Experience

GAY ANTWERP | Darklands 2026 changes name and concept, but keeps Waagnatie as venue

Posted by Timothy on

From Tuesday 25 February to Monday 3 March 2025, Darklands takes over Gay Antwerp. For the fifteenth edition, this kink and fetish festival mostly but not exclusively geared towards men having sex with men will take over the Antwerp venue of Waagnatie. It will be the last time Darklands will take place at Scheldt-side events hall. What’s next? Antwerp Expo? Somewhere else in Belgium? That remains to be announced. This year’s theme is ‘Darklands Glows‘.

Darklands will not leave the Antwerp event hall of Waagnatie, but will ‘leave’ the parking lot attached to the venue. What? Due to construction works, the parking lot will not be available and currently Darklands currently uses quite an amount of surface for tents, which are used to house lockers, a bar and other facilities. 

Organiser Jeroen Van Lievenoogen talked to Sven Boutsen, who runs the TouristicoGayLive Podcast together with Marc Dirix. 

“There will be heaps of changes due to the construction works”, Jeroen says. “We’re presenting a whole new concept and a new name. This was in the works pre-COVID-19, and we’re dusting it off.”

Waagnatie

“We’re staying at Waagnatie, where we’ve always been. But we’ll have to work without the tents around the building.”

“To compensate, we’re building inside, within the venue. We’ll build several decks, several stories (floors).”

Around the clock

The timetable will also change, Jeroen indicates. 

“It won’t be ‘during the day we’re going to the fair, at night we party’. This will be around the clock”, Jeroen tells TGLPDCST. “You’ll be able to do whatever you feel like at any time, in any way you want.”

Darklands stays indoor

Jeroen rules out organising a festival outdoors. “It’s just too dependable of the weather. The risk is too high. I know what this indoor productions costs. If it’s bad weather, it’s untenable.”

Cruise?

Will Darklands ever organise a cruise? The idea was floated by American partners of Darklands, who wanted to link the Darklands brand to a gay cruise they already organised. But one of the people of the project passed away, so the idea is now dead in the water. 

Darklands 2025-2026

Antwerp Pride 2025 & Antwerp Queer Arts Festival 2025

The latest on LGBTQIA+ events such as prides in Belgium