BBC Radio 1 DJ Arielle Free has said it was “brilliant” to go “back” to her roots and play a house party in Glasgow after her set at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay street party was cancelled due to bad weather.
Free, 36, who hosts Radio 1’s Rave-Up show, was due to play at the Party Stage on Waverley Bridge before the celebrations were called off by organisers after Met Office yellow weather warnings for most of Scotland on Monday and Tuesday.
After being “inundated” with messages, Free organised three sets in Glasgow – one at Nico’s Bar, another at The Locale, and a set at a house party where the decks were placed on kitchen hobs.
She told the PA news agency: “It’s always such a great, high energy, just really like a beautiful evening of unity and everyone having a wonderful time and getting on.
So this one tweet has turned into a secret set at a pub in Glasgow, a club and two house party sets with a potential day rave tomorrow. HWFG 🎉🎉🎉 https://t.co/kGU1El4Xjf
— Arielle Free (@ariellefree) December 31, 2024
“And it’s such a great way to see in the New Year and I was reposting videos from the first and last time I did it (Edinburgh’s Hogmanay street party), which was 2019, and then I started getting announcements that it was being cancelled because of the weather.”
Free said she put on her socials that she was “quite upset” before someone on X, formerly Twitter, posted asking if anyone was booking her for a house party.
“And I put it (the post) up on my Instagram and suddenly was getting inundated with messages and I thought, actually, there could be something in this.”
Free asked if there were any parties she could play at and received “offers of flights to Australia, parties in Aberdeen” and suggestions to play in Europe and New York.
“I started replying to people, and was like, okay, and managed to come up with a path around Scotland”, she said.
“So I played a bar called Nico’s, which was so fitting, because that was the first ever bar I went to on a night out in Scotland – I grew up in Glasgow.”
She had also organised to DJ at a house party near Central Station but said they were unable to find any decks or speakers.
“And then I ended up at a girl’s (house) called Lisa, who’d asked me to come play her house party in Glasgow as well,” she said.
“So I played there, the decks were on the hobs in the kitchen, and then came home, feet knackered from all the dancing and heart full of joy. It ended up being a brilliant night.”
“It was really brilliant to be back just playing people’s house parties,”, she added.
“It really felt like going back to where it all began for me.”
Reflecting on the future, she said: “It was just so personable that I definitely would do it again. So whether it’s Scotland, whether it’s somewhere else, I don’t know, but I think it would be lovely to make it a yearly session, why not?”.
