In photos: The people of Glastonbury’s queer heart The NYC Downlow

It’s approaching 3am on Saturday night at Glastonbury Festival, and Gideön steps up to the decks, nestled away in the right corner of The NYC Downlow. Onstage, drag and cabaret legend Jonny Woo, and the host of the club leads his troupe of dancers, taking to the microphone and asks the DJ and Block9 co-founder to ​“take it away Gid”. He indeed does so, spinning infectious, sublime, house grooves in with the homecoming confidence of a DJ in their element, in a party and club created by him and Stephen Gallagher for the queer community that he is a pillar of.

Taking place for just five nights a year, The NYC Downlow is unquestionably one of the world’s best clubs, let alone LGBTQ+ venues. For the long weekend, the mood is high, the energy dominantly queer, and the soundtrack is house music of the highest order. People queue around the block, often for hours, to catch a dance inside the Downlow and its conjoined back room The Meat Rack.

Since its first iteration at the festival in 2007, when the club was housed in Lower East Side tenement buildings, the club has since been redesigned and refit as an ​’80s Manhattan meatpacking warehouse, while adding The Meat Rack in 2016. And around it, the two fields that Block9 occupy have continued to be increasingly populated, with the Downlow joined by the dystopian acid house cathedral Genosys and the expansive, dystopian IICON stage marked by a giant anonymous audiovisual head.

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Block9 is a story of annual innovation and boundary pushing art, design and music programming. This year, the space held its biggest ever day party across Genosys, The Meat Rack and The NYC Downlow, with Fatboy Slim and Hot Chip playing at Genosys along with a surprise appearance from Jamie XX, while Derrick Carter brought house music’s genre origins indoors by headlining a Classic Music Company takeover inside the Downlow.

But unlike other club rooms and festival stages, what makes The NYC Downlow so special isn’t just the music – it’s the people. It’s the entire team who turn up each year and the keep sweating crowd hydrated at the bar, door staff who raise money for good causes by selling moustaches, the team from PrEPster who hand out safe sex ​“fuck packs” with condoms, lube and consent information on entry, and Woo’s crew Maude Adams & All Those Children, who set pace with the energy every evening. We went backstage with the people who make the Downlow what it is – the beating queer heart of Glastonbury’s festival’s nightlife, and the end point in a pilgrimage to its dancefloor each night.

• Read next: Celebrating ten outrageous years of the UK’s best queer club

Jacket Potato, go-go dancer

What are you going to do on your fallow year? Have a wardrobe clear out because I need new, more amazing things when I come back the year after. And maybe go on a bougie holiday. To me, The NYC Downlow means… It means love, queer freedom and it means the best party in the world.

Emma, bar staff

What are you going to do on your fallow year? I’m going back to normal job, which is a TV producer/​director. To me, The NYC Downlow means… Loads of fun. It’s good a really good vibe and a great crew here.

Coco Darling, go go dancer

What are you going to do on your fallow year? I’m probably going to go on holiday, somewhere fun. To me, The NYC Downlow means… It’s a family, it means a lot. It’s a queer community where we get together and have great times and enjoy ourselves, and give love to everybody.

Asad Zafar, The Love Tank & PrEPster worker, and NYC Downlow door staff

What are you going to do on your fallow year? This is my first ever Glastonbury, so I’m not looking forward to having a year off because I’ve just got here. To me, The NYC Downlow means… A new experience. It means queer joy, queer resistance, an environment cultivated by us, for us, full of respect.

Joseph Wilson, ​“sexy club filler”

What are you going to do on your fallow year? Get my teeth done. To me, The NYC Downlow means… Such an important place to grow as a queer person, find out who I am among other people like me, and each year you learn something new about yourself. It’s nice to know you’ve grown from the year before and you feel special – I feel like a celebrity.

Egle, photographer

What are you going to do on your fallow year? Hopefully do something with the pictures I’ve taken for all those years. To me, The NYC Downlow means… Crazy, queerness, togetherness, fun, and being free.

Zoe, door staff

What are you going to do on your fallow year? Probably go to another festival, or work, or cry, because I’m not going to be at the best place in the whole of Glastonbury. 

Jacob Love, head go-go dancer

What are you going to do on your fallow year? Sleep. To me, The NYC Downlow means… It’s my family, my chosen family and it keeps me going for the rest of the year.

Leah, assistant bar manager

What are you going to do on your fallow year? Sleeping mainly, but I might explore some festivals abroad so I don’t get FOMO. To me, The NYC Downlow means… Zero sleep, but there’s so much love. But I got involved with friends 13 years ago, so it means history.

Sophie Brain, go-go dancer

Evan, guest 

What are you going to do on your fallow year? I come once a year to England for the festival, so next year I’ll come back, probably for Adonis to keep the queer spirit and partying that I found here at The NYC Downlow, which is unique. To me, The NYC Downlow means… The true spirit of what a house music party is. It’s also all about the dancers – they’re bringing the vibe and the music curation is the best in the world.

Follow Block9 and The NYC Downlow on Instagram.

Isaac Muk is Huck’s dig­i­tal edi­tor. Fol­low him on Bluesky.

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