For the first time, the team behind two of Hackney’s most popular nightlife venues, Netil360 and Night Tales, ventures south of the river – and it’s got big ambitions. Having sat empty since 2011, Peckham Palais – the grand but faded neo-Renaissance building on the corner of Peckham High Street and Rye Lane – will once again become a nightclub. Palais opens in February 2026.
Night Group aims to return the site to its former glory. It began in 1867 as the Jones & Higgins department store, and in 1980 became the Peckham Palais nightclub, playing techno, house and dubstep to 1500-strong crowds. The team is reviving the building with a 500-capacity club and cocktail bar, and promises a wide-ranging line-up of both local and international artists. The over-21s venue will be licensed until 6am.
Night Group director Lottie Campbell tells Broadsheet that going south of the river has been a long time coming. “We love what’s happening in the art and culture scene in Peckham – similar to the scene in Hackney – and we feel that we’ll fit really nicely into it.”
Night Group’s other venues are known for their cocktails, rooftops and dance floors. In Peckham, the team hopes to appeal to fans of beloved local venues like Bussey Rooftop Bar, Frank’s, Jumbi and The Carpet Shop.
“This new venue is the most ambitious thing we’ve done in a while. The overall capacity is over 1000, so it’s large-scale, but it’s also ambitious because of the restoration works that we’re doing. We’ve taken the bones of the building and had to put new everything in to transform it.”
It’s not just the building that Night Group is restoring – it’s bringing back the art of partying without phones, too, enforcing a Berghain-style policy of putting stickers on smartphone camera lenses.
“What we want is for people to come to Palais and have shared experiences and be present,” Campbell says. “The idea of people all filming and having phones out is the exact opposite of what we want to try and achieve at this venue.”
Instead, the idea is to create a destination venue with “good music programming” and a “proper clubbing experience”.
The Palais’s first run of shows has been announced: a short residency featuring Chaos in the CBD, a London-based house duo who went out for their first dance at the venue 13 years ago.
The shows will break in the Palais’s top-of-the-range Funktion-One five-way sound system, a precision-tuned set-up that provides “crystal clear sound”, which Campbell is certain will please even the most discerning audiophiles.
That’s in the basement and will mostly be used on the weekend for ticketed events. Upstairs, cocktail bar The Ballroom will be open for walk-ins throughout the week, serving a drinks menu crafted especially for the launch. There will also be a DJ set-up and another quality sound system in this room, which will shift between a listening bar and a second party space.
The group also has plans to open the second and third floors next year, and eventually serve food.
“We’ve got a really big team here that are very passionate about going out and the experiences they have at clubs,” Campbell says. “We think Peckham Palais’s potential is just incredible, and we want people to come together and just have a really good time here.”
Palais opens in February 2026. Tickets on sale now.
