ING Arena

The black box that emerged from an exhibition hall

For over two decades, Palais 12 was the twelfth hall of Brussels Expo, a trade fair container under a polyhedral wooden roof. In September 2013, that Heysel warehouse reopened as Brussels' great concert hall. On September 13, The Australian Pink Floyd Show inaugurated the venue behind closed doors; six weeks later, David Guetta premiered the paid programming and made the scale of the commitment clear: stadium electronic and pop in the Belgian capital.

Pillar-free, with arena acoustics

Studio Alliage turned the pavilion into a modular instrument. The wooden triangle roof rests on external concrete piles, so the dance floor remains free of columns. Telescopic stands and a blackout box allow the capacity to be compressed or opened up to 15,000 standing people. Four million euros were dedicated to acoustics: the Pic Cornet treatment—more than 10,000 m² of absorption on the roof—reduced reverberation from over 12 seconds to less than 2.5. It is not an intimate club; it is an arena designed so that international tours do not sound like an empty warehouse.

360-degree scale electronics

Electronic music has used that flexibility as a dance floor. Guetta opened the cycle with a touring NEXO STM; Major Lazer, The Prodigy, and Faithless filled the room in 2015. Every New Year's Eve, the FCKNYE Festival occupies the venue—with historic chapters from Jeff Mills or Robert Hood—and turns Brussels Expo into a year-end circuit. In a 360-degree format, Kaytranada has treated the box as an immersive dance floor; Overmono has joined the recent lineup. Alongside them, Muse, Stromae, Angèle, and Damso have confirmed the venue as a stop for major Francophone and European tours.

Same room, different name

On September 14, 2023, the ING Belgium sponsorship renamed the building as ING Arena. The motto "New name, same emotion" insisted on continuity: same operator, Brussels Expo, same architecture, new orange identity. Today, concerts, tennis, basketball, and circus coexist. The Lounge Club, skyboxes, and more than 12,000 parking spaces at Heysel complete a metropolitan-scale venue, next to the Atomium. There is no weekly club session: it opens when there is an event.