“The myth that you can make a living from playing underground music is still very much alive” – An interview with Sándor Kispál, programme organiser at Gólya

Published July, 2025
by Easterndaze

Most people have heard of Sándor Kispál aka “Saskó,” through his electronic music programming at Gólya, the PÉNZ collective, or his DJ alter ego, csinovnyik. Last year marked the 5th anniversary of Orczy Street’s Gólya, and PÉNZ turns 10 this year, Saskó has gathered quite a lot of experience about, let’s say, the music industry – so that’s what we asked him about.

Péter Bokor: Let’s begin with Gólya’s current standing, both in general and regarding the parties you organise. Do you think people have the need and the money to party these days? Can you reach your target audience?

Sándor Kispál: I need to make a small clarification to the intro first, because I’ve not been a member of PÉNZ for about a year now. Ten years is a significant amount of time though, and it will always remain a defining memory that I could be a member of that collective. My DJ alter ego still exists more or less, but it’s not that central to my life anymore, although I still listen to a lot of music.

As for Gólya in general: to evaluate the current situation, we have to travel back in time – to at least 7 years ago. In October 2018, we bought the property on Orczy Street with the strong support of the community around Gólya, but mostly via various loans, with the aim of overcoming the uncertainties of being tenants at the old Bókay Street location and operating in a larger space that we ourselves own. We renovated the building with the help of volunteers, creating Gólya Presszó over about 1200 square metres, along with its neighbour/sibling, the Kazán Community House, which has been run by SZAKI (Alliance for Community Property Development), an organisation founded in part by Gólya, for the past 4 years. Gólya reopened in October 2019 at this new location with a fair amount of debt and expectations. And for the first few months, those expectations in terms of visitor numbers remained just that – barely anyone came.

Then Covid hit in March 2020, and the cooperative was able to respond well: we launched two new economic activities, our construction and bike courier services, and reorganised much of our debt. It was a big shift, all of our hospitality staff transferred over to these new ventures; I worked as a bike courier during that time. It was tough, but thanks to our cooperative functioning and principles (democratic decision-making, solidarity towards one another, shared sense of responsibility), we came out of this era much stronger. Even after Covid, circumstances didn’t get much easier: the soaring energy prices and overall economic situation and sectoral trends haven’t helped and continue not to help our operations.

Yet despite all this, we keep expanding and growing stronger: on an organisational level, Gólya is now a federation of cooperatives, composed of hospitality, construction, and courier worker co-ops. Our goal is to expand further with new member co-ops in the future. We’ve managed to repay a significant chunk of our loans too.

As for Gólya Presszó aka the hospitality co-op: despite all the difficulties of the past six years, we’ve stood firm and put down strong roots on Orczy Street, gaining tons of experience operating a larger venue with a lot of possibilities. Within the hospitality co-op, I primarily organise electronic music events as a member of our concert workgroup, and during my physical shifts, I work as a host (or what would be referred to as a night manager at other venues), which also includes ticketing.
As for the kind of events I organise at Gólya: we have a set of criteria for music programming that we try to apply to individual events, but mainly to a given time period as a whole, or to every quarter. These factors (in no particular order) are:

the event’s alignment with Gólya’s overall mission;
the organisers’ work ethic: we prefer to collaborate with people who operate according to DIY, feminist, and democratic principles, autonomously – and although it’s surprising how often they appear in our own circles too, we try to avoid working with those who operate (or whose operations attempt to mimic) music industry logic;
the relationship between the music programmes and the Gólya team: ideally, we organise parties that my colleagues will enjoy working on, whether because of the event’s message, aim, audience, or music;
our audience: many of whom have been with us since the Bókay Street days, supporting the move to Orczy through donations or volunteering;
maintaining a diverse selection: both within Gólya’s programming and compared to what’s usually on offer in Budapest’s nightlife scene;
financial considerations: it’s no secret, and is somewhat obvious that most of Gólya’s revenue comes from the bar sales during music events. This puts pressure on programming, undermining the other factors, and considering Gólya’s size, means that the venue works best with events of at least 100 people, or ideally between 150-200.

