About Run Riot
Culture isn’t something to watch from the sidelines. Get amongst it.
Run Riot is an independent London culture Zine and weekly Dispatches Bulletin for the curious, the creative and the culturally restless.
Since 2007, we’ve been helping people find culture that moves them – and helping culture find its people.
Across the Zine and Dispatches, you’ll find artists, creators, visionaries and provocateurs sharing the people, places, ideas and experiences they think deserve your attention. Alongside them, we publish interviews, stories, cultural picks and recommendations spanning art, theatre, dance, film, music, club culture, ideas and the glorious territory in between.
We’re interested in great work, of course. But also the people making it, the ideas driving it, the conversations around it – and what happens when different worlds collide.
We like culture with something to say. We like pleasure, wit, courage, curiosity, experimentation and a little mischief. We believe in creative freedom, inclusivity and bringing different generations and communities into the conversation.
Most importantly, we want you to go out and experience it.
Dispatches – straight to your inbox
The weekly Dispatches Bulletin is the heartbeat of Run Riot.
Each edition is Guest Edited by a creator, visionary or provocateur, bringing another perspective into the mix. Their cultural recommendations sit alongside our own picks, interviews, stories, new discoveries and things worth knowing about across London.
It’s designed to be useful. Open it, discover somebody brilliant, book something, read something, send it to a friend – perhaps end up somewhere you hadn’t planned to be.
Subscribers also receive occasional ticket offers, competitions, priority booking opportunities and special promotions from our culture partners.
Subscribe to Dispatches. It’s free – and you’re very welcome.
The Zine
Run Riot has always been interested in the people behind culture as much as the finished work.
Our Zine brings together conversations with artists, performers, writers, filmmakers, musicians, curators, producers, activists, cultural leaders and assorted troublemakers.
Sometimes we’re talking about a new production, exhibition, book, record or festival. Sometimes the conversation travels considerably further – into politics, identity, creativity, London, sex, money, community, failure, pleasure, protest, hope and whatever else seems worth talking about.
We want Run Riot to be somewhere people can speak with character, share ideas and introduce our readers to worlds beyond their own.
Culture works better together
Run Riot is independent, but we’ve never believed independence means doing everything alone.
We collaborate with theatres, galleries, cinemas, venues, festivals, producers, agencies and cultural organisations to help ambitious work reach people who might genuinely care about it.
Our Culture Partnerships can bring together Dispatches, the Zine, social media, editorial, sponsored content, audience campaigns and larger creative collaborations. Sometimes we’re helping sell tickets. Sometimes we’re introducing an artist or an idea. At our best, we’re finding an imaginative way to connect the two sides.
We want partnerships to work for everyone involved: the cultural organisation, Run Riot and, crucially, our readers.
Editorial judgement remains our own. Trust matters.
If you’re making, producing or promoting something you think belongs in the Run Riot world, we’d like to hear from you.
Independent since 2007
Run Riot was founded in London by editor Jamie McLaren in 2007, originally as an independent digital magazine born from a simple frustration: extraordinary things were happening across the city, but finding them could be surprisingly difficult.
What began as a no-frills email bulletin grew into a Zine, weekly bulletin and collaborative editorial platform.
More than 90 freelance writers, critics, thinkers, players, doers and contributors have been part of the story. We’ve published countless interviews and recommendations, invited brilliant people to Guest Edit, produced live events, made a print Zine and experimented with podcasts and film.
London has changed enormously since 2007. So has publishing. So have we.
What hasn’t changed is the reason for doing it.
Help people find culture that moves them – and help culture find its people.
What matters now
Culture gives us places to meet, question, celebrate, argue, dance, laugh, think, flirt, escape, discover and occasionally change our minds.
We think that’s worth fighting for.
Run Riot champions creative freedom, independent voices and cultural spaces. We’re interested in the established and the emerging, the grand institution and the tiny room above a pub, international artists arriving in London and people making extraordinary things around the corner.
We’re interested in who gets heard, who gets invited in and what happens when the usual boundaries between art forms, audiences and communities become a little less fixed.
And we’re optimistic.
There are extraordinary people making extraordinary things across London every day. Our job is to find them, talk to them, champion them – and introduce them to you.
What’s next
Run Riot is entering another chapter.
We’re developing new editorial formats, new creative partnerships and new ways of bringing people together – through the Zine, Dispatches, social media and, increasingly, out in the city itself.
That includes our Lil’ Run Riot Soirées (next on Thu 3 Sept 2026 – RSVP!) – informal gatherings bringing together readers, contributors, artists, culture partners and friends of Run Riot for a drink, a natter, new introductions and the occasional concocting of wild ideas.
We’re also exploring new conversations, events and creative collaborations that can take Run Riot beyond the page and inbox.
Some will build on things we’ve been doing for years. Some will take us somewhere new.
That’s rather the point.
Be a Player, join the Riot
If you’re interested in culture and share our belief in creativity, curiosity, freedom, inclusion and a city made richer by the people who make things happen, you’re invited.
Subscribe to Dispatches. Read the Zine. Go to the show. See the exhibition. Find the weird little gig. Support artists. Buy a ticket when you can. Take a chance on something unfamiliar. Bring your friends.
And if you like Run Riot, tell someone about us.
Independent culture grows through people showing up.
Stay curious. Keep going out.
Get in touch
Run Riot is edited by Jamie McLaren.
For editorial enquiries, collaborations, Culture Partnerships or simply to say hello:
jamie [@] run-riot.com