Ministry Of Sound turned 30 last September and, fittingly for a name that is not exactly synonymous with reticence, it is stretching the celebrations out over an entire year.

Ministry began as a club in South London and quickly moved into compilations/mixes, merchandise/audio hardware/clothing, a short-lived dance magazine, shops, signing its own acts and generally exporting the brand globally. Sony Music acquired Ministry of Sound Recordings in 2016.

Ministry started its 30th anniversary celebrations with the Three Decades Of Dance compilation and series of live events, as well as a pop-up activation in East London, last year. Now the latest phase of the anniversary sees it playing around with augmented reality within Snapchat.

It created the AR lens with the 4th Floor Creative division of Sony Music UK alongside AI company Anything World.

The voice-activated lens is there to offer a brief virtual tour through the past three decades of the club, the Ministry brand and the music associated with it.

“Users are invited to be transported to a time in the club’s 30-year history by saying which decade they want to appear in,” explains Anything World on its website. “The filter then adjusts showing flip phones for the 1990s, iPods for the 2000s and virtual reality headsets for the 2010s.”

By issuing a voice command (e.g. “Take me back to the Nineties”), the lens overlays augmented clothing (a MOS-branded bucket hat) and era-specific devices as well as playing music synonymous with MOS at the time.

Hari Ashurst-Venn, head of digital & new tech at 4th Floor Creative, said, “Finding new ways to discover or trigger a music experience is at the heart of music tech innovation and this project is a continuation of 4th Floor Creative’s explorations of voice navigation.”

It is playing heavily on the nostalgia element and is also making the case that, regardless of any specific year, Ministry was a constant in the ever-evolving story of dance music since it first opened its doors in late 1991.