CORE Festival

CORE Festival arrived in Brussels with an unusual proposition even for a city already accustomed to very different kinds of music events. Rather than building an enormous production on an open field, Tomorrowland and Rock Werchter chose Osseghem Park, a rolling green space almost directly beneath the Atomium, and designed the festival as a journey through trees, hidden stages, light installations and areas that changed character as the day progressed. It was never intended to reproduce Tomorrowland's maximalism or simply transplant Rock Werchter into the capital. Instead, the experience of both organisations was used to create something smaller, more selective and deliberately cross-genre. Electronic music, hip hop, R&B, soul, indie and alternative pop could share the same weekend because curiosity, rather than a single scene, was the organising principle.

The first edition on May 27 and 28, 2022 established that idea immediately. Paul Kalkbrenner and Jamie xx closed the Ardo stage on the two nights, but Nas, Action Bronson, Lous and the Yakuza, Jungle, Denzel Curry, Ezra Collective and Sylvie Kreusch could appear there earlier in the day. Endoma hosted The Blaze, Caribou, Mura Masa, Fatima Yamaha, MEUTE and SOHN, while Altverda moved more directly into club culture through Peggy Gou, Nina Kraviz, Daniel Avery, DJ Harvey and Ross From Friends. The smaller Orlo area leaned into house with Agoria, CC:DISCO!, Horse Meat Disco, Sofia Kourtesis and others. Roughly 40,000 people attended across the weekend, a substantial figure for a debut that still described itself as boutique and deliberately avoided forcing the entire audience towards one giant main stage.

Art and landscape were treated almost as seriously as the musical programme. The park's slopes, woodland and natural clearings became part of the site design, while projection, multimedia installations and digital pieces turned the spaces between stages into experiences of their own. In 2022, imagery from filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg's Fantastic Fungi was even presented through a raised structure wrapped in a 360-degree LED environment. CORE repeatedly described itself through the intersection of music, nature and art, and that language made particular sense after sunset. Areas that appeared to be ordinary sections of park during the afternoon could become immersive dance spaces once lighting and sound took over. Walking between performances was therefore part of the festival rather than dead time between attractions.

The second edition on May 27 and 28, 2023 expanded the musical range further. Angèle and Moderat closed the two Ardo nights, with alt-J, Little Simz, Pusha T, NxWorries, Masego, Goldband, KOKOROKO and Nu Genea Live Band moving the stage through pop, indie, rap, jazz and soul. Endoma brought together Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul, PinkPantheress, Yussef Dayes, DOMi & JD Beck, Channel Tres, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, JPEGMAFIA, Olivia Dean and other artists who sat somewhere between conventional live music and contemporary electronic culture. Elsewhere, Honey Dijon, The Blessed Madonna, Jayda G, HAAi, Denis Sulta and Joy Orbison ensured that club music remained a fundamental part of the weekend. CORE could move from guitar music to rap and finish in house without treating any of those shifts as a change of identity.

The visual programme also became more developed in 2023, with installations by Joanie Lemercier, Reality is__, Fleur Roggeman and digital artists curated by PLUS-ONE Gallery. Multiple stages and art spaces were distributed through Osseghem Park, some highly visible and others deliberately tucked into the landscape, reinforcing the sense that discovery mattered as much as hierarchy. Yet the second edition also raised questions about how firmly CORE had embedded itself within Brussels and whether the event had established a sustainable local audience. A few months later, the organisers announced that there would be no Brussels edition in 2024. They described the move not as a closure but as pressing pause while the CORE concept increasingly attracted international opportunities.

Those ambitions carried the brand towards Tulum and Medellín, while the original Brussels festival remained suspended after only two completed editions. As of August 2026, no third edition at Osseghem Park has been confirmed, although the organisers explicitly left the possibility of a future return open. That makes CORE Brussels difficult to describe as finished. Its Belgian story is short but unusually distinct: two spring weekends in which one of Brussels' most beautiful urban parks became a meeting point for club culture, hip hop, indie music, digital art and landscape design. If it eventually comes back, it will not need to invent a personality from nothing. The image already exists: crowds moving beneath trees at the foot of the Atomium, leaving a rap set for a house DJ, passing a light installation on the way, and never feeling that any of those experiences belonged to a different festival.