A unique and extraordinary venue has recently emerged in Budapest’s nightlife: the Very Small Club. Born from a Ukrainian–Hungarian collaboration, this club is more than just a bar or music venue — it’s a community space where high-quality electronic music and cultural experience take center stage. The club’s founders, Lidiya, Robi, and Alex, share how the idea came to life, the professional backgrounds they brought to the project, and the challenges they faced in the heart of Budapest.

If I’m not mistaken, Very Small Club was born out of an exciting Ukrainian and Hungarian collaboration. Could you tell us a bit more about yourselves, who you are, how you ended up in Hungary, how the idea for the club came about and what kind of professional background you brought into this realization?

[Lidiya]: Sadly, the war is what brought me to Hungary but luckily I met Robi and we started our relationship and then Alex arrived as well. And actually, it was our dream to have something music related here in Budapest and we’ve been working on it, making plans for quite a while.

[Robi]: As for me, I’m local, I’m Hungarian, I’m not Ukrainian, but I’m Ukrainian in my heart. I’ve been doing business over there for like 2 decades. I’ve been frequently travelling and Alex is one of my best friends, so I’ve spent a lot of time in his studio. I’m very involved with music over in Ukraine, I’ve done some radio shows and I’ve seen lots of festivals over there. And technically our relationship with Lidiya came from the friendship of Alex, so this is a love story from our side. 

At first, when I met Lidiya, we were not sure that Alex would be able to come to and stay in Hungary, and as Lidiya was making some of my favorite Ukrainian food, I was thinking we should open some food related thing together. Then, we finally realized that in Hungary in the gastronomy industry it was not easy to sell, and it wouldn’t be profitable. So since my deal is business development, we’ve been waiting, watching, checking, and then luckily Alex was able to come out of the country. And it was one of my dreams to have something music related, but I never had the partners really, and you don’t do something like this alone. 

And we were thinking what is missing from Budapest? And then the concept was born when Lidiya’s sister Vera was sending a video to their group chat about a Japanese and a Dutch listening bar. And we were like, OK, so that’s the thing that we don’t have in Budapest: something that is not too big, not too small, and something that’s about the quality of listening to music. And it should be for the people who are educated and aware enough of electronic music that they can come and it’s not just about being happy, but about the cultural effect as well.

Also, we thought: OK, it’s nice that we want to have a listening bar, but something like this requires two decades of production background. A bar itself is one thing, and music production is another. Why not put them together and find some kind of business model that has at least two legs and might be profitable enough?

Finally, we opened in September after two and a half years of development. We rebuilt the whole place from floor to roof — really everything. Right now, we can say that everything is going according to plan, so we believe there is quite a nice future ahead.

[Alex]: I was lucky to move here from Ukraine. I have 15 years of experience in event planning and 27 years of music production and DJing. We also run Rhythm Büro in Kyiv with really big events, so basically I have experience in building a community. It feels like the stars aligned, because we were very lucky to have Robi here — it wouldn’t have been possible to do it on our own.

What is the current situation in Ukraine regarding the electronic music scene and everyday life?

It’s tricky to say something about everyday life because I haven’t been there for three years. But from what we know from friends and relatives, it’s pretty difficult. The energy sector is continuously shelled and bombed, so there is often no electricity and no heating — it’s really tough. But despite this, the music culture is still super strong. There are daytime events, since you cannot organize events at night because of the curfew, but it’s still a big part of the culture and the business, even if events are organized less often. Even in this very difficult situation, people still get together just to keep the community alive and enjoy life as much as possible. So yes, it’s super tough, but what can you do? Life continues anyway.

What goals did you have in mind when opening the club and what turned out to be the biggest change or challenge during the preparation phase?

Removing the tiles from the floor. Just for the record, the building was built around the 1850s. The reason we chose this place was the location and the fact that the walls are about 120 centimeters thick, so you don’t hear the music outside. What we didn’t expect were the skeletons. There was no concrete under the tiles, so we had to raise the floor with 10 centimeters of industrial concrete and epoxy to make it dance-proof.

We also found a safe in the basement wall which nobody can open right now. We covered it so nobody could see it and then basically forgot about it.

We also had — and still have — a lot of work with the electricity system because it’s quite tricky here. Even at our opening party we had power cuts three times. Our air conditioning was on the same circuit as every other high-consumption device, so after rewiring the whole place twice we had to do it a third time after we had already opened. Plus there was an ATM at the entrance that took two years to get rid of. It was heating up the place in the summer and it was incredibly loud.

So yes, we had quite a lot of challenges. But luckily we managed to control the humidity and smell here, which is a big issue in Budapest basements.


Tell us about the club’s setup and musical direction. How do you select your performers and who makes up your regular audience? 

As for the setup, we have a KV2 sound system from the Czech Republic with PA speakers, but they sound like studio monitors, which is really nice. The digital booth is also pretty standard, with CDJ-3000s, Technics turntables, and a Xone:96 mixer.

The musical direction is an interesting question. It’s mostly house, minimal house and techno, but not very hard techno — more like deep techno or dub techno. Mostly music that suits a smaller environment, since we have a very small club. It’s all about proper club music, not the festival-type entertainment music — that’s not for us. We are still exploring the local Budapest scene because there are so many good DJs and producers around, and we are still learning and meeting new people.