Electronic music parties have a strong audience, and I think we’ve developed a relatively diverse yet distinctly Gólya-like programme based in alignment with the above criteria – though at the same time, there is little room left for experimentation or risk-taking, unfortunately.
This is partly because, on the one hand, the cost-of-living crisis is apparent – and on the other, people in general go out less, or explicitly avoid venues, meaning there are a fewer number of guests to work with overall, which is felt equally across the already limited number of venues similar to Gólya. We have to fight for guests, and to constantly outbid ourselves on every front, while also staying authentic and, as described, “Gólya-like.”

Still, despite all these difficulties and the complexities of the organisational matrix, it’s important to add that organising parties at Gólya is a privilege. Ultimately, the main criterion for evaluating an event is always how the guests felt and what the atmosphere was like at Gólya.
And we’re happy to talk about what happens with the money generated through music events within our cooperative structure: it goes to repaying Gólya’s debt, to covering business costs, and to pay our wages – which are calculated at the same hourly rate for everyone. We also distribute social benefits from it, the hospitality co-op contributes to the upkeep of the Gólya Federation, we invest into building and infrastructure improvements from it, and we use it to fund our mission-driven goals: creating new member co-ops that enable more people to work in cooperative structures, carrying out our neighbourhood campaign, and providing free space usage for our allies – movements, initiatives and organisations that are closely aligned with our mission. So, the money earned in a capitalist but not fully profit-oriented way is spent in as non-capitalist a way as possible.

What we need to improve on at Gólya after these first five years is strengthening our relationship with our audience by communicating more about what we do, how and why we do it, how we operate, as well as what we think about the world, and about the things happening around us that affect us directly – which is also why I’m giving such a long answer to this question.
According to its mission statement, Gólya Presszó is a community centre, cultural centre (which also functions as a club), and hospitality establishment. The elements of this definition have held true over the past 5 years; this is how Gólya manifests itself in everyday life. Our current, stable operation makes it possible to clarify and communicate our interpretation of the meaning of these concepts outwardly.

PB: What’s your take on the club vs. festival (vs. house party vs. pub) question? Gólya clearly also functions as a club, and for a few years, we could even say you took part in festivals too (pre-2020, there used to be Gólya pop-ups at Kolorádó). How have you see visitors’ preferences evolve, as well as the status and future of these two event genres?

SK: Hm, I don’t know. I think the situation these days is that the entry barrier to organising electronic music parties has dropped quite a bit; you can basically learn to DJ or produce tracks in about two weeks if you have enough motivation, and a laptop with internet. And for a really good party with a community vibe you don’t necessarily need a club or a festival – a larger group of friends or acquaintances can organise an event free of bouncers, tailored 100% to their own taste and culture. Renting a smaller but still usable-sized sound system doesn’t have to be a big financial hassle either; each member of the group only needs to chip in a fraction of the cost of a party or festival ticket to cover the expenses.

I actually think this is a good and understandable direction, and was perhaps partly catalysed by PÉNZ over its 10-year-long existence, but COVID definitely reinforced it – I think that was when many people realised that they could create the conditions for a good party themselves. Overall, it’s great that this DIY party organising is happening – that people are trying it out and gaining practice in what it’s like to work together on something as a hobby, and that – in most of the cases I’ve seen anyway – they’re doing it within fairly horizontal structures.

But this also means that a club or a festival has to be able to show more than this to grab people’s interest. You can either enter the competitive Budapest underground industrial party organising scene in the most Gólya-like way possible, and still with really cool acts – artists at our level from abroad who are a big deal – or your programme needs to be very fresh, but it always has to sound great, with something special, unique touches in the decor, the visuals, and so on. Regarding freshness, I find it more difficult these days compared to when we opened 5 years ago. Back then, things could feel fresh simply because they happened at Gólya, in a brand-new venue, but at the same time an older, friendly building, where events could be enjoyed under professional conditions in the atmosphere of a massive house party. At the time, there were many music projects around us that were moving towards a bigger audience and greater recognition in unison with us.

These days, I feel that the myth that you can make a living from playing underground music is still very much alive – especially in the live music scene – although, to be honest, I’m not even sure what the term underground really means anymore. You need a huge audience, and you have to play places like Budapest Park, the main stage at Kolorádó, or even MVM Dome. A music career ladder has formed where Gólya, like all other venues according to their own capabilities, is a step on the way. But the reality is that very few actually succeed at this, and even if they do, its often only at the cost of compromises on the altar of thei independence, and the famous artistic freedom of performers. In return, it feels like everyone ends up becoming (needlessly) a bit like the few who did succeed. Few things feel truly new anymore, though that’s true in general around us. Still, we see our role partly as hosting torch-bearing programs that aren’t happening anywhere else in the city.

