We have compiled a list of questions we often get asked about our night to shed the light on the enigma that is ALAN!!!

what does ALAN stand for? ALAN is an acronym which stands for Awareness & Love All Nighters, it also stands for the name we called our friendship group some years ago after some of us went to Glade festival back in 2007... It naturally became our group name after we used to shout it at every event... We worked out that it was much easier shouting 'ALAN' to find your mates in a dark, crowded and noisy club or festival than it was to call each other all the time... When you have 20, 30, 40+ messed mates all in one group as we often are then you will see the limitations in phoning people. ________________________________________________________ Whats the difference between ALAN and ALAN Awareness & Love All Nighters It would appear not much difference but there is actually quite a bit! 'ALAN - Awareness & Love All Nighters' is the name of the club held in London and refers only to these special nights! we as a group hold all sorts of parties, charity events and similar so we'll put (hosted by the ALAN crew) as we're all part of the same fun loving family. This way any member of ALAN crew can put on any event as they so choose and still use the ALAN name... It just saves confusion. ________________________________________________________ How did it start? Well the ALAN crew have been using the name for some years now, but slowly we got bored of going to other events and not enjoying them as much as we used to (back in the day) as they didn't seem to be as good... So in January of 2009 one of the founders of ALAN 'Jon Davis' had his 21st birthday coming up in a couple of months time (May) and wanted to do something special. With the help of his best friend 'Nat McGay' they started planning the event that became 'ALAN - Awareness & Love All Nighters' ... We'd like to add that the name ALAN sort of just came to us in positive thought too. ________________________________________________________ What are your goals? Our goals are modest. First and foremost we want to showcase our talent within the respected industries, we have a lot of talented young people in the group ranging from producers, DJs, Artists and even electricians, drivers and plumbers etc... You name it, we could probably cover it. Secondly we believe in positive change for the better! or 'Be the change you want to see in the world' (Ghandi) There are too many things happening in life around us that we either don't agree with or are just simply wrong, Like the corrupt power structure of our governments or the polluting corporate industries ruining our environment. We don't set out to tell anybody anything; we want to just show alternative information and ideas for people to make their own minds up. We're not preaching and if they agree with us or have a changed view point afterwards then that's what we want, If people don't agree with what we show them they that's their choice and we respect that. We're certainly not perfect ourselves we're just trying to help and have a cracking party at the same time. ________________________________________________________ So how does your music run throughout the night then? We only give DJs 45 mins to show off their skills, this keeps them and you on your toes. We do give headliners longer set times to arrange the night how we think it will work best to build up different rooms at different times to maintain hectic and high energy levels... so you keep moving throughout the club and exploring more. Our nights are more or less made up of around 30 DJs. We choose 15 out of about ???? knows how many ALAN residents at a time to go up against 15 special guests and headliners. As we continue to grow we will bring you some of the legends within the music industry whether Dj or band. ________________________________________________________ what happens at ALAN? The ALAN club nights have alot of things going on... We don't see why you have to get bored at raves! This is afterall one of the reasons we set up ALAN in the first place... Other raves just don't cut it! We have such an eclectic line up that changes every 45 minutes (except some headliners) so theres always something different going on somewhere and if you don't like a particular DJ set you can walk into the next room or go outside for a break, come back in and it will all be different. Custom and specially made decor swarms over the whole of the club in every room, Its all made by us and all by hand... organised by nat mcgay!!! We try and use ethically sourced materials wherever we can as well as re-using alot of the decor from previous events to mix it up a bit... Oh and it takes does take a little while to make sometimes. We also have awareness infomation stalls for everyone who wants to find out some alternative information on the government, enviroment as well as showcasing info on human and animal welfare groups so you can always choose to discover something new at each event. Games and interactions are held about the place too! We not only have one of the lovely ALAN crew making our own village fete type games/stalls that you can get stuck into and potentially win prizes (including free entry) but we have 'handbaked arcade' attend and set up a fully working retro arcade in one of the upstairs areas, this includes classic games from the sega master system, megadrive, nintendo NES, SNES and various emulators... A balance guaranteed to bring anyone back to their childhood. We also have the Alan live stage hosted by 'the Mad Dash Collective'... full live pa system Playing all things from jazz, funk, reggae, electronica, ambient, soul, roots, acoustic, afro beat ska and spoken word performances. its one of the most fun loving vibe setting outdoor live stages held at a club in London... or at least we haven't found another one. But the idea behind Mad Dash is that alot of talented bands don't get enough gigs nowadays and so its a sort of booking agency for live bands but also sets up stages and events so its more than that and makes cakes and beer and all sorts. a stage that blissfully captures a festival atmosphere that is comparable to no other event! And to top all that off we als have to add that we have breakdancers, circus performers, bouncy castles, Glittermen, magicians, Drum circles, Facepainting, Rave toy give outs, Wish lanterns, Hidden crowd interactions, Custom made light shows, Visuals, Artwork, Funny quotes and interesting facts! Oh and we raise money for charity on the night too... Plus if there is anything else we can think of then we're always up for giving it a go... The idea is that you could never get bored at ALAN... and so far we've suceeded. ________________________________________________________ What is the wall of shame all about? The Wall of Shame is an entire wall dedicated to all those mashed up pictures of everyone looking their worst... It started out as a bit of fun amongst friends but now we have dedicated photographers ready to catch you out when your hanging! so send us some photos... please feel free to go up to one of the and pull the dirtiest and most horrible face you can and we'll put it up on the wall of shame for next time. Send your photos to: alan-decor@hotmail.com ________________________________________________________ What work does ALAN do towards the enviroment? Well we have a dedicated recycling team that handles it all... to put it simply, we like doing it! all of us ensure that everything from the materials we use on our make days to the rubbish we collect on the club nights is recycled or disposed of properly. some even decorate our recycling bins nice pretty colours to attract attention. hehe... We're also working with various enviroment groups such as 'trees for cities' in order to put something back into the enviroment. We plan to go out and make a big day of it doing as much as we can. Once we have pictures and videos we will put them on our website. This is so far plans in progress as we've not yet been out and done it, but we will be very soon. End... if you think we have missed something then tell us! We'd love your views and feedback so we can improve :) Just use the contact alan link on the alan page.