In some corners of the clubbing sphere business is booming but for large scale weekender events the road to recovery is a little rockier. One such story comes from an unlikely source and it is that of Amsterdam’s Breakfast Club. This outfit has been successfully running parties for the last 12 years and regularly throw events with only the finest artists making up its line ups and only the most nutritious morning eats on offer to extend the dancing.
Cast your mind back to Amsterdam Dance Event last October and you will find a sold-out weekend of events from Breakfast Club that brought the likes of Evan Baggs, Eris Drew, Octo Octa, Nicolas Lutz, Craig Richards, Marcel Dettmann, and the whole Hessle Audio crew. This is the last party you would expect to be struggling having recently announced their next weekender. The extended session that was announced at the start of May was due to take place at Ijland over on June 25th and 26th. Breakfast Club is however made of strong stuff and due to their strength of character and transparent nature have been perfectly upfront regarding the less than ideal ticket sales.
This left Breakfast Club in a very precarious position where bookings had been made, plans were under way and with this mind rather than cancelling their newly minted Summer in the City project they have kept their fans up to speed with their plans. Instead of calling a halt to the performances Breakfast Club have instead worked reached out to some of the finest venues in the city to reprogram their event and split this into three finely curated events of the course of Saturday, June 25th.
As the saying goes “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, and Breakfast Club have for the past 12 years provided a heady recipe for their events that includes offering patrons a healthy and gratis breakfast alongside a banging soundtrack. What better place in Amsterdam to take in a light breakfast than BRET. The Sloterdijk oasis will play host to Summer in the City alongside Animalia Recordings and will see sets from Ogazón, no service, Kia, Ménage (live) and Plead before the day is out and we are only just getting started.
Moving on to the later part of the day and proceedings forks into two separate parties. Heading left to one of the cities favourite bars RadioRadio and the Evening in the City will of course be playing host to a night filled with the sounds of livwutang, DJ Assault and MSJY. Heading right will lead to one of the city’s finest music bars and DOKA. For the full 7 hours of Shadow in the City and the collaboration UNDERSOUND Recordings will see be only three artists be given control of the decks but those artists just happen to be Caim b2b Eversines and DJ Koolt. There is sadly a number of artists missing from the original line up such as Nicolas Lutz, Binh, Christian AB, Quest, and Sonja Moonear but fear not these artists will be moved to future events. There will be more than enough to get excited as each of the three events from Breakfast Club where they enjoy Summer in the City.
As well as recent press affirming Breakfast Club’s decision to be open and transparent in their decision to downsize their weekender plans one half of the Dutch outfit Pieter Jansen has shared his own personal statement –
Following up on our recent change of plans I’d like to elaborate on the matter myself shortly. Not because I feel there needs much more explanation as our statement, Brent’s interview at De Machine and the upcoming RA article all seem quite comprehensive. But to show gratitude and some insight for those closer to me.
Our main motivation was to still support most touring artists, those who are a long way from home and are taking risks to do what they love most. I’m extremely proud on the fact that we did this in the best way possible. We’re keeping our head up high and we’re taking our responsibility towards our audience, artists, bookers and locations a like. This is something that has to be communicated to the general public. Silence is NOT the way to go – we’re in this together!
Our run-up to Kingsday was extremely stressful and we had to make some necessary – yet very painful – decisions. It’s not only the financial side that hits but mostly having to let people down who you firmly believe in. We’re putting these events together with a lot of thought, energy and care. When this doesn’t land as it should or when this has to be changed up again, that really hurts. Especially when our Summer in the City event also didn’t land like we wanted..
After the cancel&postponing game of 2020+2021 which the whole cultural sector got accustomed to I was convinced we were not having any of that anymore. Sadly the current reality is different and if we want to or not – we have to work with this. We’ve been up day and night to get the whole show changed up again. Still in a direction we firmly believe in. Thank you to all artists/bookers/locations involved who have been flexible, showed support and were ready to jump on this ride.
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