Max HeyraudSECTION. is London’s community-driven techno livestream hub, run by Bessie-Mae and DJ OT, bringing humanity, connection, and the energy of the city’s dance floors back into the online techno space.
London’s SECTION. has quickly positioned itself as one of the world’s leading techno livestreaming platforms. Launched earlier this year, the community-driven project arrived at a moment when the landscape of online music felt like it was shifting. The pandemic years saw a surge in streaming, but as clubs reopened and dance floors filled again, many of those once-vital platforms began to feel stagnant, rigid even. Social media has only grown more dominant in shaping how DJs present themselves online, often overshadowing the communal energy that livestreams once carried.
This is where SECTION. steps in: a space that actively bridges the online and real-world dance music communities. Its weekly broadcasts are not just about pointing a camera at a DJ in a booth; they are about creating a meeting place, one that connects digital audiences with the spirit of London’s dance floors.
Opened in April in London Fields, East London, SECTION. is the brainchild of Bessie-Mae and DJ OT (Oliver Hajjar), two key figures in the city’s techno and queer scenes, also known as the founders of Tech Couture. Their ethos, rooted in openness, inclusivity, and attitude, translates seamlessly from their party series into this new venture. The result is a platform that feels alive: colourful, characterful, and unmistakably London.
SECTION.’s tagline, “Where Culture Meets,” reflects the platform’s careful balancing act between established names and emerging talent. Yes, you’ll find heavyweights like VTSS (with her For Your Entertainment project), Yanamaste, Chris Liebing, The Lady Machine, and IMOGEN gracing its streams. But the heart of SECTION. beats strongest when it shines a spotlight on local artists, underground acts, and the communities that make London one of the world’s cultural capitals.
The broadcasts are refreshingly unpolished in the best possible way: DJs cracking open beers on a Wednesday evening, club regulars rubbing shoulders in the crowd, the camera catching the raw energy of a scene that thrives on intimacy and connection. In an era where so much of online culture can feel overly curated, SECTION. brings a sense of authenticity back into focus.
Live streams have become a hugely important asset for artists, but sometimes the format can feel a bit lacking in soul. At SECTION., there’s a human element, people meeting up, dancing, having a drink, socialising, that feels refreshing. What are your thoughts on this?
That was the whole idea behind SECTION., to carve out our own niche. It’s not a radio station and not your typical live stream either. It’s more of a meeting point. A place where artists can play to a live crowd, and people can enjoy music together with no strings attached.
Clubbing these days can take a massive toll. Long nights, rising costs, lack of sleep. Too often, the music and genuine human connection become an afterthought. For us, that’s what it’s really about. So we built a weekly gathering point where you can catch world-class and local artists, and connect with people who share the same love for culture.
For artists, this format gives promoters and clubs a true sense of how they can move a live crowd. For the audience, it’s a cultural meeting point. A place to discover, meet like-minded people, have a dance, and still be home by 11pm.
The human element is what brings authenticity back into the experience, and that’s what we want to showcase to a wider audience.
When did the idea for SECTION. come about, and why did you feel it was the right time to unveil it?
SECTION. has been in the back of our minds for years. Bessie and I have both come from different professional backgrounds, which always got in the way of fully committing, but the vision was always there – building something that centred around music and culture in London. When the right opportunity came up, we knew we had to take the leap and go all-in.
It’s been around three years of mulling over the idea, six months of renovating the space to get it visually and technically where we wanted it, and now we’ve been live since April 24, 2025.
We feel like the timing couldn’t be better. London’s music scene is vibrant, but it needs new spaces and new formats to keep evolving. SECTION. is our way of injecting fresh life into the industry – locally and, we hope, far beyond.
How important is it for the online world of club culture and dance music to align with the real-world experience?
This is such a great question. From our point of view, online club culture often feels very different to real-world experiences because so much of it is dictated by the rules of social media. Instead of showing the authentic side of club culture, you’re pushed to create content designed to grab attention, which can end up giving a distorted picture of what it’s really like.
That shift trickles down into everything, from the type of music that gets made to how people dress, and how crowds behave because of what they’ve seen online. Our goal with SECTION. is to flip that script. We want the real, lived experience – the energy in the room, the curated music, the genuine connections – to influence what goes online, not the other way around.
For us, it’s about building culture from the ground up, rooted in authenticity first.
What inspired the decision to use various artists as online residents for your artwork?
