A yearly highlight of the Listen Festival takes place on the fringes of the city. On the northern edge of Brussels, just a few hundred meters from the border with the Flemish municipality of Vilvoorde and wedged between the banks of the Zenne and the Brussels–Scheldt Sea Canal, large groups of clubbers gather at Buda BXL, an industrial concert venue slash creative free space. They’re there at the invitation of queer collectives Gay Haze and Spek, who, for the occasion, transform the raw industrial warehouse with an impressive DJ line-up and a unique scenography. That last element is more important than it might seem at first glance.

Scenography originally hails from the world of theatre. It refers to all the visual elements used on stage, which includes not only set design but also costumes, video projections, and lighting. In nightlife, scenography is as old as the very first discotheques. It’s about designing a space for dancing. In a broader sense, scenography can also encompass the architecture of the venue, the dancers’ style of dress, or the use of a smoke machine—alongside more obvious elements like lighting, interior design, or decorative features.

The impressive book Night Fever. Designing Club Culture. 1960 – Today, published in 2018 to accompany the exhibition of the same name—which also stopped at the Brussels design museum—dives deep into the history of scenography in nightlife. Club culture is presented as a gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art where interior design, furniture, and graphics are interwoven with sound, light, fashion, and special effects. It’s a universe that has been a playground for experimentation for decades, often giving rise to avant-garde and norm-challenging practices. The book explores, among other things, the Italian Radical Design architects of the 1960s and ’70s, the iconic design of Manchester’s legendary Haçienda club in the 1980s, and the Belgian connection between club culture and the legendary generation of fashion designers known as the Antwerp Six.

Clubs are rarely, if ever, designed from scratch to be clubs. More often, it’s young creatives who seek out relatively inexpensive spaces—a loft, an old cinema, or a vacant factory—to temporarily claim and transform for a party. That was the case in 1970s New York, 1980s Brussels, and 1990s Berlin. New locations are often found in cheaper parts of the city, where the real estate market hasn’t yet taken hold and neighbors are less likely to complain. That’s also how Listen Festival found its way to Buda BXL, and how Horst Festival, a bit further in Vilvoorde, even secured a permanent home in a former military barracks.

Philippe Vercauteren knows all about it. He founded Buda BXL in 1999, after stumbling upon the location by chance while looking for a studio space. To cover the rent, Philippe and a few friends began organizing parties or renting the venue out to party collectives. In the meantime, the studio spaces were taken over by photographers, artists, painters, and potters—a colorful mix of creatives who could freely do their thing under the old roof of the large building.

Raw electro, heavy breakbeat, drum & bass, dub, reggae sound systems, goa trance...

The parties Philippe and co hosted brought a wide range of niche music genres to Buda BXL, always fueled by loyal communities coming from all over the country. For fifteen years, things rolled along in this way—until Philippe began to feel the pressure of property developers breathing down his neck, with big plans for the Vilvoorde canal zone. But the trained architect wasn’t discouraged—quite the opposite. He rallied everyone around a shared vision and gathered political support and subsidies to fund a major renovation of the entire building. Since then, even the large hall has become fully operational—where, during Gay Haze and Spek raves, the sweat drips from the walls.

Philippe is a non-conformist. Here, on a patch of land that flourished during the industrial revolution but in recent decades seemed to drift into a no man’s land between the capital and a neighboring municipality, he created a parallel world. Artists and clubbers feel free here—close to the city, yet just remote enough. The heavy traffic from the remaining industrial zones provides a kind of informal social control at all hours of the day and night. Today, the cities of Vilvoorde and Brussels have a plan ready to upgrade the entire Buda district. In the meantime, Philippe continues to care deeply for his corner of it—even the flowers and plants in the parking lot are properly watered.

For the scenography of the upcoming Gay Haze & Spek Weekender at Buda BXL, the Brussels-based design collective Every Island has been invited. They’ve already made a name for themselves with their designs and installations for Horst Festival and the Asiat site, their collaboration with artist Andrea Mancini (aka DJ Cleveland), and with their project The Smallest Gay Bar In The World at Ghent’s cultural hub Viernulvier. We met two of the five Every Island members, Alessandro Cugola and Astrid Lykke, on a mild spring evening at Buda BXL.

For this year’s edition of the Gay Haze & Spek Weekender you will be handling the scenography for both the inside and outside part of the weekender. Can you tell us a bit more about the idea behind the scenography?

Alessandro: We love working with elements from other worlds—objects you wouldn’t normally expect in a particular space. For example, we’re bringing in super heavy-duty spider cranes, typically used in construction, to frame the outdoor stage for Sunday’s daytime party. In contrast to their industrial nature, these massive cranes will support a delicate curtain, elegantly draped to create a refined structure. The curtain itself is repurposed and was generously donated by CIVA in Brussels. Since this area will also serve as a chill-out zone for the rest of the weekend, we’re developing a hammock system so people can kick back and rest.

As for the indoor scenography, we don’t want to reveal everything just yet—but let’s just say our design will amplify what’s already happening inside. It acts as a kind of catalyst for the sweaty, steamy atmosphere that defines Buda. We love exploring themes of intimacy and bodily discovery in a way that feels almost primordial. It pulls the audience in and dissolves the usual boundaries.

Have you been here before?

Astrid: Apart from the site visit a few weeks ago, I’ve only been to one party here before—though I don’t quite remember which one it was. It was one of those multi-day events, and when I arrived, the big room was a bit empty, which sometimes happens during long parties. But the smaller room worked really well—it was packed with people and had a great energy.

