meat: Sixteen

Adrian (the meat guy)

Sep 25

2 min read

Last night we took over the Green Room at 21 Soho for a slightly surreal but very lovely evening celebrating meat sixteen, the new book, but also sixteen years of meat in general.

And what a night.

We had a full house, a bar, books to pre-order, calendars and T-shirts to buy, and a room full of people who have followed, supported, appeared in, danced at, bought, read or generally been part of meat over the years.

The main event was an on-stage conversation between me and Dan, who looks after meat's marketing and PR. We talked about how the project started, how it has changed over sixteen years, some of the people and stories behind it, and quite a lot about what it means to me now. We then opened things up to questions from the audience, which took the conversation in all sorts of directions.

Thankfully, the whole thing was filmed by Duncan McCabe, so there will be a film of the conversation coming soon.

Afterwards, DJ Joe Egg took over the music and the rest of the evening was spent drinking, chatting, catching up with old friends, meeting new people and talking about all things meat. Seeing so many different people from different parts of the project's life together in one room felt genuinely quite special.

I should probably have taken more photographs. Considering I am, allegedly, a photographer, I was remarkably rubbish at documenting my own party. I was far too busy talking to people, having a drink and trying to take it all in. So what you see here are just a few snaps from the night.

Sixteen years is a long time to keep a project going. When I started meat in 2010, I certainly wasn't imagining a sold-out room in Soho sixteen years later, celebrating a book looking back over everything we'd made along the way.

There were people in the room I've known for years and others I was meeting for the first time. That, more than anything, felt like a pretty good representation of what meat has become: not just the photographs, magazines, books, calendars or parties, but all the people I've met because of them.

Thank you to Dan for putting me on the spot, Joe for the music, Stuart for keeping us on track, Duncan for filming the conversation, the team at 21 Soho for looking after us, and everyone who came along, bought something, asked a question, said hello or raised a glass.

And thank you to everyone who has supported meat over the past sixteen years.

It was quite a night.

Here's to whatever comes next.

Adrian x