Andy Crysell Selling The Night: When Club Culture Meets Brands, Advertising and the Creative Industries

Selling The Night is the first book to join the dots between club culture and the wider creative industries. Exploring links with advertising, tourism, gaming, design, fashion and beyond, it provides numerous fascinating touch points. It also considers how to keep club culture alive; its future role in shaping opportunities and nurturing creativity. The book hears from more than 100 DJs, promoters, marketers, academics, activists, archivists, policymakers, photographers, writers and designers, including New York disco legend Nicky Siano, DJ/producer/educator King Britt, Hacienda designer Ben Kelly, DJ and tastemaker Jamz Supernova and many more.

They say nothing good happens after midnight, but in the case of creativity, that’s just not so. The night fosters a different kind of creativity: something urgent, spontaneous, carved out of necessity. Tracking the past, present and future of this complex dynamic, Selling The Night explores what happens when after-dark creativity influences wider culture and converges with everything from media, advertising, design and to gaming, fashion, hospitality, alcohol, beauty, tourism and far beyond. Also, as importantly, the implications of brands taking space within dance music as sponsors and supporters.

Author Andy Crysell speaks to DJs, promoters, marketers, academics, activists, archivists, policymakers, photographers, writers and designers. He samples KFC through to Fiorucci, Absolut and Red Bull, and moves from New York disco to the modern global underground.

Selling The Night witnesses how ideas migrate from subculture to influence the creative industries. It goes in search of lessons in improving the value exchange between dance music and brands, seeking something more symbiotic and less parasitic. All the while, it celebrates what makes after-dark ideas so special – the unique and democratising role they play.

“So much has changed in dance music over the decades. Selling The Night offers a very timely look at the role that brands and culture marketing have played in the past and will play in the future.” Kazim Rashid (Resident Advisor)

“The friction created when youth subcultures meet corporate cultures is long overdue a deconstruction, Selling The Night is necessary reading on how and why there is a transfer of time and money between consumer brands and cultural ecosystems; and what both sectors have to gain and lose through these relationships.” Finlay Johnson (Association For Electronic Music)