“Brussels by night” supports nightlife actors to provide a better scene and protects Brussels club culture

Brussels By Night operates across the Brussels Capital Region, with much of its activity centered on the city’s urban core. The federation was created in the aftermath of COVID-19 restrictions, with the explicit aim of saving clubs and nightlife from closure.

Nightlife in Brussels, as elsewhere, carries its own stigma: stereotypes and preconceived ideas about the sector, and particularly about victims of sexual violence, sit alongside real, associated problems such as intoxication from alcohol and drugs, and violence. These are the challenges BBN was set up to address directly.

• To support members in promoting safer nightlife.
• To prevent sexual violence, including through the creation of Care Teams – people who care for other people.
• To promote and protect Brussels’ nightlife as a cultural and economic asset.
• To represent and support nightlife professionals through advocacy and services.
• To improve night-time governance in collaboration with public authorities.
• To provide tools for harm reduction, employment, mobility, and event management.

Brussels By Night is a socially innovative initiative that reimagines nightlife as a space not only for cultural expression, but also for community safety and inclusion. Operating across the Brussels Capital Region, BBN supports nightlife professionals while addressing broader urban challenges such as public trust, safety perception, and gender-based violence.

By acting as a mediator between nightlife actors and public authorities, BBN promotes collaborative governance and co-creates tools that raise the operational, social and safety standards of nightlife venues. A key innovation is its comprehensive protocol for preventing sexual violence, which includes care zones, trained support teams, and awareness campaigns. Together, these measures aim to shift the perception of nightlife away from a high-risk environment and toward a space of shared responsibility and well-being. Through continuous dialogue, evaluation, and adaptation, BBN contributes to a more secure, inclusive, and culturally vibrant urban nightscape.

BBN works alongside the Brussels Night Council, Visit Brussels, Equal Brussels, the Service Public Régional de Bruxelles (Bruxelles Économie et Emploi) and the City of Brussels, coordinating governance across the sector – for instance through open calls and jury selection for operators programming events in the city’s emblematic public squares.

A range of stakeholders take part in Brussels By Night, each in a different capacity:

• Citizens
• Local and regional associations
• Private companies (nightlife venues, promoters, organizers)
• Public institutions, including the Brussels Night Council, Visit Brussels, Equal Brussels, the Service
• Public Régional de Bruxelles and the City of Brussels

BBN creates tools and services to help nightlife actors run their activities well, covering topics such as harm reduction, employment, administration, public peace, mobility, event promotion and venues. It promotes attentive, supportive behaviors in nightlife through specialized training and community-building, establishes onsite care points and collaborative teams linking event staff with prevention experts, and continuously refines its safety protocols and practices based on participant feedback and real-world experience.

At the heart of this methodology are its Care Teams: twenty compensated volunteers, recruited and trained specifically to support people at nightlife events. This participatory governance is reinforced by targeted hiring, such as a dedicated Harm Reduction Manager, and by transparent, sector-led processes: open calls and juried selection for operators programming emblematic city squares, together with a published, regularly updated protocol for safer and inclusive nightlife, available in French, English and Dutch. BBN also convenes Heritage Days events – combining screenings with policy panels – that frame clubbing as intangible cultural heritage and open a dialogue with policymakers and experts about protective measures, reinforcing legitimacy and trust between public authorities, operators and citizens.

• Encourages respectful and empathetic behavior in nightlife settings, promoting active bystander attitudes.
• Introduces care zones and helpdesks as standard features at events, embedding support directly into the party culture.
• Establishes multidisciplinary teams and structured collaboration between event staff and harm-reduction organisations.
• Implements clear protocols for prevention, response and continuous evaluation, tailored to the context of each event, with built-in feedback loops that let the approach evolve based on real-world experience and stakeholder input.

Environmental and urban design also play a role: BBN programmes open-air events in several of the city’s emblematic squares – among them Poelaert, De Brouckère, Vaux Hall, Congrès/Admin City, and Place d’Espagne/Jean-Rey – with Care Teams integrated on site. The Brussels By Night HUB, a 200 m² space in De Brouckère’s former Hotel Continental, provides flexible offices and coworking space that incubate projects and strengthen collaboration between operators.

BBN maintains a user-friendly website that centralises all its resources, protocols and contact points, alongside an active presence on social media – mainly Instagram – used to raise awareness, share safety tips and engage with the community.

The federation also uses digital tools to improve access to support and streamline reporting: platforms such as WhatsApp Business or Telegram bots can offer discreet communication channels, Google Forms are used to collect feedback and incident reports, and QR codes placed around venues can link to maps of care zones or emergency contacts. Its website also functions as a hiring and coordination hub, publishing job posts for harm-reduction roles, open calls and impact reports, while heritage programming and sector dialogues are scheduled and shared through event platforms to widen access and keep information consistent.

• Positive stakeholder feedback: event organizers and partner associations have noted smoother coordination and a stronger culture of care and accountability.
• Better mutual understanding among all the actors involved in nightlife as a key element of Brussels’ identity.
• Increased cultural citizen participation.
• Around 60% of Care Team interventions relate to intoxication from drugs and alcohol, with a further 20–15% relating to transgressive behavior, sexual violence and similar issues.
• Around 11,000 people attended the Brussels Open Air Festival, one of the events delivered through this collaborative model between the City, operators and Care Teams.

• Education is the most important thing: continuous training for care teams and staff is crucial for maintaining a consistent and informed response.
• Visibility builds trust: clearly marked support areas and active communication through social media and signage help normalize help-seeking behavior.
• Participation matters: involving the public and staff in awareness and prevention efforts increases engagement and ownership of safety measures.
• Methodology must be flexible: adapting protocols to the specific context of each event ensures relevance and effectiveness.

• Low societal priority of leisure and well-being: in many contexts, the leisure and nightlife sector is not given the same importance as other industries, which can lead to underinvestment in safety, well-being and prevention measures.
• Social stigma: victims may hesitate to seek help for fear of judgement or of not being believed, which reduces reporting and access to support.
• Social polarization: discussions around gender-based violence can be polarizing, making it harder to build consensus and support for prevention strategies.

The project is ongoing and continues to be applied in real event contexts. Core elements like care zones, helpdesks and digital tools are now part of standard safety planning, with regular evaluations and collaboration with partner organisations helping to keep the protocol relevant and effective. Awareness is maintained through social media and the project’s website.

A key challenge remains, however: public institutions often operate in isolation from the project, unaware of volunteer training and other grassroots activities. This disconnects limits institutional support and the initiative’s long-term integration into public policy frameworks.