It once played host to the sound of staff announcements, bored children and tense couples arguing over wardrobes with semi-pronounceable names. Now, a 608,000 sq ft Tottenham warehouse that was home to an Ikea for 17 years is to vibrate to sub bass and repetitive beats, as it becomes a leading new cultural venue for London.
Entitled Drumsheds, it will host “a carefully curated programme of music, arts, culture and community” according to its owners Broadwick, who are best known for turning a disused printing press in Rotherhithe into the atmospheric clubbing destination Printworks.
Drumsheds will have a capacity of 15,000, making it one of the largest indoor venues in the capital, outstripping the likes of 10,250-capacity Alexandra Palace and 12,500-capacity Wembley Arena.
The venue aims to replicate the post-industrial feel of Printworks, which left printing machinery and other infrastructure intact. “Guests will be able to see the old lift shafts, loading bays, sprawling floors and machinery as they transition through the impressive space,” according to Broadwick. Drumsheds will be reconfigurable, the company says, “with malleable, hybrid areas that will be moulded for multiple purposes”.
The company’s director of strategy, Simeon Aldred, said: “We want Drumsheds, like all the spaces we create, to be new centres of cultural gravity that provide the basis for human connection. A connection that people crave now more than ever.”
Ikea opened a store in the vast space in 2005, with overexcited shoppers causing a riot on the opening day that left six hospitalised. In March 2022 the retailer announced it would be closing the store down, and it ceased trading in August. Ikea pointed to “changing shopping behaviours” for the decision, with online retail increasingly more popular than in-person visits to out-of-town superstores. The company is now gearing up to open a new store in a key position on central London’s Oxford Street, formerly home to Topshop’s flagship shop.
Drumsheds differs from an earlier Broadwick venture of the same name, which occupied four warehouses close to the new location. That space played host to the 2019 edition of the Field Day music festival.
Broadwick have tended to specialise in dance music events, though Printworks has also been used for London fashion week events, festivals such as Afropunk, Dua Lipa’s mid-pandemic live stream event Studio 2054 and as a set for films including The Batman.
Printworks is now closed amid redevelopment of the wider area, though Broadwick intend to reopen the space in 2026.
The company has also recently opened two venues in the London docklands area of Silvertown: Silverworks Island, a new 20,000-capacity open-air venue (after a 2022 launch as Dockyards), and The Beams, which opened in June 2022 and recently hosted Thin Air, an exhibition of installation-based visual art. They also redeveloped the Depot Mayfield space in Manchester, which hosts music events including The Warehouse Project.
