasher Ibiza Live" parties held once again at Eden (nightclub), San Antonio.
In 2005, the company opened a new nightclub in Leeds under the name Discotheque. On the 23rd April 2008 Discotheque was relaunched as Gatecrasher Seven.
In 2007, Gatecrasher Loves Nottingham was opened. In February 2009, the venue was closed due to a fire next door.
In September 2008, Gatecrasher opened a 3000 capacity, 4 room, 5 million pound superclub' on Broad Street in Birmingham. The club hosts nights headlined by Moby, Eric Morillo, Calvin Harris, Deadmau5, Sebastian Engrosso, Steve Angello, Axwell, Paul Oakenfold. The club plays all styles of music as is hailed as the re birth of cool for the central England clubbing fraternity. "Supersonic Vague" the latest in the companys sub branded night was launched in GB with guest DJs from Ian Watkins of The Lost Prophets, Lilly Allen, Kaiser Chiefs and The Mighty Boosh front man.
In 2009, Gatecrasher Nottingham reopened as Ultra Gatecrasher.
Gatecrasher has also launched one of the biggest new indie nights Super Sonic Vague http://supersonicvague.com/ which operates in both Birmingham and Nottingham and has attracted DJs including The Lost Prophets, Razorlight, Radio 1's Nick Grimshaw, Lily Allen and many more.
[edit] Past resident DJs
- Judge Jules
- Scott Bond
- Corey
- Lee "the truth" Smith
- Matt Hardwick
- Riley & Durrant
- Eddie Halliwell
[edit] Discography
The popularity of the Gatecrasher brand is partly due to a large number of compilation albums released. The first seven albums were released on the Sony offshoot label INCredible. Gatecrasher's most recent album Gatecrasher's Trance Anthems (1993 - 2009) achieved gold status with a new release due in November 2009.
