Organize it yourself / Try Out

At the Pianofabriek, everything revolves around participation, creativity, and meeting others. Do you have an idea, a project, or a strong desire to make something happen? Drop by, tell us about it, get in touch.

Whether you want to exhibit, perform, debate, create a show or experiment — with us, you get the space to make your voice heard.

With Play It Loud, we give Brussels musicians a stage to play freely — unfiltered, in their own style. Our focus is local, rooted in Saint-Gilles and Brussels. As a community centre, we aim to be a workspace and incubator for neighbourhood talent, and a learning environment or social integration workplace for our colleagues, such as technicians and hospitality staff, who often learn the trade with us over one or two years.

We are not primarily a programming or concert venue (we also host slam, spoken word, performances, music jams, etc.). Our focus lies in socio-cultural work and practices. We don’t have a fixed concert audience, which is why we find it important to work together on communication and promotion.

All our events are free. We like to invite music groups in advance so they can get to know the space, the rooms, and how we work.

We organise concerts in our café Alcantara (maximum budget of €300, open to discussion, possible via invoice, AKV, etc.), featuring duos, trios or acoustic sets with a simple set-up, for a maximum capacity of 80 people.

Concerts take place in the Zabriskie Hall twice a month; these can be full band sets or double bills (maximum budget of €750, open to discussion, possible via invoice, AKV, etc.). The maximum capacity is 150 people, and a recent technical rider is required so we can discuss it first with our technicians.

With Try It Loud, we give collectives and new groups the mic. Whether you come with spoken word, poetry, comedy or storytelling — this is your space. Open mic, open vibes, everyone welcome.
Beforehand, we look together at how Pianofabriek functions as a social integration workplace, how we work towards a safer space, and how communication and technical aspects of events are handled. For this, the maximum budget is €300, open to discussion, possible via invoice, AKV, etc.

Each proposal is evaluated according to our criteria, mission and vision. We always organise a first event in café Alcantara (maximum capacity of 80 people), after which the Pianofabriek team — together with technicians and hospitality staff — evaluates each event, and we discuss the next steps together.