K-Town Hardcore Fest

History of K-Town Hardcore Fest

K-Town Hardcore Fest is an annual punk and hardcore festival in Ungdomshuset, Denmark. We are a 100% DIY volunteer run non-profit festival – and we always will be!

K-Town Hardcore Fest started out in 2001 has been going strong ever since. In 2022 our 20th anniversary edition of the fest took place on the 24th-26th of June.

Ungdomshuset

Ungdomshuset is Copenhagen’s biggest D.I.Y. venue, and features a wide variety of events, from soup kitchens, self defence and yoga to punk, hip-hop and metal gigs. It’s situated between Dortheavej and Rentemestervej in the North-western part of Copenhagen.

Ungdomshuset consists of two buildings. We got the first part, ‘the annex’ on July 1st 2008, which is the smaller of the two buildings with 600 square meters. The annex holds the small concert hall, “Dödsmaskinen”, our book café, kitchen and gym. The second part was given to us on January 1st 2009. The total of the two buildings is 2000 square meters.

Ungdomshuset has strong ties with the anarchist movement in Denmark.

The D.I.Y. approach

For many years, Copenhagen have been the centre for a strong and engaged Do-It-Yourself (DIY) punk culture in Denmark. One of the annual events was the K-Town Festival, where people from all over the world arrived to party, perform, sell records, eat vegan food, participate in political work and much much more. When we lost our house on Jagtvej 69 (2007), the festival continued under the name SHIT TOWN Festival at Freetown Christania, also in Copenhagen. After a long struggle, we took back that which was ours from the start: A new youth house!

Since then we’ve hosted several festivals and gigs at our new venue. The idea behind DIY-culture is, to create an independent network of artists, activist and social spaces, where everyone has in common that they want to create and take part in culture because they can and will, and not for money or prestige.

In the DIY-culture, the aim is that everybody is even, so if you’re a booker/organizer, play in a band, build bikes, make food for soup kitchens or something completely different – you are contributing to keeping the culture alive, just by taking part in it and being there. Exactly this mentality has made it possible to create a strong international network across artificial borders such as nationality, sex, sexual orientation, age and experience.

What the commercial industry sees as a problem, we see as a challenge, and an opportunity to change the rules, learn more about each other and ourselves as humans, in a world that belongs to all of us. We actively fight discrimination and cynical speculation in fame and profit.

This means that all forms of racism, sexism, heterosexism and homophobia, violence and hard drugs are completely banned from Ungdomshuset, and every participant in the festival, no matter how you participate, will be treated the same.

All money from the festival will go to covering the necessary costs of making the festival, like electricity, water and food for activists, transportation and so on.

During the Corona-pandemic (2020-2021) the festival operated under the K-Town Virus Weekend moniker and arrrange down-scaled and more local versions of the festival.