Halcyon Days: Get to know electronic music festival DAYS

In May 2024, DAYS held their inaugural festival at The Pitt in Granton. The team – a collaboration between long-standing Scottish party RARE and Edinburgh nightclub Sneaky Pete’s – were met with a blank canvas on arrival. With gaping holes in the floors and bare warehouse walls, the then-unopened venue was in need of a hasty transformation to become Edinburgh’s newest festival spot. After lights, speakers and a giant disco ball were hoisted, hundreds of partiers arrived willing to take a punt on the new venture. Two years on, DAYS has cemented its place on the Scottish festival calendar, creating a space for a post-uni-but-still-partying crowd. Co-festival director Owen Davies tells us why DAYS makes sense for a maturing dancefloor. 

Davies first met RARE co-director Rory Masson in 2018 whilst studying in Aberdeen. Masson was running RARE, while Davies was getting his own start putting on parties. The pair began working alongside one another, fostering RARE into a beloved Thursday club night at The Tunnels in Aberdeen, lasting from 2015 until the end of 2024. With stark changes in drinking habits combined with mounting costs for clubbers and promoters alike, RARE saw the shifts in the UK’s clubbing landscape firsthand: “When we were doing RARE in Aberdeen it was packed every single week, but it’s not what it used to be…. numbers [were] dwindling,” Davies explains. “You just have to be able to adapt.” Adapt the pair have done, shifting their focus to one-off parties in Aberdeen and Glasgow, while holding down a regular Tuesday night spot at Sneaky Pete’s. 

So, with their unparalleled insight into the challenges of getting people out of the house and onto the dancefloor, why was now the time to create a festival? “There's definitely a gap in the market,” says Davies, “people don't want to stop partying when they hit their late 20s, there's just less catered to them so people end up going out less.” The specific needs for this demographic remain a major consideration: “People have kids, some people have a run club or whatever,” Davies says. “DAYS finishes at 10.30pm, [so] if you don't want to feel shit on a Sunday, you can be in bed by half 11. It fits in with what our audience likes.” The audience is a reflection of themselves – so much so that Masson’s wife is hinted to have gone into labour the morning of our call. 

With the complexities of juggling work, family and fun in mind, DAYS set up a WhatsApp to understand what their punters actually want. Putting questions to their attendees – from what DJs they want to see, to whether tickets are a fair price – the team can make informed decisions. “This one seems to be the year that it's clicked,” Davies says, “we've got a really good community behind us. [On] WhatsApp, there’s about 400 people now and they're super committed.” The ticket numbers prove this. At the time we speak, DAYS is set to sell out a month in advance. “Having all this data really helps you back up your decisions. We found out that a lot of people get a taxi, so this year, we'd quite like more people to use their bikes.” This methodical, even sensible, approach to party planning keeps the team on their toes, the bookings current and the festival evolving. 

With a lineup of names revealed for May, Davies explains how they craft their ideal festival. “We book people that we want to see… if we have no emotional investment, it's pretty hard to market.” Many of the names joining the lineup have graced the booth at previous RARE parties, from sellout artists like DJ Seinfeld, to local talent from across the central belt. “We try to keep it a friendly, community vibe, working with Sneaky Pete’s is obviously a massive part of [that]. Everybody on the lineup has either played at the club or is a regular… it's people that come to the nights that we put on [that] support what we do.”

Then comes the challenge of programming a cohesive day. "Inside [is] pretty heavy, we’ve got Helena Hauff and Daniel Avery playing back to back this year, then outside is [a] housey, proggy kind of vibe. It suits the two spaces because the warehouse is dark and outside it's sunset, it's beautiful.” Even when the heavens opened last May, revellers stayed glued to the dancefloor as Ross from Friends closed the Yard stage. 

Asked for his highlight from DAYS so far, Davies speaks with nostalgia about the very first festival – the disco ball reflecting over the crowd below, George FitzGerald playing his goosebump-inducing track Burns to an electrified dancefloor. Nostalgia seems to be central to DAYS. As much as it's a festival for the community who sustain Edinburgh’s nightlife industry, it's equally for the partygoers who know RARE from their messy student days. It’s a day to ditch the run club, book the babysitter and dance to the backdrop of a setting sun to a tune that takes you all the way back.

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DAYS Festival takes place at The Pitt, Edinburgh, 30 May