Elrow: How wacky flamboyance created the most popular party in the world

The Catalan carnival are planning world domination through colour, costumes and Tech House

Credit: Ryan Dinham (Credit: Ryan Dinham)

A man with an inflatable traffic cone hat is chasing back and forth his topless friend, seemingly trying to pull down his trousers, as his friend’s full-back tattoo of a tequila bottle darts in and out of the crowd. Another friend watches on, cackling uncontrollably, wearing a t-shirt that says on it, “Does It Look Like I Give A S**t?”

Another group with inflatable swimming rings around their waists, blowing on whistles and the extendable party horns you see at Christmas parties, run towards the main stage, whooping “Oi oi!” excitedly. A flurry of balloons spin into the air above a group of mid-forties ravers who all wearing shutter shade, mid-2000s Kanye sunglasses.

A woman in her twenties sporting a Native American headdress runs up to me for a handshake and then puts her thumb to her nose, twirling her fingers in the universal “I’ve clowned you” gesture, as her mates burst out in hysterics.

This is Elrow Town, the electronic music day festival in the Olympic Park, East London, put on by Barcelona-born, international party organisers Elrow. “Like a mirage rising from the shores of the Thames,” their online event description states, “Elrow Town is an oddity, an anomaly, a sanctuary for the outcasts.”

(Credit: Aronklein (Credit: Aronklein)

Elrow has a strong claim as one of the fastest-growing, explosively popular parties in the world. Most of their events – where a popular version of house music known as "Tech House" is combined with an overload of costume, colour and flamboyance, regularly sell out 2,000, 4,000 or 6,000-capacity event spaces within a few hours.

What started as a party on the outskirts of Barcelona, in the last two years has gone to Johannesburg, New Caledonia and Peru, as well as most major centres of nightlife in the Western world, with Antarctica now the only continent untouched by the brand.

"We have five teams that can deploy shows in five continents on the same weekend,” says Vicenc Marti, president of the company. Asia is the current new frontier, he reveals, with shows in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and the “Japanese and South Korean markets” being established.

Originally named "El Row" after the venue for the first party, ‘Row 14’, one of a long row of warehouses outside Barcelona airport 10 years ago, its founders – the Arnau family – are a dynasty of party organisers. The family's roots in entertainment can be traced back to their ancestors in 1870s northern Spain, who ran a social club popular amongst traders and gamblers in small-town Aragon.

The grandfather of Elrow’s current CEO was known as the “techno grandfather” for his work throwing parties over several decades in Barcelona. Juanito Arnau, and his sister Cruz, both in their thirties, are the chief directors running the shows, with a hands-on approach and a genuine desire for putting on extravagant, accessible parties. Juanito repeats an oft-quoted line about what makes an Elrow party: “It is 25% music, 25% the performers, 25% the decoration and 25% the crowd.”

With the common factor of an extravagant overload of performers, props and wacky games on dance floors, they promise a new theme to every party that happens in any city. “People want a unique experience, an experience of something that doesn’t happen again,” Juanito tells The Independent.

Credit: Toni Villen (Credit: Toni Villen)

The main theme for the two-day London festival, where Fatboy Slim and Idris Elba play alongside more regular tech house stalwarts, is “Psychedelic Trip”. The traditional tripping spectrum of bright colours covers most surfaces you can see – bars, food trucks, the 30 flags on poles that line the main stage waving in the East London breeze.

The stage is a 50ft high and 100ft wide structure, made of big hexagons and circles coloured with the same tripping patterns. The DJ booth is elevated halfway up the stage, where German artist Claptone is wearing a top hat, white gloves and a mask with a curved beak. He is waving his arms back and forth theatrically like a crystal ball street performer, teasing the crowd.

The defining feature of the Elrow crowd, which features a solid contingent from late teens through to music fans in their forties and fifties, is accessory-based fancy dress. There is a constant bouncing around of inflatable toys and props, novelty sized hats, sunglasses and wigs, all provided by Elrow staff on-site. A cosmetic glitter and body art stall is adorning men and women with styles advertised as "Boho", "Tropical" and "Sphinx". Few faces in the crowd are without some form of glitter, paint or jewel.

Heavily tanned, gym-sculpted torsos two-step back and forth to the tech house thud, as teenagers stumble around in sportswear, shotter bags and buzz cuts. A bearded man in his thirties is wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat. “It’s ironic!” he says. “Everything thinks I’m a Trump supporter, which is kind of annoying.”

There is a refreshingly large number of middle-aged ravers at Elrow. Graham, an investment broker and Elspeth, who works in PR, are in their fifties and live in Kent. They came to Elrow Town with their young adult children last year, but made sure to return this time, fist-pumping merrily in the middle of the crowd, clutching their water bottles. “We go to Fabric, we’ve just been to Lovebox [festival], but you can’t go wrong with Elrow,” Graham tells me.

Credit: Graham Joy (Credit: Graham Joy)

Every hour a procession of Elrow performers on stilts march through the crowd, each one dressed in a different exhibitionist costume. One actor is dressed as a cartoonish police woman, and mock pats people down as she moves through the crowd. Another is dressed in a hippie wig and sunglasses, wearing padded boobs over foot-to toe neon, holding a guitar with the peace sign painted on, which he pretends to strum crazily, offering it down to punters from time to time. Another two in drag make up hold big pointer signs, which together in graffiti font say: “The craziest party….” and the other one, “…in the world!”

