Hong Kong club XXX Gallery closes after seven years of official harassment and licensing woes

An era in Hong Kong’s nightlife ends on February 10, when XXX Gallery closes its doors for the final time. For its founder Cassady Winston, aka DJ Enso, it’s been a long journey, both physically, with the club inhabiting three homes in different districts in its seven years of existence, and emotionally, with financial losses compounded by constant tussles with the authorities.

The club faced particular opposition from the DAB (Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong – a pro-Beijing political party), which went as far as posting flyers opposing the nightspot’s licence applications in the districts they were operating in.

Famous for its eclecticism, with musical nights that try to simultaneously appeal to contrasting groups of people, and with everything from classical music nights to movie nights to art exhibitions to design competitions, XXX managed to become one of Hong Kong’s best-known clubs while never officially being a club: the impenetrability and cost of Hong Kong’s entertainment licensing system mean that it has always been run as a private venue. 

It only had a licence to sell alcohol at one of its three venues, while still allowing guests to bring their own drinks, so it’s struggled financially, only occasionally breaking even and demanding a large personal financial investment from Winston, who runs it with operations manager James Acey, aka DJ Yao, and business manager Bo Hui.

Winston, from San Francisco, has lived in Hong Kong for 11 years. He has a day job in human resources, currently for fintech company Ipreo and previously for companies including Cathay Pacific. He has been DJing for 18 years and producing music for 14. He started his career promoting music events with warehouse parties in the late 1990s. In his early years in Hong Kong he started bringing in overseas DJs, including the likes of Diplo and A-Trak.

“There were a lot of people doing underground events in those days, and there was a big gap between the whole Lan Kwai Fong thing and oppositional people who were definitely not doing that,” he says. 

 

“We tried in the early days to bridge that gap. We felt there was good music both in the mainstream and underground. We and everyone else we knew were struggling for venues. It was taste or budget: you kind of had to choose one or the other. There was a gap for a space like XXX.”