De Helling

De Helling is an independent pop venue at Helling 7 in Utrecht's Kop van Hoograven, in the Rotsoord industrial area. Its roots go back to De Vrije Vloer, which began putting on concerts and parties in 1980 in a squatted space below the Paardenveld parking garage and moved in 2000 to a former museum depot. De Helling opened at that site on 22 October 2003, with a programme built more around bands and live acts than the old dance-club format.

For years the venue was part of Tivoli on the Oudegracht as Tivoli De Helling, and it became an independent foundation in 2014, when Tivoli merged into TivoliVredenburg. Concerts hold about 420 people standing, and club nights have room for 500. Its sound setup is built on a Synco STS point-source system with two Martin 218 subwoofers under the stage.

The programme covers heavy music, bass music, hip-hop and alternative music, and Kyteman, Eefje de Visser, Jeff Mills and Idles have all played there. De Helling gives a stage to emerging artists and young organisations running club nights, and the Le Guess Who? festival started at the venue.