Some bookings you prepare for like any other job. Others you prepare for like a family gathering. When I was asked to be the DJ for the Brussels Greek Food Festival — held from 14 to 16 June 2024 on Place Maurice Van Meenen in Saint-Gilles, in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Hellenic Community of Brussels — it was very much the second kind.
I have been a Greek DJ in Brussels for years, playing weddings, corporate receptions and restaurant nights. But there is something different about standing behind the decks in an open square, in front of the town hall, with the smell of grilled souvlaki drifting across the crowd and three generations of the diaspora in front of you.
Friday: warming up the square
Friday evening was about setting a tone. People arrived straight from work — Greeks, Belgians, curious neighbours from Saint-Gilles — and my job was to make the square feel like a village plateia. I opened with warm, melodic Greek sounds: island laika, a little entechno, tracks your mother and your flatmate can both enjoy. By the time the first food stalls had queues stretching across the square, the volume of conversation told me everything I needed to know.
Saturday: when the circle forms
Saturday was the heart of it. Dance groups performed in traditional dress, and between their sets I kept the energy moving. Then came the moment every Greek DJ waits for: the first syrtaki circle forming on its own, no invitation needed. Hands on shoulders, strangers joining strangers, a Belgian couple pulled in by a yiayia who was not taking no for an answer. I stretched that set as long as I honestly could.
Eighty years of community in Brussels, and you could feel every one of them in that circle.
Sunday: family day
Sunday belonged to the families. Kids with loukoumades sugar on their faces, grandparents claiming the shaded benches, and a softer musical arc from me — classics, singalongs, the songs people request "for my father". Closing the festival with the whole square singing along is a memory I will keep for a long time.
What I took home
- A festival crowd is not one audience — it is twenty audiences arriving in waves, and reading the square hour by hour is the real work.
- Food and music are the same language. When the grills were busiest, the music needed space; when plates emptied, it needed to lift.
- The Greek community of Brussels is alive, proud and growing — and it dances.
Huge respect to the organisers and volunteers who built the festival, and to the Hellenic Community of Brussels on its 80th anniversary. Events like this are why I do what I do — the same energy I bring to every Greek party in Brussels, from festivals to private celebrations.
Planning a Greek-themed event, festival stage or community celebration? Get in touch and let's talk about the sound of your day.