Radial opens at Ten87 Studios on 5 September with a 10-point custom sound system, Japanese-style loungers and a programme built around active listening.
If you know what Plastic People was, that sentence is enough. If you don’t: Plastic People was a 23-year-old basement club on Oxford Street that closed in 2015 and is still talked about as one of the most sonically extraordinary rooms in British club history. Not because of its capacity (it held about 200 people) or its décor (famously minimal) but because acoustician Nick Whitaker had tuned the room so precisely that the sound felt physically different from anywhere else.
DJs and producers made pilgrimages to play there. It set a standard that most venues never come close to.
Whitaker has now designed the acoustics for radial, a new 250-capacity arts and music venue opening on 5 September at Ten87 Studios in Tottenham. That single fact tells you more about what radial is trying to be than anything else could.
Who’s behind it
Ten87 has been operating out of N17 since 2014, quietly building what is now one of the largest recording studio complexes in the UK across three sites, with more than 60 studios that have housed Fontaines D.C., Wolf Alice, Sherelle, Mount Kimbie and PC Music among many others.
Founders Rob Burn and Romy Quinnen built a genuine creative community rather than just a studio landlord operation, and radial is the natural extension of that: taking the community off the studio floor and onto a stage.
The room
The space holds 250 to 300 standing or up to 80 seated on flexible Japanese-style loungers, centred around a 10-point custom-built sound system. The design was led by SODA, inspired by Olafur Eliasson’s The Weather Project, with a circular sun installation shaping the physical experience from arrival to performance.
The programme
Intimate live music, eclectic club nights, artist-led workshops, listening events and sound-based wellness, all rooted in the idea of active rather than passive listening. Arts Council England’s Supporting Grassroots Music fund is backing it. At a time when London’s grassroots venue closures have become a running cultural emergency, radial opening feels like something worth being first in the door for.
The London x London Take: The Plastic People comparison is not hyperbole, it’s a concrete signal of intent. A sound-first venue in Tottenham, built by people who’ve spent a decade investing in the area’s music community rather than extracting from it, designed by someone who built one of the greatest rooms in London’s club history. Book the opening night.
Need to Know
- Where: Ten87 Studios, Markfield Road, Tottenham, London N15
- Opens: 5 September 2026
