Cultural Biodiversity is Disappearing in Brussels.
Culture for All or Profit for Few?
The article published in La DH/Les Sports+ on July 19, 2025, sheds light on the growing challenges faced by Brussels' small cultural festivals. Often free and rooted in community values, these events are threatened by administrative, logistical, and/or financial obstacles, and are increasingly marginalized by the dominance of large commercial festivals.
Organizers are calling for a fairer balance between large-scale paid events and smaller independent festivals, to preserve the city's cultural richness and attempt to curb what some describe as a "decline in cultural biodiversity."
Several flagship examples illustrate these growing inequalities in access to public space. Among them is Piknik Elektronik, an emblematic independent event that has been denied access year after year to various locations, including Place Poelaert—a space it significantly contributed to culturally animating.
These iconic city sites have been allocated to commercial players who benefit from preferential treatment and monopolization. This concentration logic only weakens local dynamics and reduces the cultural diversity accessible to the public, in favor of more formatted, often less inclusive offerings.
Balkan Trafik is hitting the limits of an exhausted cultural funding system. Despite artistic fervor, institutional silence weighs heavily. The refusal of subsidies—often without justification—jeopardizes the festival's future. Nicolas Wieërs, its organizer, speaks of growing exhaustion and a sense of abandonment among those striving to keep culture accessible to all.
"There's a loss of cultural biodiversity. It's like biodiversity facing climate change: at first, no one notices, but gradually, events disappear."
— Nicolas Wieërs, Balkan Trafik
Percusounds, which was due to celebrate its 10th edition in August 2025, was forced to cancel. The festival, which typically brings together hundreds of artists and thousands of attendees in central Brussels, received no public funding this year, neither from the City, the Region, nor Cocof. Organizers were given no justification for these rejections. Even though many artists offered to perform for free, the team refused, unwilling to compromise its ethical principles.
"We faced refusal after refusal, without any explanation. We're a free event. Without external support, we can't survive."
— Paulo, Percusounds
"It shouldn't be up to artists to make sacrifices. What next? Should they give up their salaries every year?"
This observation confirms a worrying shift in the City's cultural priorities. It represents yet another attempt at the symbolic erasure of an emblematic citizen-led cultural project. Grassroots festivals, rooted in their communities, are systematically relegated to the background, while commercial machines see the doors of public space opened wide for them.
These independent collectives are not opposed to professional culture or the existence of commercial events. However, they denounce how public space is now almost exclusively reserved for these formats, to the detriment of citizen and independent initiatives.
“We're told that iconic venues are saturated... But who actually occupies them? And under what rules?”
There needs to be urgent revision of the procedures for accessing public spaces and allocating cultural subsidies, to ensure fairness and protect cultural diversity in Brussels.
The Mayor's comments, as reported in the article, sparked strong reactions from many citizens. They reveal a blatant contempt for what independent cultural initiatives represent in Brussels. Comparing festivals like Balkan Trafik, Percusounds or Piknik Elektronik to simple events attended by “people who refuse to pay €5 entry”, and likening this choice to “those who spend a salary on an iPhone but refuse to pay for a concert”, constitutes a reduction that is both caricatural and disdainful, and demonstrates a misunderstanding of the social issues of cultural inclusion.
The iPhone analogy is particularly problematic, condescending and out of touch, ignoring social realities while simultaneously dismissing accessibility issues: even a few euros' contribution can represent a barrier: symbolic, psychological, or material.
When free access becomes an exception perceived as an anomaly, an entire segment of the population is gradually excluded from festive and cultural public space. This isn't about refusing to pay, but refusing to see public space culture reduced to paid, filtered, or institutionalized offerings.
This isn't dogmatic posturing, rather, it's a tool for social inclusion. Accessibility ensures diverse audiences, access to culture without economic barriers, and peaceful coexistence in spaces that should remain open, not locked down in the name of control or profitability.
Is Institutional Favoritism and Opacity Undermining Cultural Equity??
We're now three years past the COVID pandemic, and the Mayor's justification for continuing to fund expensive city-run open-air calls for projects—while claiming there are already too many—no longer makes sense. These contradictions reveal a systemic problem. Moreover, open-air selection processes remain largely opaque. In 2021, some jury members connected to ultimately selected projects raised obvious conflict-of-interest questions. Meanwhile, free and independent open-air organizers found themselves excluded.
In 2022, Piknik Elektronik was approached by email by this commercially-driven collective—now praised by the Mayor and wrongly labeled a small collective—that proposed to buy out one of their authorized dates. Following Piknik Elektronik's ethical refusal to engage in this dubious practice, the City simply withdrew the authorization, even though preliminary approval had been given.
