Cercle Parties: What is it and how to get there?

Surely you saw on Youtube a set of Boris Breyha at the Fontainebleau Palace, Nina Kravitz on the Eiffel Tower or Solomun at the Theater in Arausion. These events are organized by the French promoters Cercle. Information about them is critically scarce even on the English-language Internet.

What is a cercle?
Cercle is a streaming platform, as they call themselves, designed to promote artists and venues. Locations are carefully selected: most of them are in France, but some DJ sets have already been shot outside its borders, in particular in Switzerland, Germany, Brazil and Spain.Every Monday, for an hour, the team broadcasts a live performance of the artist, after which he communicates with him, allowing you to ask questions to an online audience. At the end, the guest is presented with a gift in the form of a mysterious box.Cercle was originally a web radio with a weekly evening news program. Gradually, the media moved to Youtube, then there were live broadcasts on Facebook - they served as the main impetus for further development.Cercle was clearly inspired by the Boiler Room phenomenon, whose online broadcasts created a true cult for watching DJ sets. And if it is difficult to beat the Boiler in the musical component, then the visual part of it is clearly limping on both legs. And to stand out, to catch the Cercle wave, it remained to turn someone else's flaw to their advantage, complementing the general trend with beautiful venues and high-quality video.The members of the French team themselves do not like being compared with the Boiler Room - they insist: "we have completely different concepts and even other artists." Indeed, if the Boiler Room is primarily associated with techno parties, but Cercle guests play in completely diverse electronic genres.

How did Cercle come about?
It all started in 2016 in the apartment of Cercle creator Derek Barbolla. He invited friends to play in front of the camera. But because of the neighbors' complaints, I quickly had to look for another place for broadcasts: at first it was clubs, a small cave near Paris, a boat cruising along the Seine.
The turning point was October 2016, when Derek, together with Philip Tuchmann, who had become the artistic director of Cercle a month before, sent a request to hold a party on the second tier of the Eiffel Tower.
Unexpectedly for themselves, they received permission.

“It was difficult, but we showed ourselves. The Eiffel Tower has become a great success. Nobody knew us yet, we were just starting, but they trusted us, without any special guarantees. And then everything went very well. It was a huge springboard, the overcoming of which made our applications more impressive. Similar experiences helped to start working with other places.
Live a lot of stress. We are considering many options to avoid any problems during filming. We must constantly adapt - the locations were not initially equipped at all. For example, in a stone castle it is very difficult to find a network, so we try to install antennas everywhere. Sometimes, like at Charles de Gaulle airport, you may run into problems with the compatibility of power supplies, so you need to think in advance about generators, speaker adjustment and everything else. Always have a backup parachute. At the same time, it is very pleasant to organize such parties where no one has held them yet. When we succeed and everything goes well, we feel relieved” Derel Barbolla in an interview with the French edition of Trax

Sometimes a location is approved for a year. There are failures. And if there are security problems, the shooting takes place without live viewers - only the Cercle team and the online audience see the musician’s game.
There are locations on which the shooting was carried out several times. For example, the Eiffel Tower, the Museum of Aviation in Paris or the Chambord Castle. However, each time the organizers either changed the situation. For example, for the first time at the Aviation Museum, the party was at the Concord British-French supersonic passenger plane, the second time under the Arian rocket.

The most unusual locations of Cercle
As the project developed, promoters began increasingly to travel outside of France, receiving at their disposal locations that, it would seem, no one dared to dream about. We will not play unnecessary comparisons - let's just enjoy the beauty of nature, architecture and music.

Fontainebleau Palace - a palace of the Renaissance, where many rulers of France lived, from Louis VII to Napoleon III. Monarchs such as Philip IV the Beautiful, Francis II of Valois, Henry III of Valois and Louis XIII were born here. It was the first royal residence in northern Europe, devoid of any defensive function. In 1981, the palace and park of Fontainebleau were included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in France.

Boris Brejcha
The set of German minimal techno DJ and producer Boris Breikhi, played in the Fonteblo Palace, is Cercle's most famous video on Youtube. The number of views has already reached 22 million. Breich is recognizable not only thanks to his signature jokera mask, but also thanks to his own special high-tech minimal style.

