Zirk

Zirk is the name of a soundsystem in Amsterdam.
The Zirk sound system was started in Nov 2001 and created over the years 2002-2007 many underground GOA trance parties in and around Amsterdam.

The group of anonymous people behind zirk are all volunteers , some idealistic , but all enthusiastic. The main concept behind their event was to keep partying as low cost as possible: by asking a very low (or none) entrance fee, and allowing people to bring their own drinks.

venues
Most of the events were in public space: biker-tunnels, or just nature. Only some were in squats or clubs.

music
Psytrance : progressive (GOA based techno music) and full-on, psy ambient in chillout areas

licenses
The events were never licensed by any government. Around 80% of the events were visited by local police force. Still, many of these events were allowed , since there was no disturbance noted.

equipment
The equipment used varies over the years.
in 2001/2002, a lend/rented pro audio, but also a pimped computer audio system (based on 5x a 5.1 speaker system) was used
in 2003 DB brought in a system from Belgium. This system was burned in (nov 2004) a squat fire of 9lives (one cat) (wenckenbach weg) where all the Zirk system was lost.

in 2004/2005 Zirk bought new equipment pro audio which was built up by DB.

mailing list system
The Zirk concept was to make underground parties for underground people. This meant no people from from outside the scene. This is not possible by normal promotion like flyers. Zirk worked with a secret website and mailing list. Receivers of the mailing list announcements were allowed to forward the invitation to their friends. The amount of visitors was this ways decided by the amount of time prior to the event. The Zirk events were this way controllable between 100 and 1000 people maximal

Update Juli 2008:
After almost two year of silence, dr.ik celebrated his birthday like he used to do with Zirk.
This time it was in the recreation area "OverDiemen" near the A1 and A9 highways.
The first two hours there a lot of rain, maing the soil almost muddy, but still around 300 people showed up, making the dance floor very, very muddy.
Still the event was a great success.
see some movies at *this link [http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zirque+du+soleil+2008&search_type&aqf]

external resources
Youtube page of Zirk *Youtube.com/zirk020
Hyves page of Zirk *www.hyves.nl/zirk

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