These practices raise serious concerns about biased management of cultural resources, favoring certain actors close to power at the expense of the public interest—a modus operandi that undermines the very foundations of participatory democracy.
By promoting the rise of profit-driven groups as if they were emerging citizen actors, the Mayor obscures a system that favors private interests while rendering invisible genuine collective dynamics. Comparing these citizen projects to ‘fame or money machines’ is like contrasting the depth of a Rumi poem with a fast-food billboard.
The City's support for so-called “small collectives”, which are in reality backed by private investors from privileged backgrounds, raises serious questions. Behind the appealing image of the “small collective” may lie a well-funded enterprise with facilitated access to public space, substantial budgets, and a firmly established political network. This profit-centered model is diametrically opposed to the spirit driving citizen collectives. The latter measure their success not in market shares or glitter, but in the human, artistic, and social quality of what they create. Comparing these two realities amounts to insulting those working for accessible, inclusive, and vibrant culture.
The proliferation of formatted events, calibrated for Instagram, featuring interchangeable "headliners," transforms public space into a mere event showcase. There's no longer room for experimentation, minority aesthetics, or sensitive approaches. When the only evaluation metric becomes economic, culture gets sold off.
Festivals like Piknik Elektronik, Balkan Trafik or Percusounds have never refused to charge on principle. If they must do so for some events, it would be to defend their coherence and artistic integrity. They'd rather follow the example of Couleur Café, Pukkelpop or Esperanzah!, who still dare to take artistic risks—not to lock audiences into giant enclosures.
Many labels or artists once programmed by these independent collectives are now booked by several commercial entities. While some continue taking risks and being creative, others simply recycle tired formulas.
Fuse XRDS Open Air demonstrates constant creativity but has primarily taken place outside the city center, in peripheral areas. The example cited by the City of Brussels is therefore irrelevant. But if we follow the Mayor's logic to its conclusion, it would mean Fuse should one day leave its iconic venue if more commercial players moved in. Such logic, which would systematically side with the financially powerful, would be not only absurd but downright dangerous for Brussels' cultural future.
Similar phenomena are occurring in other iconic cities. In Berlin, a movement called clubsterben (the death of clubs) illustrates the gradual closure of cultural spaces, replaced by residences or venues formatted for mass tourism. In New York, citizen-run spaces like Silent Barn or Death by Audio, symbols of collective creativity, have disappeared due to unaffordable housing and lack of institutional recognition.
Brussels' necessary support shouldn't just be about cultural justice, but also strategic vision. Across Europe, we see growing enthusiasm for atypical, free, creative, and human-scale events.
These attract much of the non-mainstream tourist audience seeking new, conscious, inclusive, and quality experiences. Brussels has everything to gain by valuing these initiatives that constitute its richness and uniqueness, rather than sacrificing them on the altar of short-term profitability.
This Isn't Inevitable—It's a Political Choice
The disappearance of free and independent festivals results from political decisions, biased support, and a deliberate refusal to recognize their social utility. To preserve Brussels' cultural diversity, we urgently need to:
Establish a transparent framework for allocating public spaces
Define fair criteria
Ensure equal treatment for all cultural formats
The gradual exclusion of independent and free festivals can't be justified by saturation or technical arbitration. It's primarily a political choice.
What's really at stake is resisting mainstream supremacy, this silent domination that transforms culture into merchandise and public space into mere display windows.
“The more we denounce, the more other collectives emerge to expose the same systemic abuses. Yet many dare not share their stories publicly, fearing the retaliation already faced—and continuing to be faced—by those who've spoken out.”
Attempts to obscure a system that consistently favors private interests only strengthen the case for demanding greater transparency. It's time to challenge these choices with renewed determination.
At a time when people worldwide are rising up against growing inequalities and the seizure of power by a minority, culture and music must remain among our foremost bastions. They are, and must remain, weapons of gathering, resistance, and emancipation.
“We represent a true cross-section of society at these events accessible to all: the privileged and the forgotten, the awkward and the glittering, lovers of demanding, offbeat, subtle or avant-garde sounds—always united in real and vibrant diversity. This diversity is our strength. And it's for this that we'll hold firm, against all odds. Intimidation attempts only feed our struggle and strengthen our resolve.”
Piknik Protest Elektronik #3 will take place from 5 to 9 PM on Saturday, August 2nd at Poelaertplein : Info
This is why several citizen collectives are beginning to join forces. If you identify with this struggle or face similar situations, don't hesitate to join this movement via this link: BBD