Tech House, the music Elrow play to complement the theatrics, may well be the EDM of the UK - a much-maligned electronic sub-genre, revolving around the might of very regular “drops” that give structure for people to whoop and throw their hands in the air to at regular intervals. Its strength is its versatility – within an hour at Elrow Town, you hear pop hits from MGMT and Florence & The Machine, to house classics from Nightwriters and Hardrive, all remixed over a remarkably similar beat.

Credit: Graham Joy (Credit: Graham Joy)

The growth opportunities for Elrow are almost limitless. Last year, Elrow teamed up with Desperados to host SkyFest, a “party in the sky” where DJs Jackmaster and Honey Dijon performed from hot air balloons. This year the two brands will collaborate again for a “party under water” in Venice, where Peggy Gou plays from space submerged under the Italian city.

Taking a hands-on approach to delivering these events is not daunting to Juanito, who lives and breathes raving. He says he hasn’t missed going out a Saturday night since he was 15, attending the biggest electronic events popular amongst young people, constantly looking for change and innovation for Elrow that will capture young people’s hearts. Through conversations with punters on the dancefloor, he says, he learns what they respond to, in terms of both music and what most other parties consider extras – the theatrics and games integral to Elrow’s theory of clubbing. “The market is much wider for people who just want to have fun. Otherwise the music can be too serious and exclude people.”

Elrow is regularly the target for criticism, but this doesn’t bother Juanito. “I don’t care. Honestly, there will always be haters.” His father told him, “if you believe in yourself, stick to your guns.”

***

Driving through the four kilometres of exposed, dusty road, away from the beach and into the darkness, you can see hills twinkling with lights in the distance against a black void. Passing warehouses and driveways, a looming source of orange light in the sky gets brighter and brighter, as traffic increases on the main highway that connects the lively, coastal hubs of Ibiza. Soon the end point is revealed, almost bang in the middle of the white isle, as the outside lane of the C-731 motorway becomes a standstill of taxis.

A huge building looms, advertised by its neon sign, illuminating all before it: "Amnesia". Ravers are arriving from all directions, having abandoned their rides, they clamber over the little lanes and crossings from the motorway, up hills and through ditches, towards one of the most famous super clubs in the world.

Tonight is Elrow’s weekly Saturday night party, on the site where Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling’s transformational experience in 1987 spawned the acid house revolution in the UK. Outside, you can feel the expectation in the air, with a long queue of flowery-dressed, mostly young and mostly British kids shuffling along, trying to hide the usual pre-entry itchiness to get inside and the night to begin.

A taste of the party greets them before they enter however – a man in a mock naked, padded plastic suit and fuzzy wig shouts at them in a Spanish accent. “Who wants some food? Come on, you guys hungry?” He is holding a tray of fake spaghetti at crotch level, with a plastic, eight-inch penis protruding across it. “Who wants some? Who’s ready?”

Behind him are other actors on stilts who walk from a huge white marquee situated 20 yards from the main club building. Inside, performers are dressing up, selecting their outfits from rails groaning under the weight of hundreds of costumes. Make-up and design artists rush back and forth to make final adjustments.

The night’s theme is loosely based around Coyote and the Road Runner, playing on the Spanish phrase “de perdidos al rio”, which roughly translates as a more youthful version of "in for a penny, in for a pound". If you’re having one beer, you may as well have ten; if you’re putting on one pair of wacky sunglasses, you may as well go the whole hog and get the full morph suit.

Inside, the heat of 3,000 bodies sliding past each other is clearly taking its toll on those on the dance floor. Hundreds of people are gathered in the smoking area, most exhausted and wide-eyed, perched on little seats and ledges. In the main room, hanging suspended from the ceiling is a plastic mini-helicopter and a small cage, in which actors – nodding and shaking furiously, waving their arms back and forth, simulate "freaking out" in some capacity.

Every hour or so, a ceremony explodes in all directions, as the Elrow mascot, Rowgelia, a big furry bird, marches on stage. Members of Elrow’s senior team tell me passionately about Rowgelia, for whom tonight at Amnesia is her “birthday party”. Cruz explains a backstory to each character in her bird family – with names like Rowberta, Rowmeo, Rowsana – some of whom appear to be throwing plastic beach balls into the crowd, as doyen of the Tech House canon and headliner for the night, Patrick Topping, plays behind them. The squad of big yellow birds dance in a circle around a giant egg hatching in the middle of the stage, seemingly to denote’s Rowgelia’s birthday, watched by hundreds of sweaty young Brits in front.

Patrick Topping seems unperturbed by the poultry party in front of him. The Geordie’s smash hit, "Be Sharp Say Nowt", builds and builds, featuring the passionate proclamations of Eighties' Atlanta gospel singer LaShun Pace, ringing out over forceful EDM stabs and icy tech percussion. Confetti canons explode, launching a absolutely remarkable amount of paper onto every surface as the actors whoop and yell.

Juanito explains that Elrow can operate as a gateway for people who are not really into electronic music. “Many people think raving, techno and warehouses are not for them, but with our performances and shows at the parties, we make people think, ‘OK, this looks like fun,’, and they are introduced to a whole new world.”

Elrow have upcoming parties in Southampton (20 October), Dublin (16 November) and their Amnesia closing party in Ibiza (6 October) – details here