Annie Mac, who presented flagship Radio 1 shows for seventeen years, brought her phone-free Before Midnight night to the Great Hall at Alexandra Palace in September 2026.
Annie Mac, a BBC Radio 1 presenter for seventeen years, brought her phone-free club night Before Midnight to Alexandra Palace in Wood Green on Saturday 12 September 2026.
She was born Annie Macmanus in Dublin in 1978 and read English literature at Queen’s University Belfast. She joined Radio 1 as a producer, and her first programme aired in July 2004.
There she presented Future Sounds and the Friday Dance Party, and in 2015 took over Zane Lowe’s evening show. Her Annie Mac Mini Mix gave other DJs a platform. She left the station in July 2021, two months after her first novel, Mother Mother, was published; it became a bestseller.
She launched Before Midnight in spring 2022: a club night that starts early and finishes before midnight. Phones are off the floor by rule rather than by request. She also runs a long-form interview podcast, and her DJ diary still takes her to the main stages.
The Great Hall, which holds around ten thousand, was the largest room the night had yet filled. Its rule held there intact, and Macmanus played the night herself.