Electrowerkz

About Electrowerkz

Electrowerkz is a 1,600-capacity club and event complex in Angel, London, spread through a late-19th-century industrial warehouse. Its defining feature is scale with variety: seven spaces across five levels, arranged around a central courtyard under a glass atrium. A show here can feel like a compact live-room set or a full-building night out, with four club rooms available alongside the courtyard and Penthouse.

A derelict start, then Slimelight

The building began as stables for the horses pulling London trams, then became a metalworks in 1925. In August 1987, Mayuan Mak found the derelict Torrens Street building and persuaded its landlord to offer six months of free rent. Mak founded Electrowerkz there, drawing on a scrap-metal business also based in the premises; the venue’s warehouse character has remained central to its identity.

Its pivotal first night arrived on New Year’s Eve 1987, when Mak and Dette Marsh brought Slimelight to Electrowerkz. The dark and alternative club night gave goths, punks, and adjacent scenes a regular home, and Electrowerkz still presents Slimelight as the world’s oldest running dark and alternative night. Mak died in December 2020, ending a three-decade run as the venue’s founder and owner; his funeral procession through Islington in March 2021 used a tank converted into a hearse.

The room today

Electrowerkz operates as both a public-facing music club and a hireable event venue, hosting club nights, live music, private events, shoots, and brand activations. The resident character leans dark and alternative: goth, industrial, darkwave, post-punk, EBM, electro, techno, and rock-adjacent bills all fit the building’s programming. For gigs, room choice matters. The Cage is a self-contained 250-standing live space with high ceilings, an in-room bar, separate entrance, full lighting and sound rig, plus an accessible viewing platform; larger events can link rooms through the courtyard.

Sources

1. Venue Hire — Electrowerkz
2. Electrowerkz — Electrowerkz
3. ‘Gentle, peaceful and generous’: tributes to Angel goth club pioneer Mak — Islington Tribune
4. So You’ve Never Been to Electrowerkz — Time Out London
5. About — Electrowerkz
6. Dear Mak, tanks for everything! — Islington Tribune
7. The Cage — Electrowerkz