Antwerp venue Onder Stroom closes after four years

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  • The team signed off with a three-day celebration last weekend.
  • Antwerp venue Onder Stroom closes after four years image
  • Antwerp club Onder Stroom closed its doors last weekend with a three-day blowout. In a statement posted on the venue's website, the team cited "poor support from the city, no prospect of a new venue and a host of problems with permits and finances" as reasons for the closure. After Onder Stroom's environmental permit expired last year, it was forced to close in October for several months, cancelling 21 events out of fear of incurring fines. "We had been hosting parties and concerts for four years without any real problems," the team wrote. "In terms of noise pollution, no offence was ever recorded here either. So it was only about paperwork. It takes a lot of time and energy to deal with unnecessarily complicated administration. Too much time. All this time we were also without income. In Antwerp, there is an absolute need for a service that supports bottom-up cultural and temporary initiatives in the maze of legal and administrative rules. Other cities prove that it can be done." On top of the bureaucratic issues, the venue saw its energy bills quadruple in recent years. "The combination of higher costs due to the energy crisis and closure due to licensing issues has simply crippled an organisation that was already running largely on volunteers anyway," the statement continued. Launched in 2019, Onder Stroom was run by a community of volunteers. It hosted a selection of arts events, workshops and club nights, hosting artists like Lefto, DJ Marcelle, Gesloten Cirkel, OJOO GYAL and Toumba. Read the venue's statement in full.
RA