Location: Washington, DC, USA
Capacity: 3,000
Based in the capital of the United States, Echostage ranks among the country’s most dazzling dance venues. A former Top 100 Clubs No. 1 — the first North American club to claim the top spot — it’s been in operation for 12 years, and the giant event space continues to evolve and innovate. In recent months, Echostage has had another refurb, with 130 new lighting fixtures, 56 precision beam fixtures, eight laser units, and 30 dynamic strobe fixtures, with the aim to evoke festival levels of production in an indoor space.
The club sits on the site of two older venues, DC Tunnel and DC Star. Opened in 2012, it’s a sprawling, 30,000-square-foot warehouse-like space, equipped with confetti cannon, lasers, cryo-jets and a 14-by-40-foot LED screen. VIPs can take advantage of its mezzanine area and bottle service tables, and there’s an d&b Audiotechnik V-Series sound system with D80 amplifiers — the first of its kind to be installed on America’s East Coast — capable of delivering 48,000 watts of sound.
In the last year, Echostage booked many of the biggest dance acts across the genre spectrum, including Tale Of Us, GRiZ, Gryffin, Charlotte de Witte, Netsky, Pendulum, The Martinez Brothers, SVDDEN DEATH, Marshmello and Black Coffee, as well as hosting the first-ever Boiler Room DC. Previous appearances at the venue include Tiësto, FISHER and Timmy Trumpet, but the club is not only a magnet for prestige dance acts: pop and hip-hop royalty like Lil Yachty, Cardi B, Sam Smith, Lorde and Miley Cyrus have dropped in to grace its huge stage.
Though less well-known for its dance music history than other American cities like Chicago, Detroit and New York, Washington, DC has its own bubbling scene that has given rise to everyone from Deep Dish and Beautiful Swimmers to the Black Rave Culture crew. Echostage is another vital part of the puzzle that has put the US capital on the map for clubbers.
Echostage runs pre- and post-event parties for its own massive Project GLOW Festival that takes place each April in the city’s RFK Grounds, and runs Halloween-themed events in October. At the end of December each year, the club hosts Echothon, a week-long event series in the run-up to New Year’s Eve, inviting some of the biggest DJs to spark the festive atmosphere. This summer, the club will stage the debut elrow DC event in Washington, and an impressive billing of artists is already locked in for autumn.