Anyone who spent their youth standing in sticky-floored venues, clutching a warm pint, waiting for a band that would either become famous or, more usually, not, will find the V&A’s new Lost Music Venues exhibition an evocative trip back in time.

With a layout styled as a club, with ticket desk, cloakroom, a graffiti-covered greenroom and oh yes… you’ll shudder when you see the toilets, the exhibition has dialled up the atmosphere.

All it needed was the smell of cigarettes and stale beer (plus ahem, other smells best left unsaid).

Once inside, the exhibition unfolds through more than 100 objects, many donated by the public, telling the story of venues that have disappeared from Britain’s cultural landscape between the 1980s and 2010s. There are flyers, membership cards, posters, clothing and venue signs, each carrying traces of the communities that gathered around them.

Among the highlights is the original London Astoria sign (outside the exhibition), loaned by Damon Albarn.

Nearby are artefacts connected to the campaign to save the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, another reminder that venue closures are hardly a new phenomenon. The exhibition is at its strongest when exploring the ecosystem of small venues that helped launch bands before they became household names.

The exhibition broadens out to consider the pressures facing venues, from licensing battles and noise complaints to the devastation caused by the pandemic. The final section shifts from live music to club culture, charting the rise of legendary venues and club nights that shaped British nightlife.

By recreating not just the stages but the ticket booths, toilets and backstage spaces, the V&A manages to capture some of the texture of a night out as well as the history behind it.

It’s a nostalgic exhibition, certainly, but not one that simply looks backwards. Running through it is a clear message that today’s grassroots venues need protecting if future generations are to have their own stories, scenes and legendary nights to remember.

Although you might cry when you see the prices for gig tickets advertised on the posters.

The exhibition, Lost Music Venues, is at the V&A Kensington until the end of October 2027.

It’s free to visit, and can be found in the Theatre and Performance galleries (2nd floor).