The underground raves sparking up in Wellington's empty blocks
20-year-old Olly de Salis throws parties for a living.
Wellington's coolest night-time scene is no longer about the clubs and bars of Cuba St and Courtenay Place.
Instead, tucked above offices and in car parks and even empty tennis court, a new clubbing culture is evolving.
People are walking out of Courtenay Place and are looking for something new, says a 20-year-old who makes his living from throwing massive parties.
They're looking for empty floors, "blank canvases", de Salis says.
Olly de Salis quit university to focus fulltime on partying.
He started throwing incredible house parties in his parent's flat as an 18-year-old, when they were out of town.
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"I didn't really have any friends at university," he says, "so my strategy to get friends was throw a party."
The parties have become "multimedia art exhibitions", de Salis says.
The parties quickly grew to what de Salis calls "a multimedia art exhibition".
He lined up a bunch of DJs, bands and visual art installations for two nights of planned chaos at the flat his parents owned.
"It was definitely an advantage that they [his parents] were out of the city."
They throw parties under the company 121, named after the flat where it all started.
After the success of his house parties, de Salis decided to take it bigger. He registered a company, started a search for venues and began booking in artists for his now infamous 121 parties (If you were wondering what 121 stood for, it's the street address of the flat).
Without a hint of hesitation, de Salis says: "it was always going to work".
"As a young person, you would never not go to a big house party with a big sound system, unless you just really didn't like socialising.. There's no way it wouldn't work, unless the cops came," he explains.
Olly de Salis looks for unusual venues for his parties, he doesn't want them tainted with other's legacies.
De Salis' parties have overgrown his humble flat, but he doesn't want to take his parties into mainstream venues.
Instead, he looked for empty carparks, old office spaces, derelict tennis courts and even boats to host his parties. "It's all about venue. As soon as you get the right venue, then yeah, you're sorted."
While his venues certainly seemed unorthodox, he says they are totally "above board".
Recently he branched out into skating events as well.
"People who don't know about the venues sort of turn up like 'oh s..., this is probably like an illegal spot. This is crazy!'
"It just has this aesthetic of an underground thing, which everyone wants and everyone's looking for in a dance music venue."
His most recent gig, the 121 Office Block Rave, welcomed in 2017 from a discreet venue off Wellington's Lambton Quay – a normally quiet area at night, full of offices and retailers.
He won't host anything on Courtenay Place, and said he fervently avoided any obvious bars.
"You go do a gig at San Fran, and San Fran pretty much is the touring venue, then people go 'oh, yeah that person played here'... Everything's got to be fresh."
While most of de Salis' acts were new artists without much profile he focused on centring each event around them. Distractions, such as bars, intoxicated punters and even intimidating bouncers weren't welcome.
"The problem with the dance music scene there, with Courtenay Place, is that it's just so unpleasant to be there. You've got lines, you're surrounded by police staring you down. You've got drunk people everywhere."
The parties were posted up on flyers around Victoria University and announced as an event on Facebook.
Each rave tended to attract the attention of more than 1000 people on Facebook: about 400 clicked that they would be going to the "New Years Doof".
2017 will be the year of "doof", de Salis reckons. He's already planned for a monthly dance party at the top of Cuba St, and wants to stage more one off raves in aesthetically-pleasing underground venues across town.
- Stuff
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