SPOT Festival 2025: DAYYANI’s Guide To Aarhus – clashmusic.com

SPOT Festival has emerged as one of Europe’s key new music showcase events, a multi-venue affair set in the beautiful Danish city of Aarhus. Connecting Nordic talent to the rest of the world, SPOT has a pleasingly low-key, deeply eclectic ethos, one that patches together together genres and styles in the process.
Danish pop artist DAYYANI is rapidly emerging as a force to be reckoned with, a stellar vocalist whose empathetic approach is producing palpable connections with fans. Set to play SPOT Festival this weekend, she goes deep on the sights and sounds of Aarhus.
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Aarhus is my absolute favourite city! A little star, often outshined by the big star, Copenhagen. Despite the relatively small size of the city, it holds enough cultural significance to be considered the world’s smallest metropolis. Therefore, I’m very excited and proud to present you with a small guide to my beloved hometown. My family all originates from Aarhus, and after having lived most of my childhood years in Copenhagen, our family moved back to Aarhus when I was 13 years old. It was the perfect age to discover a new city, and I found myself immediately falling in love — and have been ever since.
Being a musician in Aarhus (especially in the mainstream industry) isn’t always easy, since, understandably, the majority of the music industry is located in our capital, Copenhagen. As any person from a smaller town or city can probably relate to, a saying I’ve heard a million times goes, “You have to move to a bigger city (Copenhagen) to make a REAL career in the industry.” And that might be true, but one can quickly forget that, especially in the case of Aarhus, there’s so much untapped potential in our blossoming art communities, with people who are eager to collaborate and help progress each other in their respective fields. You could argue that folks’ willingness to help each other is more present here than anywhere else in Denmark (I’m looking at you, Copenhagen). With that in mind, I’ve made it my mission to be an example of a rising pop star, born, raised, and residing in the smallest metropolis in the world. So here’s to small-town communities! And I will not be making any more comparisons to Copenhagen from here on. I promise.
When I say Aarhus is a small city, it really shows when you go clubbing — it feels like everyone knows each other. But Aarhus is so much more than that once you get to know it. What’s really cool about this city is the people living here. Especially among the younger generations, there’s such a strong sense of fellowship, and they’ve turned abandoned places into homemade studios, and old basements into growing creative hubs.
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One of those places is Godsbanen. A magical mystery of a place, Godsbanen is an old train garage (Godsbanen translates to “freight yard”) that was abandoned for many years. Today, the buildings and area are among the most lively, inspiring places in the city. It houses Institut for X, a creative community with different cultural organizations, artists, and entrepreneurs alike. It’s thriving with all kinds of workshops, studios, and hangout spaces available for all to enjoy. It’s my favourite place to just go for a walk, and enjoy this creative part of town.
This leads me to my first venue/event recommendation. Aarhus Volume is part of Institut for X, located just under a huge bridge connecting the northern and southern parts of the city. If I could pick one place, this might possibly be the one that stands out as creating some of my most core teenage memories.
It started as a group of young “outcasts” coming together to create legendary underground concerts and street parties, and as years passed, the place and people grew to what it has become now — an unmistakable cultural powerhouse in the city and a testament to what happens when young entrepreneurs get together and create. Also worth mentioning is the love they show to upcoming music artists, as for some, this is the first platform that offers them a place to express themselves. Aarhus Volume also hosts SPOT Festival every year, where some of my most memorable concert memories have been made!
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Another cultural community is Sydhavnen, which houses different music studios, rehearsal rooms, art studios, and cool and quirky artists. I struck up a conversation with an artist once, and he showed me his studio — an old warehouse — where he made these big art installations in which he connected contact speakers to big metal plates hanging from the ceiling. It was like walking through a forest of metal. He called it “singing steel plates”. This is the vibe. Nearby, you’ll find Sydhans, a bike repair shop/community that makes some very unique bikes out of excesss spare parts. There’s also Frontløberne, an organization focusing on helping and guiding upcoming projects and communities by offering a space to work and grow themselves. I used to come here a lot, and it’s very inspiring being surrounded by people who work on all kinds of amazing projects! Every year in August, they host Sydhavnens Festival, where they highlight various local artists.
