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Boyd Sleator

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I like machines and creating progressive social change. Cofounder of @freethenightni find info here > linktr.ee/freethenightni

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FREE THE NIGHT IN THE GUARDIAN + JUDICIAL REVIEW UPDATE 🗞️

Last week, The Guardian took a deep dive into Northern Ireland’s outdated licensing system, the barriers it creates for our night time economy, and our ongoing campaign for reform.

The piece looks at the bizarre reality of a system where Lidl can spend more than £500,000 and six years navigating the licensing process to open a pub, while independent operators face huge financial and legislative barriers to opening new venues.

The article also features Derry-born DJ and producer @orla_cd, who signed our Open Letter calling for licensing reform, speaking about her own experience of feeling pushed out of Northern Ireland in order to pursue a career in music.

As Or:la puts it, while Northern Ireland is flourishing in so many areas, our nightlife continues to move backwards.

As mentioned in the article, our Judicial Review hearing scheduled for September has been postponed due to additional funding needed to meet the significant costs of continuing the legal action.

We remain committed to pursuing the case and pushing for meaningful reform of Northern Ireland’s licensing system. We’ll share more on next steps soon and what can be done to help.

Huge thanks to @ddavidrenshaw and The Guardian for shining a light on these issues, and to Or:la for lending her voice to the campaign.

Read the full article via the link in our bio 🌙

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The big day is finally here! 💛

Come celebrate our fifth birthday tonight at @ulstersportsclub with @jordannocturne, @timmystewartmusic, @noelwatson_97, @hannahmcc___, @sophieeshaw and @hawkes_m.

We also have some cute FTN badges to give away for the first ten people through the door so get down early - doors open from 10.30pm!

Tickets available on the door for £10 and still available online via RA.

#freethenight

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Northern Ireland’s licensing laws are holding nightlife back, limiting culture, creativity, and community after dark.

The current system no longer reflects today’s audiences or artists.

Sign the open letter ✍️

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Five years on, Free The Night continues to push for real change in Northern Ireland’s nightlife landscape.

With a major legal challenge ahead, the campaign marks the milestone with a special Belfast event, bringing together a strong lineup of local talent for the occasion.

All funds raised on the night will support ongoing work and upcoming legal efforts.

📸: @the_boyler

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Free The Night turns five! 🎂

It’s hard to believe we’ve been going this long. In some ways it feels like yesterday we first came together, fuelled by frustration at the (very) limited changes to licensing in 2021. For the first time in NI history, we decided to challenge a system we believed was holding nightlife back from reaching its full potential.

Five years on, we’ve come full circle. Changes we helped shape in 2021 have now led us to our most important work to date. We are taking the government to court after key recommendations for licensing reform were rejected.

With a crucial few months ahead and our fifth birthday approaching, we figured now is a good a time as any for a celebratory knees up, soundtracked by some of the best DJs in this corner of the land:

@hawkes_m B2B @noelwatson_97
@jordannocturne B2B @timmystewartmusic
@hannahmcc___ B2B @sophieeshaw

All proceeds will go towards the day-to-day running of the charity and any upcoming legal costs.

We need your support now more than ever.
Join us for a dance on April 11th as we step into the next chapter.

Tickets £10 - link in bio
Poster @stopimgonnacry

#freethenight

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Campaign group Free The Night, and Holly Lester have formally begun a legal challenge following the Northern Ireland Minister for Communities’ decision to reject the findings of an Independent Review of Liquor Licensing.

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Supershine disposable cam dumppp ✨

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The Four Fourcast — Episode 6 with Free The Night

For Episode 6, Max Heyraud sat down with Boyd Sleator and Holly Lester of Free The Night, the North of Ireland’s nightlife advocacy group and charity, for an essential conversation on the future of culture-led nightlife.

Belfast’s world-renowned festival culture doesn’t reflect a healthy club ecosystem that exists year-round. Instead, it highlights a systemic failure driven by policy: culture is celebrated in bursts, but unsupported in everyday practice.

