The 100 Club marks 50 years of its punk festival with Sprints and Maruja

The 100 Club is marking 50 years since its Punk Special with two shows at the Soho venue, on 20 and 21 September, headlined by Sprints and Maruja.

The original ran on exactly those dates in 1976, and the bill reads now like a list of who UK punk was about to become: Sex Pistols, The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Damned, Buzzcocks, Subway Sect, Chris Spedding & The Vibrators and Stinky Toys, all of them unsigned at the time. It is widely treated as the moment the scene stopped being an underground concern.

Jeff Horton, who owns the venue, does not undersell what he thinks it was worth. "Punk is THE most important genre and subculture that the UK, or anyone else has ever produced," he said, arguing that its longevity proves the point and that it grew out of despair, racism, poverty and sexism and has carried a flag for people who needed one ever since.

The anniversary is not being handled as a nostalgia bill. Rather than reunite anyone from 1976, the venue has booked two current bands: Sprints headline the first night on 20 September, Maruja the second on 21 September. Support for both dates is still to be announced.

Tickets cost 1.50 pounds, matching the 1976 price, with sales opening at midday BST on Friday 4 September. That number is the clearest statement in the announcement: at a moment when small London venues are closing over economics, a 50th anniversary priced at 1976 rates is a deliberate gesture rather than an accident of accounting.

London's punk calendar has been busy this year, including Decolonise Fest naming the last acts for its 2026 edition and Big Joanie and Essential Logic booked for the new God Save The Queens festival. More rock coverage is on the genre hub.