De School to open in January

The natural heir to the gap Trouw left in our hearts will have a 24-hour license and run seven days a week

A former technical school will open in January as a nightclub, and much more: the space, located on Dr. Jan van Breemenstraat in Amsterdam’s west, will also function as a concert venue, restaurant, café, exhibition space and gym.

The opening party will kick off on 3 January though the lineup is yet to be announced. The first two months looks to be an exciting start – international imports Seth Troxler, Shanti Celeste, and Barnt, are programmed alongside former Trouw residents Tom Trago, Sandrien, and Job Jobse. All programming will be taken care of in-house, and place its focus on local talent.

The set-up of the new location will hold a 500 capacity club, a 200 capacity concert area, and will keep a courtyard open year round. The DJ booth will be set into the dancefloor.

De School is in good hands: Post CS BV, the team behind much-missed Trouw and Club 11, will be looking after the club. RA spoke to the senior programmed, Luc Mastenbroek, to find out more about De School.

Will you have resident DJs? If so, who will they be?
We don’t have a fixed group of residents because we want to keep things open, so new things can happen. We do have the feeling though that there are many great DJs in Amsterdam at the moment—I can’t think of a better place to be a programmer right now. We hope these DJs will feel at home at De School and that they’ll share their ideas with us and each other, so they can give shape to the club. They mostly decide themselves who they want to play with, so there’s always a connection between the DJs playing.

And what about the rest of the programming—can you give us some insight into the kind of DJs you will book?
In the first months it will mostly be one local DJ inviting one of their favourite DJs. It’s the opposite of festival culture: instead of many DJs being put together to play short sets, they are in charge of their own nights and can play long sets.

How will you make the most of the 24-hour license?
We’re gonna start off slowly, all nights will have an open end but they won’t go on forever. Sometimes a night will end around 5 AM, on very good nights it might be 9 AM or 10 AM. We’re striving for a culture where people can come for 24 hours to dance, eat good food in our restaurant, chill out in the garden and see cool exhibitions, but we’ll have to build that up first.