Printworks London

The warehouses that stopped printing London

Harmsworth Quays was the largest printing plant in Western Europe: the Daily Mail, the Evening Standard, and the Metro were printed there until 2012. On February 4, 2017, Broadwick Live reopened those Surrey Quays warehouses as Printworks. Seth Troxler, The Martinez Brothers, and Loco Dice signed the inaugural b2b. Mixmag chose it as Club of the Year and described it as the lifeline that London clubbing needed. It was not a chrome-plated venue: the presses, metal stairs, and van loading bay were preserved.

The 130-meter corridor

The main dance floor was Press Halls: an industrial corridor about 130 meters long, 13 meters wide, and 16-meter high ceilings, with side balconies and the blue printing machines still in place. Next to it, Inkwells (formerly Darkroom) functioned as a second, darker room. The complex grew to seven spaces, an outdoor Container Yard, and a capacity of 6,000 people, licensed by the Southwark Council. For that extreme geometry, dbnAudile installed d&b audiotechnik J-Series and V-Series: flown arrays in the Live room and ground stacks in Electronic. Electronic music—house, techno, drum and bass, UK bass—was scheduled in SS and AW seasons, in the style of The Warehouse Project, with daytime raves that often closed at 23:00 and turned Canada Water into a pilgrimage site.

Six years of superclub

In just over six seasons, Aphex Twin, The Chemical Brothers, Deadmau5, Nina Kraviz, Peggy Gou, Bicep, and Andy C performed there, as well as orchestras like the LSO. British Land estimates more than 2.5 million visits. In the DJ Mag Top 100 Clubs, the venue went from 5th in 2022 to 3rd place in 2023. It was also a film set: Avengers: Age of Ultron and The Batman were filmed among the presses. Printworks was not a touring party brand: it was a physical venue on Surrey Quays Road, a five-minute walk from Canada Water station.

May 1st and Printworks 2.0

On May 1, 2023, after a closing weekend with Peggy Gou, CamelPhat, and Bicep, the doors closed due to the Canada Water masterplan by British Land and AustralianSuper. At the final event, Printworks 2.0 was announced. In 2024, Southwark approved the preservation of Press Halls and Inkwells as a permanent cultural venue, with a rooftop terrace, and a reopening planned for 2026. As of September 2026, there is no lineup or public reopening date: the official website shows a coming soon. The identity, in the meantime, remains that of those warehouses.