RADION

The auditorium that refused to be a neighborhood restaurant

Staas Lucassen entered the former ACTA, the academic center for dentistry on Louwesweg, to run a neighborhood restaurant and exhibition space. Behind one door was the old auditorium: tiered seating, acoustic walls, and a volume that didn't call for tables. With four other partners, he turned that discovery into RADION, a name Lucassen explained as a fifth dimension. The first nights were the week before the 2014 Amsterdam Dance Event; the real opening, after construction and individual permits for each party, arrived in February 2015. Outside the A10, in Nieuw-West, the project clashed with neighbors and a district that took time to finalize the operation. The 24-hour license was the starting condition: without it, Lucassen said, they wouldn't have started. In 2015, it was used for the first time during the free weekend of the first anniversary, and during that October's ADE, they opened the second room, smaller, equally industrial, and also intended as an arthouse cinema.

Two systems that are nothing alike

From that auditorium, the tiered seating, the concrete, and a bar on a higher level remain. The main room today works with a VOID Stasys Tour system that was disassembled and reassembled for that box, the FrankenSystem, nicknamed Shiva: Stasys5 and Stasys3 MK2 cabinets, added 15-inch double subwoofers, and Powersoft amplifiers. The second room, the Bovenkamer, goes a different way. A stack of Prof Sound speakers from the nineties rests on L-Acoustics SB218 subwoofers and is powered by Lab Gruppen, Powersoft, and Carver. The club treats it as a warmer and more physical sound, with acoustic treatment and hand-made wiring. The large room's system was dismantled and rebuilt for that volume, not to sound the same as on another dance floor.

Homegrown techno, with an expiration date

The programming settled into Amsterdam techno, with an open door for those who are not yet headlining lineups. LNR, Local Night RADION, was born with the 2021 reopening: full nights of local talent, low prices, and space for those who hadn't been headliners. The Club Care team, started by Isabelle, sets up next to the entrance of the Bovenkamer on every club night. In January 2026, the venue's first record was released, the double vinyl Decennial Revelry, featuring tracks by regular artists of the house. The original lease was for ten years, expired at the end of 2024, and the extension only lasts until the end of 2027. As long as that date remains unresolved, RADION remains on the municipal list of Nieuw-West venues with a 24-hour license, and the doors on Friday and Saturday open from 23:00.