{"id":1943446,"date":"2026-05-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1943446"},"modified":"2026-05-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:00:00","slug":"wonderland-186","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1943446","title":{"rendered":"Wonderland"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\tWonderland<\/span>
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\n\t\t\tGALA: STANDING ALONE, HAND IN HAND\u00a0<\/span>
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As it readies for its eleventh year this coming bank holiday weekend, Peckham\u2019s GALA stands true as one of London\u2019s only lasting independent festivals. Co-founder Giles Napier discusses its lineage and continued importance.<\/h3>\n
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\"GALA:
Photography by Jake Philip Davis <\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Speaking on Finger\u2019s track, \u201cCan You Feel It\u201d, Chuck Roberts couldn\u2019t have summed up the 80\u2019s ethos of house music better: \u201cOnce you enter into my house, it then becomes our house.\u201d A party with a \u201ccome as you are\u201d attitude that has historically opened its doors to everyone who wanted in. But this mentality feels lost in the contemporary dance scene, where community might as well be a discarded buzzball, kicked down the road at the end of the night by the faceless, steel-booted companies that are dominating the clubbing industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ed Gillet observes in his book, Party Lines: Dance Music and the Making of Modern Britain,<\/em> that even in the 90s, fears were being fanned around club culture being \u201ctoo big, too fractured and too commercial\u201d,\u00a0 proliferated by the rise of super clubs like Cream, Heaven and Ministry of Sound.\u00a0 He describes \u201ca dark commercial hand\u201d behind clubs, events and talent, effectively commodifying dance culture. And with the 2020s\u2019 brainchild of \u201ccommunity marketing\u201d, which capitalises on human connection, genres and spaces are losing a grip on what drew people to them in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contracting day festivals has become an attractive way for councils to replenish public coffers, whilst providing a solution to antisocial behaviour linked to nightlife that can drain services. And as we steadily approach London\u2019s festival season, the domination of big corporations couldn\u2019t be clearer. Due to affiliations with big artists, these festivals usually create copy-and-paste lineups that routinely leave out underground voices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"GALA:<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

One of London\u2019s last standing independent festivals, GALA<\/a>, returns to Peckham Rye for its eleventh year this coming bank holiday weekend, holding the torch of what dance music once was \u2013 independent, grassroots and community-focused. GALA\u2019s co-founder, Giles Napier, feels the \u201cclimate for independents is getting harder every year. Corporate-backed operators have changed the economics of the scene: fees are inflated, exclusivity terms are getting more aggressive, and money is being spent in ways most independents simply can\u2019t compete with. The concern isn\u2019t just commercial, it\u2019s cultural. When too much power sits with too few players, lineups become safer, scenes become flatter, and underground voices that give dance music its energy are squeezed out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll always hear us shout about \u2018honouring our roots.\u201d In the scene, people always say that \u2018house is a feeling\u2019, but what does that actually mean? Back in the 1980s, house was born from the ashes of disco, following the genre\u2019s mainstreaming with the release of \u201cSaturday Night Fever\u201d in 1977. House legends like Frankie Knuckles, Larry Heard, and Ron Hardy, and spaces like the Warehouse club, helped shape a soulful, synthesised sound in queer and Black Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On tracks like Farley \u201cJackmaster\u201d Funk\u2019s \u2013\u201cLove Can\u2019t Turn Around and Move Your Body\u201d by Marshall Jefferson, house drifted across the Atlantic, where it was soaked up by young clubbers in the UK. Since its conception, it has stood as a genre for all and a celebration of inclusivity. \u201cFor us at GALA, it is about showcasing international names to grassroots communities. We invite heavyweights who developed the modern scene: Marcellus Pittman, Moodymann, and Theo Parrish, while creating space for underground talent who understand the roots of the music and push it somewhere new.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"GALA:<\/figure>\n
