Boiler Room is a platform that streams DJ sets online, filmed with the dancers crowded right behind the DJ so they become part of the show.
It started in 2010 in Hackney, east London, when Blaise Bellville and Thristian Richards taped a webcam to the wall of a derelict building and invited friends to play; the name comes from the room itself, an empty boiler room. By 2024 its archive held more than eight thousand videos from cities around the world, and in 2021 it was acquired by the ticketing company Dice. Carl Cox’s 2013 set in Ibiza became its most-watched mix on YouTube, past sixty-five million views, and in February 2024 a Charli XCX party drew more than 25,000 sign-ups for about 400 places. The format’s greatest legacy, though, is the background dancer: one memorable gesture behind the decks can outlive the set by years.