The whole idea for SECTION. is creating a greater cultural platform for all facets of culture that naturally intertwine. The name SECTION. comes from the word intersection, because we believe there is intersectionality between all facets of culture, whether that be music, art, fashion, etc. The whole idea is to platform the beauty of culture to a wider audience and shine a light on all things we love about it. Showcasing visual artists as online residents is an extension of that vision. Just like our DJ streams, it’s a way of curating and spotlighting talent we believe in, bringing the beauty of different cultural expressions to a wider audience, and giving space to the things we love about culture.
Do you approach booking lineups for SECTION. differently from you would for a traditional club show?
Yes, definitely. With SECTION. we still keep the in-person experience in mind, so there’s a natural build-in energy, tempo, and genres throughout the night, but we also don’t want to restrict artists when it comes to what they play on a stream. So we try and find that right balance in our programming.
SECTION. gives us the freedom to book a much wider range of artists, both in terms of genre and sound. With Tech Couture, the bi-monthly format and the specific sound we push mean the bookings are more niche. Both are still highly curated. At SECTION. as with TC, we only book people if we genuinely love their music.
You also run one of London’s most prominent techno parties, Tech Couture. What drew you to explore something new alongside Tech Couture?
It felt like a natural progression from what we’d built with Tech Couture. TC has always been about championing a specific sound and bringing together a very dedicated, special crowd. With SECTION., the ambition was to take that same spirit of curation and expand it into something broader, something that could reach more people, spotlight a wider range of artists, and explore different corners of culture.
What drew us to start SECTION. was the same thing that’s always driven us: a passion for music, culture, and connection. Tech Couture gave us the foundation and community, and SECTION. is a way of scaling that energy to impact not just London nightlife, but the wider cultural conversation around dance music. At the heart of both is the same mission – to make people’s lives richer, more fun, and more connected through music.
With Tech Couture, you aimed to introduce a more colourful side to techno, moving away from the all-black aesthetic. Do you feel SECTION. is an extension of that philosophy?
At the core of both Tech Couture and SECTION. is the same goal: promoting an authentic experience of clubbing and music. Too often in dance music, clichés and stereotypes build up, whether it’s the sound or even the look, and people start feeling like they have to conform rather than just being their real selves.
When we started Tech Couture, techno at the time was dominated by an all-black, industrial aesthetic that we felt didn’t reflect the full spirit of the music. Clubbing should be about expression, colour, and connection, so we deliberately went against the grain, bringing a more playful, SXC sound and a more open, diverse identity to techno.
SECTION. is cut from the same cloth in that sense. It’s also about authenticity, high-quality music, and creating space for people to connect as themselves. But the two projects have very different brand identities. Tech Couture has its own community and sound, while SECTION. is building a broader cultural platform. For now, we’re keeping them distinct, even though they’re both driven by the same philosophy.
The aesthetics of Tech Couture seem very important—the brand and logo have a distinct look—but many nights have banned photos and cameras. Is there a sense of being able to harness the aesthetic of Tech Couture through SECTION. as a live-streamed platform?
This is honestly one of the ongoing challenges with Tech Couture. We’re privileged to be one of the longest-standing external promoters at FOLD, which we believe is one of the best venues in the world. Part of that privilege is respecting their no-photo, no-video policy. A rule we fully agree with. It creates a much more authentic dancefloor experience and is a big reason why our parties feel so special.
But in today’s content-first world, it does make it harder to showcase that energy to people outside the room. We’ve found ways around it, capturing moments at afterparties, or through opportunities like our festival stage at Maiden Voyage, and we want to build on more of those kinds of events in the future.
With SECTION., it’s a different approach. Content is at the heart of what we do, and the whole point is to share authentic cultural experiences with a wider audience. That said, as mentioned above, SECTION. and Tech Couture remain separate brands with their own distinct identities. There will be crossovers on special occasions, but each has its own world and philosophy.
Week 16 saw a special collaboration with VTSS & For Your Entertainment—how was that?
It was amazing. We’re really grateful to Martyna and Charles for trusting us to host something that special so early in our SECTION. journey. To have VTSS alongside a lineup of local legends felt like a real milestone, it showed us what SECTION. can be when we bring global talent and our shared communities together in one space.
It was definitely a highlight for us, and hopefully just the start. We’d love to explore more collaborations like this in the future, as long as they make sense with our overall curation and add value for the community we’re building.
Finally, what defines a cultural hub to you?
For us, a cultural hub is a meeting point where different disciplines collide – music, art, fashion, ideas. It’s a space where community comes first, where people can experience culture in its purest form, connect with others, and spark collaborations that live on beyond the moment.
A true hub doesn’t just serve the people in the room, it also broadcasts that energy outward, showcasing the beauty of culture to a wider audience and reminding people why it matters.
That’s exactly what we hope SECTION. can be, a place that brings people together while pushing culture further.
