‘We’re risking everything to show Liverpool is the place to be’

James Backhouse said he’s been “investing insane amounts” into making it work

A man is living his dreams after pouring his savings into keeping Liverpool’s music scene alive. James Backhouse, 25, from Allerton, runs Vibe, a business which organises and hosts music events in the city.

James started the company with Dan White, from Glossop, who he met while they were in their final year of studying at John Moores University. After several nights out, James and Dan decided to organise raves themselves.

Vibe started organising small student nights at the now-closed Revolution in the Albert Dock and inside the famous Williamson Tunnels. After growing their social media presence during lockdown, the business experienced a rise in followers who joined them when they began hosting events around the city after lockdown ended.

It is now set to host a major Halloween event this Saturday at the Invisible Wind Factory alongside Leeds-based events firm Sersa. Speaking to the ECHO about his journey, James said: “We do minimal house music.

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“We’ve never set to one genre but it has to be groovy, things you can dance with. We didn’t want it to be boring. We started doing more intimate events and then did a tour of Liverpool venues.”

Despite this success, James said the last few years haven’t been straightforward as he tries to balance booking impressive DJs and working with venues with his full-time job as a civil servant in the Ministry of Defence. He said: “It’s quite full-on.

“Sometimes it’s really stressful alongside my main job. I don’t have any personal time. But I feel like I owe it to the people who keep coming back. I’ve been investing insane amounts of money for the headliners.

“I’m not struggling, but it’s not great when you have that cashflow coming out of your bank. I’m taking out money from my savings to put on the show.”

James said his problems have been compounded by the situation facing Liverpool’s music scene. In the past decade and particularly since covid, many smaller, independent venues have either closed or openly talked about the difficulties of staying open. The businessman feels an obligation to give young people nights to remember and a reason to stay in Liverpool.

He said: “The scene is really struggling. So many places have shut down. We’re having to spend a lot more on advertising because so many are shutting down, I don’t want people to think you’ve just to go to big warehouse raves hosted by big brands.

“The nightlife scene has always been big in Liverpool. But for people who are younger, they think they have to go to big student events or travel out of the city. We’re trying to work together to bring it back.”

There were further complications earlier this year when his co-founder Dan told him he wanted to step away from Vibe and focus on becoming a DJ himself. He said: “I was a bit nervous. I was about to go travelling with my girlfriend for 4 months.

“I had this period of four months travelling Bali, Thailand and Australia with my girlfriend. I was thinking, is this going to be the end? If there’s four months without any events, it’s easy for people to forget about you.”

However, his experiences while away from the UK gave James a new perspective. He said: “When I was speaking to people back home about it, they kept saying no, what you’re doing is great for the city. I was showing people on holiday, and they were saying, it looks amazing, I’d love to go.”

After organising several successful events when he came back to Liverpool, James will now be hosting a show in the largest main room at the Invisible Wind Factory for the first time. He’s immensely proud of this as it’s a place he frequented as a student himself, adding: “I always said, I want to be on the other side and put these things together. It’s fitting.”

He claims music lovers from as far as London and the Netherlands have said they are coming to the Halloween event. If this keeps happening, James feels it could show that the rave scene is recovering. He said: “If people come from all over, people have more faith to put on events, and more locals come.

“I definitely feel like there’s a shift. It feels like you’ve got a new community growing. We need to make people see Liverpool as a hotspot. We’re risking our livelihoods. We’re taking everything to put on a show.”

Despite the difficulties, James insists he won’t step away from the music scene. He said: “We started off doing events in a little dingy basement with a 150 capacity. I always used to think, how can we scale up? I always message others for advice. It’s good to see that we’ve come from that and ended up here.”

“I love it. It’s an escape from my day job. A lot of the time now, events can cut corners. I don’t care about the profits. I want to put on best show possible. People say to me, is this all too much?

“For me, I think it’s Halloween, I want the best line-up, the best decorations and people to look back and say, that was a great night, because that’s what I used to do when I was 18.”

Vibe’s ‘Haunted Halloween Warehouse” event with Sersa will take place on Saturday, October 26 at the Invisible Wind Factory. You can find out more here.