The sunset gig that turned a Cornish beach into a 360° dancefloor

There was no stage at the front and no crowd at the back. When Pete Tong played Lusty Glaze on Saturday, the audience wrapped all the way round him, with the Atlantic doing the work any lighting rig would struggle to match.

Three decades of dance music, one very Cornish setting

The BBC Radio 1 broadcaster and Essential Mix creator sold out Lusty Glaze Beach in Newquay for Pete Tong 360°, a celebration of Essential Dance Music built around a stage nobody at the venue had tried before. Rather than facing the crowd from a raised platform, Pete was set down in the middle of a purpose-built 360° DJ stage, with the audience circling him on the sand instead of standing in rows in front of him.

As Saturday afternoon slid into evening, the cove filled with people for a set that ran from contemporary electronica through to the classic club sounds Pete Tong has spent decades championing on air and on stage, from his Radio 1 years to the arena-filling Ibiza Classics shows.

“Pete was right in the middle of everyone”

For Lusty Glaze owner Tracey Griffiths, the scale of the artist mattered less than what the format did to the atmosphere.

“Pete Tong is one of those artists whose influence on dance music is almost impossible to overstate,” Tracey said. “He has been part of the soundtrack to generations of people’s lives, so to have him standing at the centre of Lusty Glaze, with the crowd surrounding him and the ocean behind him, was a pretty extraordinary sight.”

She said the 360° concept changed the shape of the night itself. “There was no separation between the artist and the audience. Pete was right in the middle of everyone and that created an incredible energy across the beach.” Tracey added that Pete Tong himself was won over by the setting, telling the team he “loved it” and calling Lusty Glaze “what a venue.”

The sunset, the cliffs and the Atlantic did the rest

Tracey pointed to the surroundings as much as the performance. “Then you add the setting, our iconic Lusty sunset, the sand beneath your feet, the cliffs around you and the Atlantic stretching out beyond the stage, and it becomes something that simply couldn’t be recreated anywhere else.”

Pete Tong 360° is the latest in a growing run of major live shows at the beach, which has built a reputation for pulling well-known names into an intimate coastal setting, alongside its regular Sundowner Sessions, tribute acts and live bands.

A different kind of venue, by design

Tracey is clear that Lusty Glaze isn’t trying to compete with a conventional venue. “We’re not trying to be a traditional concert venue,” she said. “We’re creating experiences that are completely connected to the place we’re lucky enough to call home.”

“You can see Pete Tong in some of the biggest clubs, festivals and venues around the world. But standing on a beach in Cornwall, surrounded by the people who had come to experience that music, with the sun setting over the Atlantic, that’s a very Lusty Glaze way of doing things.”

Lusty Glaze’s programme of live music and events continues throughout the rest of the year.