MED 019 | Flyer for The Haçienda, 1987

This flyer was posted for day one of my Haçienda “Merry FAC-ing Christmas” advent calendar 2024.

 

While mooching through the MED archive, I found a good stash of FAC 51 Christmas and New Year’s Eve stuff.

 

Christmas might not scream subversive cool, but even our favourite Situationist, Tony Wilson, knew it was a golden ticket, so looking at how Factory handled it might be interesting. But if this is a FAC-ing terrible idea, we can stop now.

 

Incidentally, The Situationists wouldn't have been fans of Christmas in its mainstream, consumer-driven form; they were all about critiquing the "spectacle"—how capitalism turns life into a series of commodified images and experiences, and Christmas would have been a prime target for their disdain.

 

This flyer is for Christmas and NYE 1987, and I can’t find another example of it, so it’s a mystery who designed it.

 

However, I did find a story about the New Year's Eve party becoming infamous because the night's takings accidentally caught fire.

 

This is either true or just another Situationist-inspired yarn told as part of the cultural mythology surrounding Factory Records and The Haçienda. A bit like the KLF burning a million.

 

Ben Kelly gave me this flyer in 1989.