One Haçien­da devo­tee and DJ loved the place so much, he bought a bit of the dance­floor. And a flat exact­ly where the famous Man­ches­ter club’s DJ booth was situated.

The film Do You Own the Dançe­floor? went on release in June 2015. It’s an affec­tion­ate, some­times hilar­i­ous, and decid­ed­ly good-natured account of the sell-off of fix­tures and fit­tings from The Haçien­da, Man­ches­ter’s famous club. In doing so, it explores the lega­cy of the club.

If The Haçien­da’s time in the sun was some­thing you weren’t part of, this film cer­tain­ly makes you feel you’ve missed out. The Haçien­da had more impact than any oth­er to cre­ate the nascent club scene and put Man­ches­ter on the acid house and rave cul­ture map.

The film was made by Chris Hugh­es and Do You Own the Dance­floor? is his first for­ay into film mak­ing. I had a chat with Chris who told me how he feels extreme­ly ner­vous when he sees the audi­ences wait­ing for the film to start but, so far, he’s had very pos­i­tive feed­back. He has fur­ther plans to release a DVD lat­er this year.

After the club’s demise, The Haçien­da was torn down and a block of mod­ern flats built on the site. I inter­viewed a Haçien­da fan called Christo­pher who does some DJing around Man­ches­ter and end­ed up buy­ing one of the flats. He remem­bers the club from the 90s, and recalls the impor­tant part the leg­endary club played in his for­ma­tive club­bing years. And when he moved into his Haçien­da flat, he made an inter­est­ing discovery.

Which peri­od of time were your Haçien­da days?  I was a bit young for the club’s glo­ry days when the Ros­es and New Order did impromp­tu sets. I used to go in 1996–97, at the tail end before it got closed down. We used to go on Sat­ur­days when our favourite DJs were play­ing: Sasha and/or Mike Pick­er­ing. It was that real­ly pro­gres­sive house scene, Amer­i­can garage sound, which of course is found­ed on dis­co – Chica­go house was peter­ing out by the time I got to The Haçien­da. It was becom­ing more trancey and pro­gres­sive, like a sound­scape, with big, epic sets – rum­bling buildups, and epic drops. It was big hands in the air rather than just groov­ing along. Take a Haçien­da track like Voodoo Ray, that’s the direc­tion it was going in.

What was the club like? The Haçien­da was like being at an indoor rave. It had that sense of dan­ger, but in a good way. It felt like some­thing could hap­pen at any time. It remind­ed me of a rave because there was a sham­bol­ic ele­ment to it that was ener­gis­ing. Events were always being shut down by the police  or gen­er­a­tors would stop work­ing. I think they had to have sound lim­iters at one point because the sound would just cut out. There would be lots of stamp­ing of feet with every­one singing and clap­ping till the music came back on and it would almost take the roof off when that hap­pened. I remem­ber it was one of the dark­est places I’ve ever been in, it was full of dark cor­ners. And there were so many doormen!

Did you go to oth­er clubs? We used to go to Sankeys Soap which I loved. And, as I said ear­li­er, I used to go to a lot of out­door raves with friends. We would trav­el all over the coun­try to attend them – we even went down to Devon from Man­ches­ter for one.

Who were your favourite DJs? Sasha was king, and I liked Mike Pick­er­ing too. What I remem­ber pri­mar­i­ly at The Hacien­da was Sasha being amaz­ing. He did a series of albums called North­ern Expo­sure with John Dig­weed, and those two were the kings of clubbing.

What else do you remem­ber? The Gay Trai­tor, named after Antony Blunt was down­stairs, and it made a big impres­sion on me. It was bar cul­ture before its time. The Gay Trai­tor was seedy but a bit cool, you would go there to chill out. I remem­ber they had orig­i­nal Chica­go house going on there. It was the first time I expe­ri­enced a prop­er chill­out room at a club. Two rooms of con­trast­ing styles to make up the whole.

What got you into dance music? I was into bands and then the fig­ure who got me into dance music was Paul Oak­en­fold. He was my DJ idol for a long while. Then rave cul­ture came in, he got into trance and Goa trance and hard trance. But it got a bit acid drenched, which was­n’t my thing.

How did you end up liv­ing at The Haçien­da? I want­ed to live in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre – I had recent­ly got mar­ried and I was flat hunt­ing with my wife. I knew The Haçien­da had been rebuilt as apart­ments so we went to have a look. It just all fell at the right time. With­in two days of mov­ing in, I checked a blue­print and realised our apart­ment was where the DJ booth would have been. That blew my mind.

We were on the ground floor. Our apart­ment and the one next door to me would have spanned the DJ booth. I like to think that our half was where Sasha played, and next door was where Pick­er­ing played. After that, and a blue­print I got on Ebay, I looked for oth­er arte­facts. I bought a piece of the orig­i­nal dance floor, which even has gum stuck to it, which is just great.

Tell me about the 30th Anniver­sary of the club… It was in the car park at our old apart­ment in 2012 – we’ve since moved. They got per­mis­sion from the res­i­dents. Peter Hook curat­ed it to look like a muse­um piece, he even gave it Fac­to­ry Records ser­i­al num­bers. The bar was the full length of the car park, there were DJ rooms, and framed pho­tos of the DJs and ‘back in the day’ pho­tos hung around…  and those yel­low and black warn­ing stripes every­where. Some DJs were there, Mike Pick­er­ing, Graeme Park… but not Sasha. That was the last time I went clubbing.

do you own the dançe­floor? A doc­u­men­tary by Chris Hugh­es.
Now show­ing show­ing at The Trades, Heb­den Bridge, Thurs­day 3rd Octo­ber 2025