One of the coolest venues in Aarhus is Turkis. It started out as a tent at the yearly local city festival, with an aspiration to present a more multi-ethnical musical lineup. Serving Turkish tea, meze, and shishas, they created the most captivating universe with Persian carpets placed all around the tent. Today, they’ve grown to become an established venue — and they’ve truly made it a one-of-a-kind place. I was a volunteer in the early days, and I’m so proud to have followed their journey to where they are now. They will also have a line-up at SPOT Festival, which I would highly recommend checking out.
Latinerkvarteret is an old district — if not the oldest in town — with colourful half-timbered buildings and cobblestoned, narrow roads, which for the most part are closed off to traffic. Walking around in this area is so cozy, and there’s a lot of cafés, bars, and restaurants. It kind of has a French and Italian theme going (hence the name The Latin Quarter). There’s a very nice authentic Italian shop on Mejlgade called Il Mercatino, which makes the best to-go paninis and pizzas! Other good restaurants are L’estragon, Oli-Bistro, and Oli-Nico (where you can get moules frites at student prices).
This is also where my favorite vinyl store is located: Badstue Rock. When I moved back to Aarhus at 13, my dad introduced me to this place, which had been there since he was young — and that’s when I began collecting vinyls. They have a huge collection, and if you can’t find a specific vinyl in the store, they will make sure to order it for you. The guy at the counter has great knowledge about everything vinyl.
Other stores worth mentioning are Reverb and Route 66.
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Latinerkvarteret is also the go-to place for bars and bodegas. In true Aarhus spirit, Lecoq is a gem that you must visit. It can get quite crowded in the evening, but during the day it’s a nice place to hang out. Their specialty is Chartreuse — and fun fact: they’re known for being the place that sells the most Chartreuse in the world (!). There’s a bunch of other great bars nearby such as Ris-Ras, Café Under Masken (founded and very beautifully decorated by local artist Hans Krull), Café Vestergade, Vesterlauget, Erlings Jazz-bar, and Ølsnedkeren.
As for nightclubs, there are three go-to places for me: Headquarters if you’re into retro vibes and disco, Café Paradis for pop music, and Shen Mao for when you want to get messy and dance to reggaeton and hip-hop/RnB (they have a ping-pong table inside the club, with what seems like an infinite game of ‘round the table). The clubbing game in Aarhus is not the strongest, but I’d always recommend keeping an eye on upcoming events from Aarhus Volume.
In Denmark, coffee and pastries always go together. The bakeries and coffee shops are something you (literally and figuratively) cannot miss when visiting. My personal favorite is Jumbo Bakery. They make great coffee and the best buns, croissants, cakes — you name it! The place is also very aesthetically pleasing, which I like a lot. Other great bakeries and coffee shops are Bertha, La Cabra, and Street Coffee. I especially enjoy Street Coffee, as they always have a vast collection of vinyl records playing throughout the day.
An honorable mention I have to give is Lynfabrikken: a work-friendly café with meeting rooms, studios to borrow and rent, and the coziest rooftop terrace to top it all off. Whenever I need a change of work scenery, I go there. It’s the perfect place for having small meetings, daily mail check-ins, etc., and sometimes I come just to have a coffee.
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What makes Aarhus such a lovely city (and why I believe it’s called The City of Smiles) is that nature is always nearby. It puts Aarhus in a place between pulsing city life and countryside zen. Go for a walk in Risskov Forest and grab a coffee from the mobile coffee shop, while enjoying the view of Aarhus Bay. If you’re looking for a sandy beach, clear water, and all that, Den Permanente is only a 15-minute bike ride from the city center. And the path along the bay is perfect for running or cycling, with a beautiful summer view. If you’re down south, you can visit Marselisborg Dyrepark, a wildlife deer park that is part of Marselisborg Skov, as well as Forstbotanisk Have, which is an open botanical park.
There’s also a stream running through the city, which flows further out west into the meadow — and that makes for great walks as well.
This is, of course, only a scratch on the surface of what this city has to offer. I think I could go on forever, but for now, you will have this guide. Hopefully, you found it useful — or at least a little interesting. See you at SPOT Festival!?
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Stay in touch with DAYANNI on IG. SPOT Festival runs between May 2nd – 3rd // tickets.
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