30 years of Bugged Out! in rave flyers

Aesthetically, how does the flyer design and artwork of Bugged Out! reflect the party’s identity, and has that evolved over the years?

In the ’90s, we were very DIY and used to find images in magazines and use them as the focus, but we’d hide an acid house smiley somewhere within it. During the era of super clubs we were more utilitarian as the DJs were selling the shows then so they needed to be the focus of the flyers. During the electroclash period in the ’00s, graphics had become punkier and we reflected this with the DJs scrawled across newspaper print, much more throwaway in look and with a flimsy feel but it made them stand out. The design has become much more stylish in recent times and it needs to be useful for different formats online. We don’t do print flyers anymore.

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Why have The Chemical Brothers, Modeselektor and Octave One been chosen to headline the 30 year anniversary party?

We’ve had a long standing relationship with The Chemical Brothers since 1994 when we first started the Disco Pogo parties – they played when they were called the Dust Brothers. They are really unique DJs, playing acid house and techno but with their own twist on it, bolstered by some of their own tracks of course. And they like to play long, three-hour sets.

Modeselektor have played some of our bigger shows in the past 10 years including our stage at Field Day and Printworks show in 2019. There’s a lot of interest in Octave One for the party, they are one of the finest Detroit techno live acts in existence and we would see them often in the Liverpool and Manchester era so it’s great to have them back. I’m sure ‘Black Water’ will take the roof off room Y.