Darklands 2025 theme: ‘Darklands Glows’, stays at Waagnatie until 2030

After ‘The darkride of your life‘ and a fun fair theme in 2020, ‘Under the ocean‘ and an apocalyptic waterworld in 2022 (originally planned for 2021, but you know, COVID-19), ‘Deep Space‘ in 2023 and ‘The Void‘ in 2024, Darklands has announced its theme for 2025: ‘Darklands Glows‘.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Darklands Festival Antwerp 🇧🇪 (@darklandsfest)

Darklands 2024 was a success, GayLive.be reports. 16,600 admission were sold in presale, 437 performers performed and 290 vendors sold their ware. 280 volunteers staffed 800 shifts.

Hotels in Antwerp were fully booked. Didier Boehlen of the Antwerp Hotel Association says 95% on regional broadcaster ATV of rooms were booked. January and February are slow months for hotels in Antwerp, so Darklands visitors are very welcome. Some twenty hotels team up with Darklands to offer a shuttlebus service, to block rooms for attendees and to offer a reasonable price.

Most Darklings, as patrons are now called, came from Belgium. Other main countries of origin are: the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain and Switzerland. A delegation of Australia flew 17,000 km one-way to come to Antwerp.

Darklands. Photos taken when there were few people.

Waagnatie until 2030

Darklands will remain at Waagnatie until 2030. The venue is to be demolished, but not until then. If Waagnatie disappears, Antwerp will lose an important event hall. Some politicians want to move the Stadsschouwburg or Municipal Theatre Hall to that spot.

But for the five coming years, the kink and fetish festival will remain where it is.

Darklands has enlarged the venue with big tents, so all peripheral activities such as bag check, the box office, the changeroom and lockers are outside and the full Waagnatie is now festival grounds proper.

When will Darklands 2025 take place?

Organiser Jeroen Van Lievenoogen has made public when Darklands 2025 will take place. But expect end of February, start of March.

What is Darklands?

Darklands started as LeatherPride Belgium and later Leather & Fetish Pride Belgium. Darklands is a kink, leather and fetish festival with parties, elections, performances, and daytime events featuring a fair with many related products. Most patrons are gay men, but Darklands does try to broaden its spectrum and be welcoming for women, transgender and non-binary people. The sexual aspects of Darklands are mostly homosexual, for sure. As in Men who have Sex with Men (MSM)

By day, Darklands is cocktail of a comic con and an industry fair. Attendees dress up – or down, depending on your point of view – and there are stands with fetish and kink shops, photographers, a tattoo parlour, organisations and even a kink furniture shop.

There are bars. There are ‘socials’ or get-togethers for specific target audiences, kinks and communities. There are award shows, elections and other performances. There ware workshops. And yes, the playroom is open.

At night, it’s party time. The whole are becomes a cruising area but the dedicated playrooms are more active and have increased in size. But you will also see sex on the dance floor.

Darklands is a very adult affair, but it’s surprisingly much more cosy and casual than you’d think.

Trip By Trip