Espacio Riesco

The venue that turns Santiago into a festival

When Ultra Chile brought back the two-day format in April 2024, it didn't do it in a neighborhood club: it took over Espacio Riesco, the exhibition center in Huechuraba. The Main Stage was set up outdoors, with the mountains in the background, and the techno of Resistance was installed in one of the covered halls. That ability to transform pavilions and parking lots into an electronic music venue on a festival scale is, today, what defines the place most for the dance scene.

Three halls and a metropolitan-scale lot

The first activities date back to 2001, when the 10,000 m² Convention Center was completed. Trade fair activity and shows later drove the Expocenter —5,000 m² and 13 meters high, awarded for its architecture— and the 12,000 m² Fair Pavilion, completing 27,000 m² of covered air-conditioned space. The complex is articulated in terraces, patios, and gardens, and in large paved areas that serve as parking or as an open-air venue. The venue itself speaks of setups for 50 to 10,000 people, indoors or outdoors. It is not a nightclub with a weekly lineup: it is a venue that is reconfigured according to who rents it.

From diplomatic summits to the dance floor

Before becoming the usual shell for Santiago's major electronic shows, the venue was a stage for high-voltage diplomacy. In November 2004, it hosted the APEC Leaders' Summit, with a security operation that completely isolated Huechuraba. In 2007, it was the venue for the XVII Ibero-American Summit. In January 2013, it hosted the I CELAC-European Union Summit and the I CELAC Summit. That same infrastructure of halls, perimeter, and access control is what, years later, allows for the assembly of stages, VIP areas, and festival operations.

Electronic music, massive parties, and concerts

The dance floor is not a recent addition. During the 2010s, the venue hosted Club de Baile nights in the Expocenter, with thousands of meters of dance floor and VIP tables. In February 2023, Calvin Harris closed the summer in an outdoor arena built within the venue, with bleachers, a beer garden, and lounge areas. On Halloween of that year, Road to Ultra Chile returned —Marshmello, Oliver Heldens, Nicky Romero— and in 2024 the Ultra brand deployed four stages, with Armin van Buuren, Hardwell, Adam Beyer, and CamelPhat. Events like Bosque Sónico have also passed through its halls, with R3HAB in the Grand Hall. The venue is not the brand of those parties: it is the physical ground that makes them possible at that scale.

A venue that changes owners and use

In March 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, the Ministry of Health enabled the complex as a field hospital for the northern sector of Santiago, with a plan for up to 800 beds. After that interruption, it returned to fairs, congresses, and concerts. In January 2025, the French multinational GL Events bought the center from the Torres Riesco family, founders of the complex. It continues to operate as the main exhibition and convention park in Chile, neighbor to the Ciudad Empresarial, with strictly variable programming: from daytime congresses to outdoor festivals.