Printworks London opened it's doors for the first time since March 2020 on Friday, September 17th with no published line-up or set times before or during the night. Mike Barnard was there to see what lay in store at the first of three 'Redacted' shows.
Inkwells with its much smaller capacity seemed to get the better reaction of the two spaces; the Press Halls didn’t resonate the way it can when 5,000 people are raving in unison.
Printworks London emerged for the first time since COVID hit with a non-male line-up for the first of its Redacted trilogy of shows on Friday, September 17th. Being a Redacted show means there’s a media blackout on who these DJs were, but does it matter when we can dance at this space again?
In some ways no. There was a new second room to explore directly beneath the Press Halls called Inkwells. It’s long dancefloor with twin pillars flowing down the centre and low-ceiling made for an industrial vibe that, at times, acted as a hot box of rave energy. The stripped-back lighting design acts as a counterpoint to the razzle-dazzle of the Press Halls, so it finally feels as though Printworks London will have a second room that can complement its main space, rather than act as an whispered aside.
Sadly we can’t mention how [redacted] & [redacted] were echoing their Inkwells surroundings by serving up dramatic industrial beats when we first entered, nor how [redacted] & [redacted] slammed a mix of hard house and hardcore energy into a delighted Inkwells crowd. Towards the end the place felt like it was going to erupt as [redacted] & [redacted] threw thunderous techno at us, and by then there was a solid crowd locked into the Inkwells vibe.
Meanwhile, in the Press Halls, the bulk of the audience were served up a vast array of music that spanned disco, house, and techno as you might expect from a night that was dubbed for fans of The Hydra, Percolate, Bugged Out, and Krankbrother among others. At one point a Bhangra-inspired tune seemed to provoke as much joy as it did confusion – and herein lies the Redacted conundrum.
With no published set times or artists to even those inside Printworks, there was a lot of audience flow between the Press Halls and Inkwells to see who was playing. A handy digital read-out in Inkwells kept us informed at all times as to who was on stage, and it was fairly easy to get up close to the DJ booth to see who was behind the decks, but in the Press Halls you would be hard pushed to get close enough to see who was playing if you missed the information when the DJ first started playing – and that was not easy to do as it was only done at the beginning of the sets which you wouldn’t know when they started.
So while it was nice to sometimes overhear who was playing, or even work out the silhouette for yourself, there wasn’t the same level of coherence as a published line-up between the music played by each DJ, nor by audience expectation. Personal Twitter feeds exposed the polarising results: some bemoaned the sets having an ‘anytime goes’ mentality while others found the experience of hearing the unknown exhilarating. We struggled to get into the sets as the selections certainly felt more left field than when there’s an overriding Printworks ‘host’, be it a DJ or a clubnight, but looking around there were plenty of people soaking up this concept. And that’s maybe the point here.
We’re generally fed clubnight themes and hosts with published set times that leave little room for real suspense or surprise as to who’s up to mix next for the listeners, but it also means that those playing know well in advance who they will be coming on after and who will come next. The Redacted series removes these blinkers and plunges everyone into the unknown… it’s an ambitious experiment for a club so large that is bound to bring differing reactions.
For us, the Inkwells with its much smaller capacity seemed to get the better reaction of the two spaces; the Press Halls didn’t resonate the way it can when 5,000 people are raving in unison. Those times will come, no doubt. If the Redacted concept returns, something as simple as a persistent awareness of who’s playing in the Press Halls would be welcome. There were significantly well-respected selectors such as [redacted], [redacted], and [redacted] there on Friday to excite the crowd, but that lack of identity in a vast space felt like it alienated the audience rather than bringing them together. However, Printworks London should be celebrated for being open to pushing a brave concept and, while it returns to its traditional published line-ups next week, the Redacted concept could find its niche with a few tweaks and this first foundation of how audiences should expect the unexpected.
Article republished November 2026.