\"GALA:<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Music journalists like Ed Gillet and Michaelangelo Matos have plotted electronic dance music\u2019s growth alongside the internet\u2019s own rise. Gillet refers to it as a \u201cdigital culture for digital times\u201d. But the reliance on the web and international platforms like RA for ticketing and advertising risks algorithmically narrowing the culture or trendifying communities that would once have been localised, at the cost of their authenticity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Breathing a freshness into narrowing taste, GALA\u2019s programming has been hailed by critics. CRACK magazine described the lineup as a curation of \u201cbeloved icons and future legends.\u201d Giles credits that freshness to \u201cGALA not being a trend-led festival. We don\u2019t try to book the biggest or most hyped names. It\u2019s more focused on breath and balance.\u201d As tech-house DJ, Amaliah, describes, \u201cGALA consistently champions the underground by uplifting collectives in a meaningful way \u2013 production is strong and captures that quintessential London energy that isn\u2019t easy to achieve.\u201d This analogical antidote provided by GALA\u2019s programming is a remedy to the highly algorithmic nature in which audiences consume music now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"GALA:
Amaliah<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"GALA:
Born and Bread<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

DJ duo, Born and Bread, grew up in Peckham and have been working with GALA for five years, \u201cpeople are being conditioned \u2014 told what to like and what trends to follow. But there are still people pushing back, protecting DJs who genuinely move dancefloors with soulful music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Part of GALA\u2019s identity as an independent is their fluidity and ongoing conversations regarding inclusivity, which Giles\u2019 team regards as \u201cthe bread and butter of how we operate\u201d. Peckham-raised DJ trio Born and Bread have been programming one of the stages at the festival. \u201cOver the years, we have built a beautiful relationship.\u00a0 A big part of that is the autonomy they\u2019ve given us, especially with our DJ competition.\u201d That gives DJs without experience at large festivals or events a chance to showcase their talent at the festival, through which Born and Bread have \u201chelped launch artists like Ella DHC, Onai, Infinite SNDS, Katylist and Safiya Lord \u2014 sometimes giving them their first set. That level of trust is rare. As Black women curating and playing, we\u2019re not just welcomed at GALA, we\u2019re celebrated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Within the music industry, women and Black women are still underrepresented. From 2012 to 2024, only 21% of the acts appearing on festival lineups internationally were women<\/a>. In the UK, 78% of the most successful dance tracks were by men in the decade from 2012. <\/a>Platforming opportunities within spaces like GALA are essential to even the playing ground. For Born and Bread, they view this opportunity as a responsibility, \u201cas Black women in electronic music, giving a platform and equity to others isn\u2019t optional; it\u2019s necessary. We\u2019ll never gatekeep \u2014 it\u2019s about opening doors, helping others build and secure their futures.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the past five years, GALA has been donating to Southwark Day Centre for Asylum Seekers, choosing the charity in reaction to rising anti-immigration sentiment within the UK, as illustrated by the increasing popularity of nationalist parties like Reform UK. Since extending their charitable arm in 2020, GALA have raised \u00a350,000 for Southwark Day Centre through ticket donations and running an annual raffle. This consideration of \u2018local communities and organisations\u201d is what Giles considers as\u201cpart of the parcel of what this sound and scene is all about,\u201d and has inspired GALA to organise a free festival called On the Rye, the following Monday, for Peckham locals to experience the GALA site. Last year, they welcomed 15,000 residents through the gates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GALA exists as a sanctuary for club lovers and performers alike. Where a community stays close to its definition, as \u201ca body of people who live in the same place, who share the same values.\u201d And for three days in May, those grounds are the leafy expanses of Peckham Rye, old-house resides, and the ethos of the club scene, often overshadowed, truly thrives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Words \u2013 Bethany Wright<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t15 May 2026\t\t\t<\/div>\n
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Festivals<\/a><\/div>\n
Music<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\tWonderlist<\/span> <\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n
\n\t\t\t\tMeet your OGBFF, Lauren Schiller<\/span> <\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wonderland GALA: STANDING ALONE, HAND IN HAND\u00a0 As it readies for its eleventh year this coming bank holiday weekend, Peckham\u2019s GALA stands true as one of London\u2019s only lasting independent festivals. Co-founder Giles Napier discusses its lineage and continued importance. Photography by Jake Philip Davis Speaking on Finger\u2019s track, \u201cCan You Feel It\u201d, Chuck Roberts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,257],"class_list":["post-1943446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-wonderlandmagazine-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1943446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1943446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1943446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1943446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}