Pushing forward: Naeem Davis and Nadine Noor Ahmad
(Picture: Photography Natasha Pszenicki, Assisted by Monty Vann)An hour. That’s all it took for Overflo festival to sell out its first run of tickets — a few hundred or so — when they went on sale last Friday. By the time most websites had announced the launch of the new 10,000-capacity festival coming to Burgess Park, it was already sold out. And so it was that Overflo became one of the most anticipated events of ‘22.
The size of the crowd is likely all Overflo will have in common with most other London festivals this year. Indie sleaze is out. Instead, Overflo is a celebration of queer culture and underground nightlife, centred on music, art, care and culture and both appealing to — and crucially, put together by — “queer, trans, non-binary, black, indigenous and POC talent”. Alongside the likes of Flesh Festival in St Albans and Hackney Wick’s Body Movements, these details make it one of the first of its kind, certainly on this scale and ambition and puts it centre stage as a forerunner of the LGBTQIA+ festival scene.
“I think you can expect a complete look at black and brown queer culture — within music, within sound, within sonic and performance art,” says Naeem Davis, 31, best known for their art and DJ collective (and party nights) BBZ. Davis co-founded the festival alongside Pxssy Palace’s Nadine Noor Ahmad, 33. “We’ll have one stage of just DJs and it’ll be centring genres like dancehall, bashment, amapiano, soul, techno, house, all of it — while the main stage is just a melting pot of a lot of faves. A lot of current acts, local talent from the UK, and international talent too.”
While most details are currently either a secret or still being finalised, Saucy Santana is one name the pair let slip. The Florida-born rapper’s Rihanna-endorsed sound — which has bought him enormous fame on TikTok — is so popular that at this year’s Met Gala, Cardi B, Naomi Campbell and Teyana Taylor all vied to have him at their respective afterparties (Cardi reportedly won).
Santana’s performance here will be his UK debut and both Davis and Ahmad are buzzed. “Santana is marginalised in rap music as well as within hip hop, so championing them is really exciting,” Ahmad says. “But, I’m also just, like, a huge fan.” The DJ stage, meanwhile, will have Cuban-Spanish DJ Toccororo taking the reins.
In music and feeling, the founders say, Overflo is set to fill a gap both feel keenly. Don’t other festivals cut it? “A lot the time it’s like, ‘I hate everything about this, so how can we make it better?’” Ahmad says. “Sometimes its like, ‘This is really not a good experience for us’.”
Similar feelings are shared across much of London’s existing nightlife scene, in part because many female, trans and non-binary-oriented LGBTQIA+ nights have disappeared. “There were a lot of nights doing stuff similar to us that now cease to exist,” Ahmad says. “And where [London] had 121 queer-friendly venues, now we’re down to something like 51.” As numbers dwindle, it means getting an event as sizeable as a festival off the ground is near impossible, unless it’s targeted to white gay men, which Overflo isn’t.
The pair, though, stress their festival is for everyone: “I think there’s the assumption that this is specifically and only for the community we’re celebrating, but it’s for our allies, it’s for our loved ones and supporters who are consciously coming to the space and contributing to that community and economy,” says Davis. Part of ensuring everyone feels welcome is the pricing: first run of tickets were £15, cheap for a London festival, while the 9,500-or-so remaining will all be between £25-£55, with the next batch on sale from June 1 at pxssypalace.com. Before that, for 24 hours from 3pm, a batch of tickets will be available here.
Ah, yes. Pricing. It has become something of a go-to when anything vaguely Pxssy Palace-related comes up. When in February the club tweeted a tiered system charging straight, white cis men six times more than queer women, trans and non-binary bipocs (black, indigenous and people of colour), corners of the internet began to vibrate with furym, in spite of the fact it was an unpoliced suggestion (no one to date has paid the most expensive £112 ticket).
When we use the word inclusive, we’re not talking about being inclusive of everyone. We’re talking about including those who are usually left out
Ahmad defends their decision, which remains in place. “It hit a nerve because that group particularly feel so entitled to space,” they say. “So when you’re told ‘no, you can’t enter this or entering the space will be difficult for you, then they get angry.”
Did it feel contrary to Pxssy Palace’s inclusivity drive? “When we use the word inclusive, we’re not talking about being inclusive of everyone. We’re talking about including those who are usually left out. That is what inclusive means. I think people are just getting that mixed up.”
Besides, they add, though everyone at Pxssy Palace once paid the same, they had “people coming through the doors that were straight men causing harm to our guests”. The pricing is there, then, to protect those the club is intended for and is reportedly working. Laughing, Ahmad adds: “Besides, these guys that are tweeting about it, they don’t want to come anyway!”
Countless others do need these spaces, though, as Overflo’s sell-out highlights. Given the evident demand for these kinds of events, why are there so few of them? “I think it’s a lot to do with access,” says Ahmad. “Queer people, especially queer and trans black and brown people, have a limited access to both the spaces and resources to be able to put on an event of this size. Really, this only came about after seven years of doing Pxssy Palace.” Seven years, but a lifetime of experience: “We started going to clubs when we were like 13,” Davis says with a grin.
The access issue, the pair add, is inherently tied to gentrification, alongside other more obvious structural issues in society. It is difficult for queer-aligned nights to build a profile big enough that hosting a festival becomes feasible; rising rents can force women-focused events to the sidelines.
“With a lot of gay, cis male culture, there are late-nights; drugs and alcohol keep the places fuelled, whereas a lot of trans people, neurodivergent people and women don’t navigate a club like that,” says Davis. In short, many women, trans and non-binary events generate low drinks sales, which club owners are unsurprisingly not keen on.
Queer people have a limited access to both the spaces and resources to be able to put on something like this
With Overflo, drinking is there but it isn’t the point. Neither is the price, which they shouldn’t face much backlash on — though both admit they have more trolls than ever and remain deeply aware that, post pandemic, homophobic and transphobic crime is at a record high (up from 10,817 UK-wide attacks in 2019 to 14,670 in the first eight months of last year). “Visibility can be a double-edged sword,” says Davis.
As such, safety is paramount — security staff are set for special training, a big part of the festival will be its recovery zones for those in need of a break, and everyone involved is from the broader LGBTQIA+ community. Even calling time at 10pm is part of the ambition to welcome more people, including those who might not feel comfortable heading out at night. It’s a quiet upending of everything a festival is expected to be.
“There’s gonna be a lot of people that are gonna be triggered by what we’re doing,” says Ahmad, shrugging. Overflo is for all, but its heart is with its own crowd. If it’s hard to fathom who could be triggered by that, it’s hard to know if the pair, by now so wearily used to such things, care. There’s a wry chuckle. “We can handle it,” they say. Don’t doubt it for a second.
Overflo, September 18, Burgess Park, SE5. For more information and for ticket, visit pxssypalace.com/overflo