The goal when we decided to open the club was to bring the community together here — people who enjoy good-quality drinks and music, as well as those who simply want to spend time with their friends in a place where they can relax. At the same time, we also want to give opportunities to young talents. In Budapest, talented young people rarely get a chance in a club with 600 people, because they won’t be able to sell tickets, or the venue is in such a commercial phase that they won’t be able to play their own music. Here, they can actually play their own stuff, which is important for us. And we’ve already met around 40 DJs, although not all of them have played here yet.

It’s really interesting that there is loyalty in the Hungarian scene. If people know the DJ and like the music, they will come. It’s also important to mention that we are a ticketless venue and that we provide opportunities to produce music here as well. This year, one of our goals is to make the sound system available and give upcoming producers the chance to work on music here. We have studio monitors outside the bar area where producers can come and play their tracks, and we give them feedback. It’s a great way to meet new people and build a community.

You have already hosted DJs such as Vera Logdanidi — a frequent performer at Berghain and Tresor — and the Swedish producer Martinou, whose name is familiar to many from Alkotótábor. How do you manage to attract these artists when there is no entry fee?

Vera is my [Lidiya’s] sister. We have a kind of secret agreement with her that whenever she’s here, we always catch her to play. She’s very happy to support us and said: “As many times as I’m here, I’m going to be with you guys.”

With Martinou we were also really lucky, because we had him at a Rhythm Büro party and then had to put him on the train. He actually went straight to the train after playing — the music was still going while he was already packing — so we were rushing, but he agreed to play a DJ set before leaving.

We’re always looking for opportunities like this with artists who are visiting Budapest. We have a few good contacts from around the world whom we can invite if they are travelling through Hungary.

And are there neighbors here who sometimes visit this place? Somebody interested in the music? 

Actually, there are Airbnb apartments nearby, and we’ve already caught a few people who happened to be producers and DJs as well. They were just heading to their apartments when they heard the music and wondered what this place was. Then they came back the next day to enjoy the party.

I have a specific story. I was standing outside on a Saturday at around 7:00 in the evening — we were just opening. I was waiting for a delivery, and three young German guys were walking toward the building. They asked, “Hey, are you open already?” I said, “Almost — the DJ starts at 8:00. We’re an underground music club, you guys should come and enjoy the party.” And they replied, “Don’t worry, we know. We spent the whole night here yesterday.” So yeah, I was trying to do my regular sales approach.

What are your experiences in the months since September? Are there plans to extend the opening hours into the night?

Well, it’s tricky to get the license for that, so currently we operate until midnight. But yes, we do have plans to extend the opening hours — maybe not until the morning, but perhaps until around 2:00. Honestly, I was really scared when we first opened because everything was new: a new country, new people, a new language. But people have been very supportive, and a lot of really good things have happened to us. I think it’s a good start.

From my [Robi’s] perspective, I’ve always loved my city. I was also very positively surprised because we believed there was a strong music culture here for the kind of quality techno and electronic music that we like. Sometimes we visited different clubs and realized that yes, we understand what quality means and where we want to position ourselves. We know what the people are like, and we are very happy with the size of the club because we can actually fill this place. So we don’t have any regrets about being a very small club. This was very important for us. While the others were worried about the language and adapting to a new country, I was worried about the turnover. We are ready to give back to the community. That’s the important part: inviting foreign professionals because we would like to give others the opportunity to enjoy what we enjoy.

And finally, what are your plans for the future? What would you like to achieve next?

A lot. The most important plan is to get the license — we already have a meeting scheduled for April. This whole project is a challenge for us because we’ve basically had to learn this industry along the way. In a way, we need to be here every day and work full eight-hour shifts like this. We had to get used to it because later it might become twelve hours, so we need to prepare for that.

We also share a common dream: we would like to create a label and organize at least two events this year — proper, larger-scale ones with different scenes, branded by us and organized in cooperation with others. We want to establish a stable business model, because two levels of the business are already running, and the third one will be the events.

In the beginning, when we opened this place and named it Very Small Club, we joked that the next one would be called Almost Big Club. We also opened a DJ school.

Are you teaching DJs?

Yes, we are teaching DJs. Alex is leading the program. We have already prepared a 10-lesson course, and the education is now underway. It’s a beginner-level program with one-on-one sessions rather than group classes, which is quite rare.

It’s also worth mentioning that even for the club, it takes us 16 months just to decide which coffee we serve. So launching a new service like this is a long journey, but now we are ready, and we are already welcoming the first talents.

We are also facing the reality that the market in Hungary is somewhat under-managed. We have kids here who play for free and are really good, but they don’t even know it because nobody has ever told them: “Hey, you’re talented! This is worth money!” At the same time, we don’t really see them progressing in Hungary, so people often import DJs from elsewhere instead.

Another idea — still undecided — is that we would like to give them the opportunity to organize their own party here, something like a graduation event. They can invite their friends, even their grandma. But it’s also a risk, because we can’t push their musical style. If someone wants to be a hip-hop DJ, then it becomes a hip-hop party, which belongs to a completely different scene. So many people, so many tastes.

More infos: https://www.instagram.com/verysmallclub/