Outside of World Cup parties, Royal weddings and Notting Hill, it’s rare for an event to shut down the nation’s capital. It’s rarer still for it to happen on a weekly basis. But that’s the position DJ AG has found himself in.
For those unaware of the name, DJ AG – real name Ashley Gordon (AG)– is a sensation akin to a modern day Beatlemania. He regularly shuts down city centres and through his TikTok livestreams he performs to an online audience of thousands every week. He’s amassed almost 2m followers on TikTok and is nearing another million on Instagram. He’s brought the likes of Will Smith to King’s Cross and Craig David to Brixton, not to venues but to people on the street paying nothing but their attention. He can pop up in Manchester or DJ in a school and the reaction is the same. He travels across the UK with his CDJs, presses play on his first tune and people flock to him.
He’s a ‘social media star’ in the very real sense – be it measured by millions of views or brand deals – but it’s easy to dismiss those who reached the mainstream via an app as someone who exists solely through a phone. Social media may be the reason for his breakout moment, but he’s spent years quietly working to make that happen. AG has honed his craft over the decades and played countless amounts of shows, but all while trying to find his audience. Through that, over the years he respected London music culture through his talents and over time the people respected him back. Now, says AG, is the right time to build something bigger in the form of AG Fest.
AG Fest is a two stage open-air day festival taking place on 25 July 2026 at Copthall Playing Fields, Barnet. And the journey to turning his brand into a festival came naturally. In 2025 he was being booked for DJ sets at festivals across the country, and through that came a realisation. “I’d perform at these festivals and think to myself, why am I not doing this?” he says. “I’ve got a community, and I can take a different spin on it.“
By his own admission AG can talk the talk, something that comes from his former life as the sales manager for a FTSE 250 company. This experience has very much helped him along the festival journey. “I know how to deal with people, how to make people feel good and how to ask the right questions to get the right results,” he says.
AG is also keen to express that his name is a brand, not just a name on a flyer. And AG is very much a personality as well as a DJ. “I would say my fanbase comes from me and how I’m able to bring people together,” he says.
But his decision to start a festival isn’t born through just a business decision and personality alone. The reasons behind AG Fest are much bigger. “I’ve got a community, and communities are mainly about families,” says AG. “So many different people come see us from all different backgrounds. On our live shows, you have kids performing with their parents alongside big name artists. So, why not put something together that not only champions the big artists but also something that supports people who you can discover? I think maybe that’s something that is missing right now.”
It’s true that social media fame is almost like the planets aligning, where followers can come through posting a video in the right place at the right time. But to have longevity AG thought deeper than that when making his name, and ultimately creating a festival. And that came with what he knows best – his city of London and everyone who lives in it.
“London is such a beautiful place,” says AG. “It’s so diverse. And for me, when I do my outdoor live sessions, you see such a mixture of people. You never know who you’re going to come across, but it’s important for everyone to feel comfortable. It’s about providing a space for parents there to bring their children, or even your auntie, your uncle or grandpa. It’s a place for people to feel comfortable and safe.“
This is something AG has long cared about. One week, AG might pop up on your feed alongside grime royalty Skepta and JME. The next he’s at a retirement home taking requests from older generations remembering the songs of their youth.
But there are some major challenges in making what he’s created bigger. A city job has come with some exclusive knowledge in that area, whether it’s knowing how to run a budget or dealing with high pressure environments. But these ‘in the city’ spaces are rarely sources of great musical inspiration. A genre like grime might have been born in east London, but it didn’t come from Canary Wharf after all. Truly representing London’s music culture comes with knowledge.
It also comes with event experience. AG might have a DIY setup on the surface, one that looks like a pair of decks, a table and a soundsystem. But as his status has grown so has his audience, and with that comes sound crews, PR teams and all the rest to make it work.
Now it’s all a finely tuned machine. That said, he’s got away with a few things in his time. You’d think bringing Will Smith to central London would come with some council intervention, but that performance was a more casual affair. “We work with councils and it makes sense to work with organisations, but there’s a lot of red tape to deal with so we kind of just did it on that occasion,” laughs AG in a very democratic manner.
This is all still a learning curve though. For AG, he’s learning that major festival festival come with health and safety guidelines, food standards and capacity limits, something that’s not too much of an issue when he’s performing outside a McDonalds. “It costs a lot to put on a festival,” sighs AG. “There’s security costs, you need to work with the council and you have to satisfy a lot of people. A key thing for us too is that the residents of the area are not impacted and that they see the value in what we’re doing.“
There’s also the task of turning both an online following and a free weekly event into something that people would want to spend money on. This is both good and bad.
“There’s a challenge that we face from creating a free event to now asking people to support a festival,” says AG. “With my outdoor sets [on TikTok] there’s only so much we can do. We can’t have the music as loud and we can’t have as many people. With a festival, we create the capacity of the event, we create how it sounds, what it feels like, the amount of food options that you get. It’s all controlled, and it reinforces a message to my community of people and gives them reasons to spend the money.“
Challenges aside, the ultimate reason why any festival is born is to create something that has an impact in some way. Depending on the reason, from celebrating culture to providing shareholder profit, every festival needs to find its audience.
AG is doing that, but differently. I ask him if what he’s created could be a new model for UK festivals, one where the audience is built online and the line-up comes later. Usually it’s the opposite, where festivals book their acts and hope the fans follow.
He’s quick to reply. “Community is always going to be at the heart of what I do, but this comes from working on the ground [not just social media]. When you’re on the ground you get a real sense of what’s happening,” says AG. “You get people’s feedback and apply that to a festival. That’s how you create something which has an impact.“
“It’s not just about DJing on the streets,” AG goes on to say. “This whole thing is about the schools and the care homes as much as it is about the musicians playing. This festival is about seeing how people feel about life from across the generations. And this festival is about bringing those generations into one space.”
AG Fest is taking place 25 July 2026 at Copthall Playing Fields, Barnet. Tickets are available now.
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