Soft Spot - Musikverein im Künstler*innenhaus Nürnberg e.V.

In the location's words:

MUSIKVEREIN is a free event collective in the heart of Nuremberg that organizes its concerts, club nights, lectures and more at SOFT SPOT.

The Musikverein was founded on 13.05.1976 and works mainly on a voluntary basis: culture from below, for participation. We are organized as a grassroots democratic and non-profit association, with between 10-20 members. In addition to concerts, we also organize club nights, readings and do left-wing/social and pop-cultural educational work and take care of the club, because we think it's important not just to organize somewhere, but alternative culture from below also means shaping and maintaining your own social place and dealing with it critically.

Our official name is: Musikverein im Künstler*innenhaus Nürnberg e.V. We have always been part of this exciting house: when we founded it, it was still called KOMM and was self-managed and organized completely democratically. When the city took it over in 1997, it was renamed K4, and sadly political groups were kicked out at the time, but workshops and organizing groups, among others, were allowed to stay. Since 2008, the city has called it "Künstlerhaus", but we prefer to say Künstler*innenhaus or Künstl*haus, because such a conservative renaming goes against our values.

Until the major renovation began in 2018, the Zentralcafé was our main venue; now we are tenants of the Soft Spot.

It was sad that the Zentralcafé was taken away from us because the city had removed a central and low-threshold interface for culture from below, but at least we were able to use the canteen as an alternative venue during the major renovation of the Künstl*haus: Thanks to the pandemic, everything took a little longer than planned. In September 2024, we finally returned to the Künstl*haus in the newly created basement club Soft Spot, which is to replace the Zentralcafé, with access via the Werkhof (Königstormauer 7).

In addition, we have always held occasional events in the Festsaal of the Künstl*haus, where we have also always served drinks at almost all events. During the pandemic emergency, we also stepped in and took over the Filmhauscafé with the support of the Filmhaus. And we also take care of the catering for the Kunsthaus and Kunsthalle.

We primarily curate our own program and, in addition to our (excellent! 🙂 ) taste in music, we also try to pay attention to diversity and try to check all acts that perform with us for problematic, discriminatory content or connections. We love discussion and a diversity of voices, but do not give our stage as a platform for sexism, anti-Semitism, racism, hostility towards refugees, homophobia, transphobia and similar marginalizing voices. We are not an explicitly political group, but we are strongly left-wing and against discrimination.

We can't do rentals. But sometimes we do collaborations with small concert collectives, DIY DJ collectives or left-progressive political groups looking for a place for lectures, etc., or sometimes collaborations elsewhere, e.g. in and with the Desi or the Z-Bau.
For booking inquiries, please email a short description and link(s) to music to listen to. We get up to 100 requests a week, so unfortunately we can't answer them all. As I said: Most of our work is voluntary, our time is unfortunately limited!

We always try to keep the prices for drinks and admission as low as possible to help maintain the Künstl*haus as a cultural and meeting place in the city center that remains accessible to as many people as possible: Even for those who have little money to spend. If you have more, you are welcome to give a little more from time to time to help finance this for poorer people.
Our entrance fee is, whenever possible, solidarity-based: we set a price range with the request "pay what you can, between x and y euros". The upper limit is what we would actually have to charge to cover the costs. We are very happy that most of you don't take advantage of this, but actually pay more.

We want everyone to feel comfortable with us. That's why we promote a culture of consensus. A culture of consensus means respecting other people's personal, emotional and physical boundaries. If you feel distressed or harassed or need help in any other way, please ask someone at the bar or at the entrance and we will do our best to help. No false shame here - this is not embarrassing, but helps us all to maintain a confidential atmosphere, which is very important to us. We believe those affected.

Furthermore, precisely because we are a cultural venue "from below", we also want to create an atmosphere in which everyone feels that the space is their place and actively participates. For example, if you see someone harassing someone, just ask the person concerned if everything is okay, or let us know. A safe space is always a social process between all those present.

One more point: we love our smartphones just as much as you do, but in the social media era, good club culture also includes only taking photos of people who explicitly agree to it. Especially if you want to post them online. What happens at musikverein, stays at musikverein!

We are in the process of revising our information about the club and everything, e.g. about barrier-free access, our awareness work, etc., but we can't keep up at the moment. As I said: Voluntary cultural work from below, limited time. Thank you for your patience.

We hope you have a great time with us,

your music club