The museumification of London nightlife: a King’s Cross Central case study

In London, U.K., a spate of recent exhibitions have explored the nightlife and subcultural movements of yesteryear; Blitz at the Design Museum, Frequencies at the Barbican, and Lost Music Venues at the V&A, to name but a few. In the context of the ever dwindling number of cultural venues across the city and the increased financial precarity for young people pursuing creative careers, these exhibitions could be argued to have powerful roles in preserving important popcultural histories and empowering potential for alternative nightlife futures. But what is at stake when property developers follow this trend, basing exhibits on the former nightlife scenes their very regeneration initiatives have helped to destroy? This presentation, drawing on ongoing PhD research, will engage with this question by focusing on King's Cross Central, London, an area with a rich history of club and queer cultures, that is now one of the city’s most prominent sites of urban regeneration. This presentation will focus on key examples of how former nightlife scenes have been mobilised within the King’s Cross Central estate for cultural programming, placemaking, and heritage purposes. It will explore the tensions present in how this nightlife is memorialised within the context of urban regeneration. Finally, it will consider the legacies and futures of the area’s nightlife scenes in what is now a Privately Owned Public Space. In doing so, this presentation will contribute valuable insight into London subcultural and nightlife practices both past and present and their relationship with wider processes of urban change.