BEHIND THE SCENE: EGG CLUB

It's with a twist of fate that London's Egg Club has rolled in a fashion expected of a venue borrowing its namesake from an oval shaped object. Located on the concrete backyard of Kings Cross station, its path has been a little wobbly to say the least, switching it up in the face of changing clientele and pressure from the authorities over the years.

“Circumstances and financial constraints made us take on promoters whose musical directions were questionable in the past,” owner Laurence Malice admits to DJ Mag. Over the past 12 months especially, the club has gone lengths to shake off its reputation as a early hours haunt for the slightly less salubrious characters of clubland, taking on the head booker of Pod in Ireland, reviving itself with events such as Yousef's Circus, poly-sexual carnival Heroes, X and Layo & Bushwacka's Olmeto Records Presents parties.

These days, the venue is less about getting scrambled in the garden all Sunday morning at Breakfast at Egg, its focus more on high-end dance music and delivering a clubbing experience as good as any in the capital today. How has this reinvention come about?

“Getting rid of the below par promoters, sacking most of the rude door staff and employees,” Laurence points out. “Egg London is now very much a different place, where the emphasis is on fun and the past is not reflected on.”

From the man who worked at stints at NY's Twilo and LA's Avalon, the inaugurator of Trade at Turnmills, the UK's first legal afterhours party, in '91, it's no surprise Egg has survived the trials and tribulations running a nightclub in London inevitably brings. Whether its battling with the council over sound emission or engineering an outside area as a pre-emptive strike to the smoking ban, Laurence's experience in the clubs industry has been priceless during its decade in operation.

Witnessing multiple generations of clubbers through its doors, Egg has continued to adapt, without losing sight of its identity as an open house for a mixture of clubbers who share a mutual passion for quality dance music.

“There have been waves of new people as scenes change,” he explains. “Currently we are very much encompassing the new, younger generation, but we still like to keep a mix of people – not be one dimensional. Clubbing is all about tribes under one roof and at Egg we believe very much in this ethos.”

You only need to look at the series of events to see where Egg is at now. With the likes of Art Department, Dubfire, Kerri Chandler, Laurent Garnier and Reboot featuring across 10 events throughout May, some playing 10 hour sets, it's hatching into quite the marathon.