Popscene (club)

Popscene is the name of a successful "indie dance" club of the 1990s.

The club, which took its name directly from the Blur song "Popscene", ran from 1995 to 2000 and became synoymous with the Britpop scene, spawning clones around the world over subsequent years. Situated at the London Astoria 2 (LA2) in Central London's Charing Cross Road, the club took place on Friday nights and claimed to have attracted over 300,000 customers over its lifespan, with people queueing in their hundreds for hours to gain admission every week.

Many of the scene's bands themselves were regular customers, with most members of Oasis, Blur, Manic Street Preachers and others often in attendance. The club did not have a separate VIP area and made a large point of the fact that everyone was equal once inside.

With a forward-thinking music policy of rock/dance crossover, the tagline on many of the distinctive (and now highly collectable) fliers was "the dance club for people who like bands".

"Popscene" developed and went on to be cited by many as one of the major breakthrough clubs (together with the Heavenly Social) for the Big Beat music genre in the latter half of the decade, and ultimately came to be as important to a generation of UK clubbers in the 1990s as the Hacienda, Blitz and Wigan Casino were to previous waves of older clubbers.