VK Concerts

VK Concerts is the 480-capacity live-music arm of Vaartkapoen, the Dutch-language community centre in Molenbeek, Brussels. Its rebuilt concert room uses box-in-the-box acoustic isolation, a product of a four-year renovation, while the wider complex hosts classes, community activity and artistic projects. That combination makes a show here feel connected to a working neighbourhood cultural house: club-scale capacity, a social programme and a booking outlook shaped by Brussels.

A community hall becomes a concert room

Vaartkapoen opened in 1974 as a community centre, with its hall intended for amateur theatre. Food distribution and youth workshops soon gave the building a socio-cultural role. In 1979, Marc Crooman and Fons Noeyens established the concert operation that became VK Concerts, backed by subsidies and cultivating an alternative profile. The permanent building closed in 2018 for extensive works, sending activity to Manchesterstraat for several years. VK returned home in 2023, with a public garden route through the site, the retained courtyard trumpet tree, and a concert room rebuilt for present-day acoustic standards. The restart also added spaces for artist residencies and rehearsals, extending the room’s role beyond performance nights.

The room today

VK’s stated booking policy centres intercultural music movements, urban talent and lineups with at least half women on stage. Its programme moves through hip-hop, Latin, pop, indie, alternative, R&B, folk and rock, with an adventurous metropolitan focus. Inside, the fully insulated 480-person room supplies the compact scale; elsewhere, a glass-walled café-restaurant reception area and the garden-side hangar give the building places to meet before a set or linger after one. The result suits listeners seeking emerging Brussels-facing bills alongside international touring acts.