A venue that has been a theatre, a BBC studio, a punk club and a Britpop-era palace doesn't have to pick house and techno to mark its 125th birthday. KOKO just did anyway, and it's worth asking why.
Why would a 125-year-old theatre bet its birthday on techno?
KOKO first opened its doors on Camden High Street as the Camden Theatre, then cycled through lives as the Camden Hippodrome, a BBC broadcasting studio, the punk-era Music Machine and, from 1982, Camden Palace, the room where Boy George worked the cloakroom and Spandau Ballet built their following. It became KOKO in 2004. For an anniversary programme, a heritage room this loaded with rock and pop history could easily have leaned on nostalgia acts. Instead, the season handed down for its 125th year, KOKO Electronic's AW26 run, is booked wall to wall with house and techno selectors, treating the current electronic residency as the thing worth celebrating rather than a supporting act to the building's older reputation.
Who's actually on the bill?
The season opened Friday, September 25 with Lee Burridge alongside Birds Of Mind, Adassiya and Share, then handed the Theatre to DESIREE, Benji B and Charisse C the next night. Green Velvet played October 2 with Ruze and Fifi Forte. Michael Bibi makes his KOKO debut on October 17, a date already sold out. Francis Mercier takes over the building for three days from November 20 to 22, and WhoMadeWho plays a live show and a hybrid DJ set across November 27 and 28. Marco Carola and Shanti Celeste are both confirmed for autumn dates, alongside Chris Stassy, Femi Koleoso's Situation Dance, Oscar Mbo, Swimming Paul, Hernán Cattáneo and Leon Vynehall. Artwork closes out the year on December 31, with Z Uncut, East End Dubs and Ryan Nicholls taking the room into January 1.
What changed at KOKO to make this possible?
A fire tore through the building in January 2020, midway through what became a roughly £70 million restoration project. KOKO reopened in April 2022 with Arcade Fire on the Theatre stage, its capacity rebuilt to 1,500 across the original Victorian auditorium, plus a new members-only wing, the House of KOKO, with more than a dozen additional rooms including a Penthouse recording studio. KOKO Electronic launched inside that rebuilt venue in 2022 and has already hosted DJ Koze, Midland and Seth Troxler. AW26 is the clearest signal yet that the electronic programme isn't a side project bolted onto a legacy rock venue: it's now central to how KOKO defines itself, in the same building where the Sex Pistols and Madonna once played.
