The London Loft aims to serve and unite our community through music and dance with friends old and new who share a positive spirit. We aim to create a safe, inclusive, and warm space in which we enjoy the freedom to release our inner child and to express ourselves. We aim to uphold the socially progressive values of The Loft in which all people should be treated equally, fairly and with respect. We welcome those who share the same values.
We aim to provide quality in every aspect including friendly staff, wonderful food, a fun environment, inspirational décor, audiophile sound and a musical journey. We will celebrate the transformative and healing power of music and aim to ‘transmit the pulse’ of ‘the life energy of music’ which brings people together in ecstatic dance and feeling. And we’ll have fun doing it. Music is love. Love saves the day.
Come On Down, Boogie People
This Feelin’
There are many differences that you may notice when first attending one of our London Loft Parties. Most apparent at first may be the incredible clear, warm enveloping sound which flows from our handcrafted Koetsu cartridges to our carefully placed Klipschorns. Every element of the audiophile sound system is carefully chosen and placed for the optimal acoustic experience. It doesn’t really matter if you are hi-fi geek or not - when you are in the middle of the dancefloor you will hear and feel the difference. You may also notice that the volume does not reach the ear piercing, tinnitus inducing levels you may have experienced at other parties. As with the carefully chosen audio equipment this is a deliberate measure to ensure that you, Dear Dancer, are not bombarded with noise but, instead wrapped in life enhancing musical vibrations. An additional benefit is our parties won’t leave your ears ringing the next day or permanently damage your hearing!
Of course alongside the quality of the audio reproduction there is the joyful, uplifting musical arc itself. Following the principle of musical bardos, inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead and developed by David Mancuso at the New York Loft, there are shifts in mood, energy and vibration throughout the course of the party. We advise you to get there early to experience the full depth and breadth of the musical journey - and hear music from the past, present and future in a way that you may not have heard it before.
Beyond the music is our Loft community itself. We place a high value on mutual respect, love, understanding and consideration to try and create an environment where everyone feels safe and comfortable to be completely themselves. True freedom of expression to music is what we love to see on the dancefloor and to enable this to happen there has to be a sense that no-one is being judged or made to feel uneasy. Any sort of ill-will, snarkiness or aggressive behaviour which may make someone feel uncomfortable is not permitted or tolerated.
In the Loft tradition we have a free coat check, free chilled water to keep you hydrated and a nourishing vegetarian meal to give you sustenance and energy for dancing.
Things get busy at around 5:30pm, so please arrive early to stagger the flow, make new friends and enjoy some relaxed dining from Wendy's vegetarian soul food buffet, served until 8pm. Vegan and gluten free diets are catered for and allergen information will be available. We'll do our best to prevent cross-contamination, but please be aware that traces may be present in the food.
Our Mark Levinson ML-1 preamp, matched Class A amplifiers and Klipschorns are balanced to create a beautiful sonic environment. Our house is your house, so please take collective responsibility in not stowing jackets or placing drinks on the speaker corners. Spilled drink + blown amp = buzz kill
Children are welcome from 4pm and must leave by 6pm. We love the playful energy they bring! Please make sure kids are fully supervised at all times.
Our team works hard to prepare the space. Please allow the balloons to live peacefully on the ceiling and resist the urge to redecorate. If you see balloons loose on the dancefloor please take them out and far away from the turntables! We really appreciate your help and co-operation with this.
Dance your heart out and live in the moment! There are areas outside the dancefloor for eating, drinking, conversation, photos and shazaming. Let’s keep our dancing space sacred.
Our outdoor terrace at London Irish Centre closes at 9pm. If you wish to go outside after this, please use the front entrance. Be mindful of our neighbours as it’s a residential area.
We celebrate self-expression and aim to unite with shared purpose, providing an inclusive, safe space for all.
Please do not assume anyone’s gender identity and please respect pronouns. If you’re confused about which pronoun to use, simply use the person’s name. More on this here.
If you experience any issues, just tell one of our team members on the door, or look for a person with a ‘Loft Crew’ badge and we will do our best to:
Provide a quiet space
Listen and record what happened
Challenge the behaviour
Support you to re-join the party or get home safely
Get Ready…For The Future
Loft Parties, dancing together, and why it matters
Words by Ava Szajna-Hopgood 20. Dec 2024.
Originally published on Mason & Fifth
It is Sunday afternoon in London, and in a few minutes the doors to the London Loft will open for their Beltane celebrations. When the dance floor takes flight, guests will come in and out of its orbit, led by a set of beliefs established by the Loft’s creator and original musical host, David Mancuso. Continuing our journey to understand what drives community and spaces for coming together, we spoke to the people instrumental to the Loft’s ever-evolving party scene that is seeing a resurgence in London.
When the Loft parties first began in New York in the late 1960s, segregation was widespread and lawful in the US. Inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Protests, Gay Liberation and the Women’s Liberation Movement, the Loft’s crowd was a mix of many heritages and backgrounds, ages, class status, parents and children. The draw? Guests were given hours to tune out of the daily demands of their lives and tune in to music from Mancuso’s legendary sound system. Mancuso refused to be restricted by genre or mixing, playing every track from beginning to end, with the sound levels purposefully set lower than many people were accustomed to, in order to improve the aural experience. The door fee covered a vegetarian buffet (for dancing sustenance) and a free cloakroom. Mirrors, clocks and cameras were banned on the dance floor, lest guests be reminded of the time, or made to feel self conscious. His egalitarian rules were so simple, you wonder why they don’t apply to all dancefloors.