AVA, described by Holly as “techno Christmas,” becomes a bittersweet homecoming, a weekend where the wealth of the North’s and Belfast’s electronic music talent returns briefly before heading back to the cities they now call home. It’s a reminder that outdated, conservative approaches to nightlife and cultural policy are steadily forcing creatives away from their own communities, exporting talent rather than sustaining it.

The Four Fourcast brings the conversations we’ve been having online into a longer, more detailed format, championing electronic music, club culture, and the grassroots communities that sustain them across Ireland and beyond.

Powered by @scopetickets

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The Four Fourcast — Episode 6 with Free The Night

For Episode 6, Max Heyraud sat down with Boyd Sleator and Holly Lester of Free The Night, the North of Ireland’s nightlife advocacy group and charity, for an essential conversation on the future of culture-led nightlife.

Boyd and Holly highlight how governments and businesses still frame dance music and club culture through negative stereotypes, casting them as disorderly, low-value, or socially suspect. They argue this reflects a conservative cultural clampdown that restricts freedom of expression and delegitimises grassroots music scenes, particularly those rooted in youth and working-class communities.

This is clear in the Derry example, where the Stormont Executive Office criticised the “quality” of acts booked for Ebrington Square and insisted that raves could only take place outside a four-star hotel. The comments revealed an elitist bias that favoured polished, commercially acceptable culture over independent dance music, and they provoked an immediate public backlash in response to this overt attempt at cultural control.

The Four Fourcast brings the conversations we’ve been having online into a longer, more detailed format, championing electronic music, club culture, and the grassroots communities that sustain them across Ireland and beyond.

Powered by @scopetickets

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The Four Fourcast — Episode 6 with Free The Night

For Episode 6, Max Heyraud sat down with Boyd Sleator and Holly Lester of Free The Night, the North of Ireland’s nightlife advocacy group and charity, for an essential conversation on the future of culture-led nightlife.

Free The Night campaigns for arts, cultural, and nightlife spaces that aren’t driven by profit, but by freedom, diversity, and community. In this episode, we unpack why these spaces matter so deeply to society, and what’s currently holding nightlife in the North of Ireland back, from excessive red tape and opaque decision-making, to legislation and policy that is increasingly out of step with contemporary culture.

Boyd and Holly speak candidly about grassroots organising, the realities of navigating outdated systems, and why protecting non-commercial cultural spaces is vital for the health of music, arts, and nightlife ecosystems as a whole.

The Four Fourcast brings the conversations we’ve been having online into a longer, more detailed format, championing electronic music, club culture, and the grassroots communities that sustain them across Ireland and beyond.

You can listen now via the link in our bio and on your usual podcast platforms.

Powered by @scopetickets

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The Four Fourcast — Episode 6 with Free The Night launches tomorrow at 12

We sat down with Boyd Sleator and Holly Lester of Free The Night, the North of Ireland’s nightlife advocacy group and charity.

This is an important and eye-opening episode. Lock in tomorrow from 12.

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Visited Vienna’s little punsch- and Glühwein-stands today — tiny wooden huts run by churches, Lions clubs and charities that sell steaming mugs to fund local projects and bring neighbours together. These community-run stalls (from charity booths like Gruft to Lions Club punschstands) are part of a long Advent tradition in Vienna’s Christkindlmarkt scene.

You pay a small mug deposit, sip locally made punsch or Feuerzangenbowle, and often know the people behind the stall — it’s fundraising, warmth and social life in one. Vienna’s markets vary by neighbourhood, from rooftop punsch terraces to humble charity huts in parish squares.

It struck me how many small, low-barrier community spaces this creates. In Northern Ireland, restrictive licensing and complex alcohol rules make replicating that same grassroots, parish-run punsch culture much harder — something worth rethinking if we want safer, community-led public life.

If you love local traditions, support charity stalls, or want ideas for community fundraising, Vienna’s punschstands are an inspiring model. #Vienna #Gluhwein #Punsch #Christkindlmarkt #Community #MulledWine #Austria #ChristmasMarkets

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