Dazed Club stands as the dynamic extension of Dazed Media, that offers a world extending beyond traditional media. The community building initiative serves as a hub where creatives can nurture their talents, broaden their networks, and access exclusive events and opportunities curated by the Dazed team. The allure of the club is its capacity to foster genuine connections and allow engagement at a deeper level whilst also upholding the Dazed ethos of amplifying emerging voices.
UNCLE partnered with Dazed Club to bring their posters to the streets of London, the design featured the enticing slogan ‘Be Scene’. The phrase is a double entendre of sorts that reflects not only the opportunity to have a voice in the community but also the essence of being in the moment, where artistic evolution thrives. Through a curated lineup of events, talks, and workshops, often led by industry insiders who typically operate behind the scenes, the club empowers members to explore new avenues and carve out their unique niches.
In a conversation with Jack Sunnucks, the Creative Director of Dazed Club, we delved into how the club contributes to the fabric of modern culture, emphasizing the pivotal role of authenticity in its growth and ongoing success. Sunnucks shares his vision for the brand’s future and offers insights into what users can anticipate from the community moving forward.
HOW HAVE YOU FOUND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WORKING FOR ID MAGAZINE AND WORKING AT DAZED CLUB?
ID was owned by Vice, it was a much bigger, more corporate environment. Dazed is still an independent company after 30 years, and I find that really inspiring. I really feel like anything is possible, they believe in us as a team. When Dazed came to me to talk to me about club, I think it was still something I could help define and build, and that’s what I wanted to do. It’s not a website, it’s not purely events. I think I had this interest in community building and what that even meant. We can do whatever we want, you just have to make it happen. It’s been fun.
WHY DID YOU FEEL DRAWN TO THIS THIS SEGMENT OF DAZED MEDIA?
I was really interested in doing something different to editing a website, I’ve done that for four years in my last job. I’d always worked in print and digital media, and I’m really interested in the future of publishing. Less in print at the beginning because there was so much happening in the digital space. I think I also really like our audience, it’s very easy for things to get lost in the aether elsewhere but with Club I get have a relationship with members. I guess they’re real people.
WHAT IS THE CLUB’S AUDIENCE?
It’s 70% UK at the moment, so I’d say right now we’re pretty UK centric. The thing that is different for doing a community is, people have a very different expectation when they’re paying for something. We’re not just a newsletter. We have 2500 people, and they want and get a lot more than the million people on Instagram. We’re growing slowly because the amount of love and care that people need is quite different. And I think that’s been a really good for us, we keep learning.
HOW DOES THE CLUB RELATE ITSELF TO EACH MAGAZINE ISSUE AND IS THIS LINK AN INTEGRAL PART TO YOUR CURATION PROCESS?
I think what’s really interesting and crazy is that my team is just three of us who work with Club all the time, and we get to work with every Dazed department. This is a small company, but for an independent company, I think it’s quite a big one. So we have the print and digital editorial teams and we work with the print on bigger projects like billboards or we pull from the club for ideas and pass to them, we really like their eye on people’s work, basically.
Then the other team we work a ton with is our events team, which is really been like a major part of Dazed since it founded. I think maybe unlike some other publishers we have always done loads of parties. Now we do a lot more talks or panels or workshops, so that team are really our allies. When we’re going to put on a panel talk or a mixer, it’ll start with us talking among ourselves about who from the teams would be good to pull in, who might have a good idea. We know which editors or art directors have ideas about music or photographers or fashion ideas. Dazed is not a very hierarchical place, so you do tend to get a lot of people’s opinions, and a lot of young people’s opinions, which on the one hand means things can take a little bit longer, but on the other, I think it is quite democratic. I’ve never worked anywhere like it.
IN THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS WE’VE NOTED A SHIFT BACK TO THE MORE ANALOGUE OR TANGIBLE, DO YOU THINK DAZED CLUB IS ALMOST AN ANSWER TO THE SHIFT AWAY FROM DIGITAL MEDIA?
I think it’s like a kind of extension of the magazine, like a living magazine. It goes beyond commenting on something on Instagram. It’s experiential and event stuff has been a really great way for us to engage with our audience in a fun new way. But there’s obviously lots in the world about the future of purely digital, I think those have always extended print, it extended that page into real life. A person who’s always worked at magazines are excited to work with the club, because it’s a way for them to bring their work to life or do research or build a profile.
HOW HAS DAZED CLUB CHANGED SINCE IT BEGAN?
When we first started doing our talks – both our own and with partners – I think people were kind of shy about coming to talk to our audience, they were worried about the questions or just being in front of people. People work behind the scenes for a reason. The more we’ve done the more I think they get a sense that we’re going to look after them, and that our audience are really interesting people and excited to meet them. I’ve seen people’s voices grow and their ideas for the club grow. So that’s been really nice to feel like we’re benefiting both ways.
WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION FOR THE POSTER AND THE ‘BE SCENE’ SLOGAN?
So we work with our amazing studio they all have really busy, exciting jobs, they’re the ones flying around the world doing shoots and they’re the ones talking to Italy and Paris and New York and Korea. A lot of their work is insights and strategy and surveying our audience and when we were talking about a campaign, a lot of it was trying to take it back to Dazed roots as much as possible. So party culture, raves, collectives so a scene in that way. But also the fact that all of our editors or the stylists or creatives have come up as part of ‘a thing’. They’ve had creative friends and working relationships and a group of people around them. I think it’s a lot of pressure to think you just have to be super genius by yourself, when in fact people generally do something in our industries with a group of people. That’s what we’re trying to facilitate as well with the club, not just learning, but people meeting other cool and interesting people.
DESCRIBE DAZED CLUB IN THREE WORDS?
I think it’s quite archaic. Our events we put on, we do the framework, but it’s really the people that fill it. It always makes me laugh when there’s, 100 people stood on the street afterwards chatting to each other. I think it means something good is happening when people are having a good time and getting outside themselves.
Then I think BTS (behind the scenes). When we look at people in the creative industries, you see the top of the pyramid and most people working don’t know the full extent. Most people you never hear from or see what they’re doing. Giving those people their moment, I really enjoy. I love reading any sort of career diary, hearing from someone whose job I didn’t even really think existed. I think when I started working, I didn’t have a clue, and now I still don’t really have a clue what’s next until I read something and then I think that could be me.
I think DIY. We are launching events with our curators, people that are posting a lot in the app and facilitating it and giving them more of a role. They are posting their own events and also doing stuff in on their own, like we’ll be doing a breakfast just for people to be able to mix without having to be there at all. We basically want it to be self-tending.
HOW HAS CULTURE IN LONDON AND OTHER CITIES SHAPED DAZED CLUB?
I think it’s been tied to London because we are here is the short answer. Because we have this space at 180 the Strand, it’s where we know that it works. We’ve also really enjoyed partnering with Manchester International Festival, we’ve been to Manchester to do a tour, and to Brighton. We’re looking at how we could do a tour of more of the country. I think the thing that is untethering us from London is the app because you can be anywhere. All of our teams are travelling quite a lot on train as much as possible. London’s like a really great creative base but most of our partners are not here. Most of our audiences spread around the world, our digital and independent audience is really worldwide. So that’s our next challenge – what activations can we do to expand worldwide?
WHAT’S NEXT FOR DAZED CLUB?
A dream is to work even more with the print team content-wise. They find it really exciting looking at people’s work, and we want them edit more of the community’s work and put that into some cool projects. Also I would be to do things like video, moving image, live broadcast to capture the energy that we have when we do an event. As well as having more opportunities for people to write for DAZED, share their images, and work with our studio. We’re always looking for the next generation of talent, that’s the Dazed mission.