The site of the original Loft. 645-647 Broadway, New York City. Photo Leonard Blanche
Considered one of the most important figures in dance music history, Mancuso’s Loft parties counted Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles as regulars. At the start of the 1990s, another guest began to make a regular appearance: radio host and DJ Colleen Murphy.
“I just fell in love with the whole atmosphere, and the music, and the community, immediately,” Murphy tells me of her first visit to Mancuso’s Loft party in the early 1990s.
“I had been to clubs and some cool dance parties and I always had a good time, but none of them had ever reached deeply into my soul. I didn’t have that kind of emotional, spiritual connection. A lot of [the music] I didn’t know, but every song [David] chose resonated with me on a very deep level, both lyrically and musically, and the sound and sonically. I could tell that this guy was on another level.”
Music, festivities and parties had been a lifeline for Mancuso since childhood. Born in Upstate New York, at ten days old, Mancuso went to live in a children’s home, under the care of a nun, Sister Alicia. Here, Sister Alicia regularly hosted parties for the children who would come and go from the home, with balloons, crepe paper, a piano and a record player. This early experience started Mancuso’s fascination with music, and the flow of unorthodox families and communities that can be created through dancefloors.
David Mancuso (right) with Colleen Cosmo Murphy and Andrew Pirie at the London Loft Party. Photo Vincent Villard
“Out of everyone I’ve ever met in my life, I think [David] had the best ears,” Murphy tells me. “He taught me how to really listen. First he had a eureka moment when he heard Klipschorn speakers at his friend’s house, and he had to have them. He started building a sound system in his own home. Then he went to Trinidad, he was at a carnival and he had a second eureka moment, watching a steel pan ensemble and how the party atmosphere made him feel. He decided ‘when I got back to New York I just want to go to parties’”.
Against the backdrop of the end of the Civil Rights Era and months after the Stonewall Uprising, Mancuso began hosting parties at his home, in an old loft building at 647 Broadway: “David used the rent party model, and it was about bringing people together from different backgrounds of life, in a celebratory setting, enjoying music in the way the artist intended it to be heard on a beautiful sound system. Psychedelics would of course be involved, and it was the first time for a lot of Black people and white people to become friends, or gay people and straight people,” said Murphy.
“Single mothers were allowed to bring their kids, and it was about creating his own community and sense of family. It was about social progress: making an idealised community that brought down the divisions between people and using music as the way to bring people together. [David] felt strongly that music was a healing force, and he created a template that worked, which is why we’re still doing parties over 50 years later.”
London Loft Party at the Light Bar, Shoreditch circa 2007. Photo Guillaume Chottin
As kindred audiophile spirits, Murphy and Mancuso connected over their shared love for music, with Mancuso inviting Murphy to play records at the Loft. Over time, Mancuso, Murphy and the wider Loft family worked on expanding parties in London and Italy. While Mancuso passed away in 2016, his legacy lives on through the London Loft parties that Murphy now runs with a committed team of sound engineers, lighting technicians, door faeries and vegan chefs, taking on Mancuso’s mantle and sharing his hopes for the therapeutic nature of music and dancefloors with their invite-only parties twice a year.
As I wait to go inside, I am struck by how many people of different ages are here to dance. Families with young children and people of all generations are warming up for an interstellar few hours under Murphy’s guidance as music host. Seven Klipschorn speakers tower at the edges of the dance floor, with snatches of records reverberating for sound check. Pink, purple and white balloons fill the centre of the hall’s ceiling. Over at the door, the team welcomes guests with badges and sweets. It’s not just the incense: the feel of a children’s birthday party is well and truly in the air.
I ask Murphy what she thinks we still have to learn from Mancuso’s vision for dancing together:
“For me the social side of it is the most important side. It was the reason David did [the Loft]: the social movements, inclusivity, safe spaces and integrity. Music is a healing force, that’s something I’ve always known. Using music to bring people together and elevate their spirits, let them forget about what’s going on in the world and around them for a while, because sometimes you need a break.”
When I leave the Loft my ears don’t ring from the noise of the night, I’m not on edge from being shoved around a cramped dancefloor for hours, instead, I feel aglow. I’ve had small moments of fizzing exchanges from the Loft’s wider family all evening: people explaining what the party means to them, how many years they’ve been coming, why they find it so healing. Mancuso’s idea of bringing a community together to escape the pressures of their everyday lives began in the late 1960s, and yet it remains ahead of the curve in this century, when clubs, dancefloors and entire cities can so easily morph into unwelcome spaces. I feel buoyed from an evening of dazzling sounds and candid conversations; it’s like no club I’ve ever been to. I’m inspired by the team’s dedication to Mancuso’s utopian vision and their unwavering belief in music as a healing force. But most of all the idea that if we can create a dancefloor that truly feels safe for everyone, perhaps we can repeat that consideration out into our cities and our streets.