Alessandro: I’ve been to a Gay Haze x Spek rave, yeah! It was during a time when I was going out a lot, and it really felt like my whole community was there. It was also my first time at Buda BXL, and I immediately felt at home. I remember so clearly how the natural light enters the building—it left a strong impression on me.

When did you start working as designers in club culture?

Alessandro: We started working as a collective five years ago. We're trained as architects, but we operate more in the field of performance—what we like to call performative spaces. These can take the form of installations, scenographies, or ephemeral architectures designed to be used during performances. What really interests us is how spaces can be appropriated, distorted, or transformed—and how scenography can be a tool to rethink space altogether. Sometimes, a space can offer a completely different perspective on things, and we find that incredibly valuable.

Of course, party and club culture are a big part of this. You’re offering people time and music as a framework to define, even if only briefly, a sense of community. That alone is powerful. And when the space supports or even amplifies that feeling, it becomes something really special. There’s already a certain value in taking over a space that’s maybe abandoned or had a different original function. But when you alter it—when you shape the atmosphere in a way that makes people engage differently with the music, with their friends, or with someone they just bumped into—that’s when it really comes alive.

And you don’t need massive resources to make that happen. Budgets for party scenography are usually quite limited—but that constraint often pushes creativity even further.

What are the consequences of having to work with limited budgets?

Alessandro: I think this context is quite common in scenography—you take the limitations and turn them into a working method. You don't want to just go out and buy a bunch of stuff on Amazon, especially if you have certain ideas about sustainability. It's about being resourceful and intentional with what you use.

How do you start creating a scenography from scratch?

Astrid: We always start by looking at what materials we have access to within the budget—what’s available at the venue or what we can source for free. Of course, you also have to take the venue and the event into account, which already guides you in a certain direction.

Alessandro: We try to introduce ideas that aren’t necessarily part of the existing environment—or an atmosphere that feels completely alien to it—so that we can offer a different reading of the space. It’s about creating a bit of a clash, a tension, that makes it interesting, even playful in a way. 

Sometimes it's inspired by specific materials, and other times it starts with just an idea—a reference, something we've read about, or an artwork that sparks a thought. We talk about it, explore it together. Sometimes it's about scaling something up, other times it's more about reproducing an atmosphere that doesn’t quite belong in the space. And then suddenly, it’s like—what the hell is this? You know?

Where do you find inspiration? In other designers who worked in club culture?

Astrid: Actually, not really. It rarely has anything to do with the same field as the project itself. We’re usually more drawn to an aesthetic, a detail, or a mechanism. It’s not so much about being inspired by specific people or styles—it’s more about something that triggers an idea, often from a completely different context.

Alessandro: We also find a lot of inspiration in materials themselves—especially ready-mades or materials that are often overlooked because they’re so banal or familiar. There’s something interesting about working with things that people usually don’t pay attention to, simply because they’re everywhere or seen as too ordinary.

Astrid: Also, since we often work with rented materials—because these scenographies are so temporary and contemporary—we try to avoid just buying things only to throw them away afterward. That approach naturally creates a kind of framework, a set of references, where you can "shop" or select from what's available in a more conscious, sustainable way.

Do you think that in Belgium, in Brussels, there is some kind of a scene, something going on for the last couple of years regarding scenography at parties and festivals?

Astrid: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s something you hear from others too—like when we spoke to friends from Paris last week. They mentioned how they often come to Belgium for festivals and events because there’s something unique happening here. 

Alessandro: Belgium has a really nice mix—a vibrant art scene, the fashion scene from Antwerp, and all these different areas of expertise and creative communities overlapping. We’re very much situated in between all that, and it creates a super dynamic environment. There’s also a strong culture around secondhand materials and content, which means a lot of unexpected, even “crappy” stuff can resurface in interesting ways. But that’s part of the charm. I think all the elements have been here for a while—it was just a matter of time before people started getting more experimental with them.

Astrid: I think it also has a lot to do with the subsidies—Flanders is very generous when it comes to supporting these kinds of projects. It really makes a difference. I’ve seen something similar in Denmark, where there's been a strong scene for many years. There are thousands of festivals, and they often have big budgets for scenography. They actively invite smaller artists, architects, and anyone interested in building structures or creating art pieces. In contrast, in places like Berlin, the subsidy system for scenography is much more privatized. It’s a lot harder to access state funding, which makes it more difficult for emerging or experimental work to find support.

What’s interesting, maybe as a conclusion, is that in Belgium there’s a growing number of people working in this field—and there's a real exchange of information, practices, and even theoretical reflections around it. I’m thinking of people like you, of course, but also Horst Festival, Decoratelier, Karel Burssens, and many others who are really operating at a high level. Karel, for example, also works in fashion, which shows how fluid the boundaries are between disciplines. There’s a strong sense of community?

Astrid: People inspire each other, I guess. You see what someone’s doing and it sparks something—you start thinking, oh, I want to try that too. That kind of mutual inspiration really keeps the scene evolving.

Alessandro: It’s an interesting constellation, because there’s also an incredible scene for performative arts here, which clearly has an influence. It’s not traditional theatre—it’s often more ephemeral, more fluid, and somehow scaled down in a way that makes it accessible and adaptable. And that really works.

Nightlife, with all its energy and performative dynamics, overlaps naturally with performative art. And that connection feeds directly into practices like ours, or Karel’s, or many others working in this in-between space. It creates a fertile ground where ideas can move freely across disciplines.