Grab your tickets for Horse Meat Disco here!

There’s no better way to forget you’re in Southampton than by going to a Gold School event. Through a series of boat bashes and disco garden gatherings, these party planners have proven experts at transforming South Coast venues into tropical paradises, complete with faux flamingos and plastic palm trees. Now they’re getting ready to host their biggest party yet, an event that will see Horse Meat Disco take to Sobar’s beer garden on Saturday 19th May. We caught up with Spike Sealey and Ben Smith, two-thirds of the team, to find out more.

 
Who’s behind Gold School?

Spike: We’ve got our founder Adam Lynch, AKA Buddy Love, and then myself and Ben, AKA Familiar Face. 

Ben: We’re basically three DJs who love disco, house and throwing parties for people.

Spike: Between us we do basically everything. We do all the online media marketing and all the artwork, we organise and play the events, we decorate the events ourselves. We like to keep it just us so we can have complete control and we can do things exactly how we want to. Deliver that real Gold School package. 

You mentioned decorating, what can people expect from your parties? 

Spike: Tropical and hot. 

Ben: Yeah, we go for that disco tropical vibe.

Spike: It’s what we like. Everyone likes the heat don’t they? In the winter we can bring that heat and in the summer we can make it a little bit hotter. 

How did you start out?

Spike: Adam founded Gold School in his first year of university, 2014. He did one or two parties that year, but it was 2015 when it all really started taking off. We started making more links within the club industry in Southampton and along the South Coast, meaning we were able to play in more places. It’s our favourite thing, going to different venues and throwing parties in new locations. 

The next one’s at Sobar?

Ben: Yeah the next one’s at Sobar. It’s the nicest venue with an outdoor space that’s big enough for us, and this event is going to be our biggest party to date. 

Spike: Yeah we’re returning. Disco and garden parties just go together so well, and there’s something about walking through Sobar’s doors and hearing that summery, uplifting music. Last year we had our Disco Garden there with Astrofunk and It was incredible. It was a really good day and we got nothing but positive feedback. It went so well that we thought, this year, let’s go bigger and better and get a big old booking. So we’ve got Horse Meat Disco. 

Tell us about horse meat disco.

Spike: They’re like a nationwide version of Gold School. They’ve really been instrumental in paving the way for what we’re doing, getting on that disco revival, so booking them was just an incredible feeling. We’ve got so much respect for them and what they do, like their regular party in The Eagle in London. So yeah, it’s going to be amazing for us to host them at our event, and we hope good for them too. We hope they enjoy themselves.

Hosting other people is a new thing, why’ve you decided to branch out?

Spike: It was just the next step up really. We had good fun with what we did, which was essentially just three guys having a party, but we all felt it was time to move on. 

Ben: It’s us trying to move away from being a student brand.

Spike: We wanted to start moving up and thinking bigger, and the way you do that is by thinking about big names and how they can lend themselves to your cause. It’s about generating interest around ourselves. 

Ben: The Gold School residents are still playing B2B2B though.

What have you got planned for the rest of 2018?

Spike: There’s announcements coming soon, but unfortunately they aren’t fully confirmed so we can’t throw them out just yet. There’s definitely big announcements to come though, and there’s no way we’re only playing one party this year.

Finally, what are you guys listening to right now? 

Ben: Peggy Gou - Once EP 

Grab your tickets for Horse Meat Disco here!