Dubfire
Ali Shirazinia (better known as Dubfire) is an Iranian-American DJ and producer of house and techno styles. Prior to his solo career, Ali was part of the Deep Dish duo, who received a Grammy for the best remix. In 2007, the musician launched his own label SCI + TEC (Science + Technology Digital Audio), and the following year was recognized as the performer of the year according to International DJ Magazine.
In 2017, Berlin designers Mikhail Kochinsky and Mino Kodamoy made the documentary Above Ground Level: Dubfire, which tells the story of Dubfire: from the time when he was seven years old and had to flee his native country, ending with the acquisition of the current popularity. The tape contains an interview with relatives, friends, fellow musicians, including Karl Cox, Pete Tong, David Getty, Armin van Buuren and others.

Theater in Arausion: Solomun
Bosnian-German DJ and music producer, Diynamic boss Mladen Solomun played almost two hours of exquisite techno-house in one of the best-preserved ancient Roman theaters located in the city of Orange (France).
The amphitheater is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was a theatrical marvel during the Roman Empire thanks to its special acoustics.

Restaurant Piz Gloria: Stephan Bodzin
German DJ, founder of Herzblut label Stefan Bodzin played his set on the highest peak of the Bernese Oberland (2970 m) - Schilthorn (Switzerland) - in the revolving restaurant Piz Gloria.
It was also used to shoot several key scenes of one of Bondiana’s films - “At Her Majesty's Secret Service”.

Top of Mount Pan di Asucar: ARTBAT
Kiev duet ARTBAT (Techno, Tech House, House) played a set on the top of Mount Pan di Asucar ("sugar head") in Rio De Genereiro. The peak, towering above the Guanabara Bay, is one of the main attractions of the city. At the same time, its height is only 396 m.
ARTBAT fired in 2015 with the release of the techno-anthem Mandrake, which he loved to finish his festival sets with Richie Houtin. Following him, many other top DJs began to play the track. The duo last year hit the Beatport charts three times. Tracks ARTBAT included in their sets such famous DJs as Richie Hawtin, Thomas Gandey, Soul Button, Olivier Giacomotto. Now the guys are collaborating with Diynamic label

Floating Cottage in Tahiti: Møme
Nice French DJ Møme performed a set in a floating cottage in Tahiti, the largest island of French Polynesia, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Møme's most successful single was "Aloha", which entered the top ten in France.

Fort Louvois: Satori
Music from the Dutch artist Satori is not limited to any genre and embodies the authentic sound of folk cultures - from India to South America. He, together with his The Band From Space, uses many musical instruments - the piano, bark, kalimba, guitar, together with ethnic vocals. Fort Louvois, built between 1691 and 1694 during the reign of Louis XIV on the island of Chapus and located on the shores of the French city of Rochefort, was chosen as the place.

Chambord Castle
Chambord is one of the most recognizable castles in France, an architectural masterpiece of the Renaissance. The length of the facade is 156 m, width 117 m, the castle has 426 rooms, 77 stairs, 282 fireplaces and 800 sculpturally decorated capitals. Belted by the longest wall in France with a length of 32 km, an area of ​​5,441 hectares, of which 1,000 hectares are open to the public, is the largest enclosed forest-type park in Europe.

Deborah de luca
With the performance of the Italian electronics diva Deborah De Luca, Cercle began working with Chambord Castle. At first, Deborah worked as a waitress, and then as a dancer in various nightclubs, before she realized that making music was her real passion. In 2013, she grew up to her own label Sola_mente Records, promoting her music brand, which is distinguished by hard techno and minimal.

Carl Cox
Less than a year later, Carl Cox set played here - a living legend of dance electronics.
For almost 35 years of his musical career, Karl Cox played on various dance floors in the world, oversaw scenes at almost all major world festivals, including Tomorrowland, Ultra and Electric Daisy Carnival, presented the world with Intec Digital label and influenced several generations of DJs. He played at the most important events of his era - the famous raves Fantazia, Dreamscape and at the parties "Rage" in the London club Heaven.

And that’s not all ...

How to get to Cercle?
Promoters are reporting upcoming parties on the Cercle Facebook page. In the description of the event, the location, the name of the invited musician, as well as the cost (usually 15 euros) are indicated. Then, during the day, the organizers post a link to purchase tickets (it also comes by email if you subscribe on the site in advance).
The number of tickets is limited by the size of the location: maybe only 50, or maybe 20,000. There are also events that take place without spectators. In any case, efficiency is important - after half an hour or an hour there is nothing left. At the same time, Cercle is actively struggling with those who want to make money on resale. Named tickets, and the only way to transfer it to another is to put up for sale on TicketSwap. Moreover, if the price is very different from the original, the transaction may be blocked, and the ticket will become unusable.