The return of hardcore and gabber

For years, hardcore and gabber were pushed to the margins. Too fast, too raw, too hard to sell. Clubs preferred the middle tempo and reassuring headliners. Then something shifted.

The tempo climbs

Between 2015 and 2020, club techno sat between 128 and 135 BPM. In 2026 it is no longer unusual to hear a set at 170 in a room that sold out three years earlier on 130. The crowd didn't change taste by accident, it changed expectations.

Hard techno was the airlock. Artists started climbing gradually, then owning the saturated kick, then straight uptempo. What passed for a nostalgic Dutch joke became a legitimate aesthetic again.

Why now

Three reasons, as we see it.

• Mid-tempo saturation. When everything between 130 and 140 sounds alike, the only open space is above it.
• A generation without nostalgia. The people filling our nights never saw the 90s raves. They don't hear a revival, they hear music.
• The cost of a night. Capacities shrank, budgets too. Gabber never needed a big budget to work. It needs a decent sound system and a room that holds.

What we do with it

We book both, often on the same night. One room that climbs, one room that breaks. That's the Warehouse format, and it's the one that sells out fastest.

Tempo isn't an identity. It's a tool. But right now, that tool speaks louder than the others.