The other path, which in many ways is closer to Gólya, is where it’s not just narrowly about the music or party experience, but there is additional content – for example, that the vibe or the message/concept of the party is very different here, because of our mission and how we operate, compared to what is usual in other Budapest clubs. Part of this approach is creating better opportunities for local musicians to perform at events organised with and for the neighbourhood. Currently, this is happening most strongly through “Hangot a 8-nak!” [“Give District 8 a Voice!”], a talent show and mini-festival that we organise.

In terms of (small) festivals, I could only imagine Gólya organising one if, alongside music, it’d hold spaceful meaningful topics closely aligned with Gólya’s values – by which I mean programmes focused on solidarity economy and cooperativism, rather than daytime programmes in the category of soap bubble blowing championships.

In the short term, this isn’t a priority for us, we have other projects on the horizon, but some of them could result in organising a joint festival in partnership with organisations close to us later on.

PB: What’s your perspective on international (audience) trends – do you see any local specificities here in Hungary? I remember you telling me about your trip to Belgrade last year, where you went to a massive reggaeton party, and we talked about how something like that – in terms of its scale and intensity – would be hard to imagine here.

SK: I don’t know how far-reaching conclusions we can really draw from this. I really love Belgrade, although it’s a city that still feels quite foreign to me, I find it very interesting, exciting, and friendly. I was there with my girlfriend, so the circumstances were pretty ideal for me to be having a good time. The party featured Feloneezy (who has played at Gólya too actually, at an MMN party), Bianca Intensa, and DJ Python, but they’re not even the point really – it’s more that there were just three DJs playing all night, with minimal online promotion, a smoke machine, and at a relaxed, unpretentious venue where people went to simply enjoy themselves and dance.
In Budapest, what I often feel – though luckily not at Gólya – is that the main motivation is more superficial and it’s all about just “being there, showing up”, because that’s what’s constantly being pushed, and because Telekom Electronic Beats wrote about how cool it is, even when it comes to pretty random parties.

PB: Musically, how refreshing, hopeful, or worrying do you find the current situation? For example, looking at the hyperpop craze, a modern-day Mark Fisher might be quick to declare the death of music once again.

SK: We try to make Gólya refreshing in what is – with respect to all exceptions – quite a boring field. I don’t know if hyperpop can be described as a craze. What appears here from that genre tends to be visceral and raw in its own way, with a relatively sweet framing, trouble-free parties and decent guests, organised by people who understand Gólya. These characteristics are more important in evaluating an event than whether a specific genre is close to my taste. My taste and programming approach are both quite open, and I try to consciously keep them so. Regardless of genre, I am happy to organise anything at Gólya that has fire in it; that dares to be different; that is radical; unusual; atmospheric; or simply put: that is just very good.
The overrepresentation, density, and sameness of tiktok-, edmtechno-, and in general techno and house parties is more concerning than not, though fortunately they’re all quite distant from us. It’s not these genres themselves that are problematic, but rather the false, trendy, Berlin-style gloss of these parties that are in the service of their capitalist owners and capitalism as a whole.

PB: Returning to the issue of club operations, both from an urban planning perspective, and looking at, for example, Turbina’s years-long ordeal: what do you think about the legitimacy of having a “club in the city”? One of Gólya’s flagship projects is a so-called “neighbourhood campaign”. In your opinion, how much willingness to compromise can be expected from the residents and the club (including its visitors)?

SK: If you open a venue in a location where there previously wasn’t anything, it will inevitably have an impact on the lives of local residents and neighbours, especially if you host loud, late-night music events that attract large crowds. The effects can include guests who have maybe had a few drinks already making noise even on their way to the venue, the sound spilling out from the space, a contributing impact to rising rent prices in the area, and shifts in the local population (e.g. proximity to Gólya is listed as a selling point in many nearby rental ads).

You can keep this under control by choosing a location as far from residential buildings as possible, and on a busy road, so you’ll be as little of a disturbance as possible, although it can’t be ruled out that even if you keep in-line with every single limit and regulation, there won’t still be an occasional disturbance caused. And of course, it’s also a completely valid and understandable need that people would like to listen to music, and party, and relax, to escape from the pressures of everyday life – and in Gólya, they can even do that in a friendlier, more human, more laid-back way than usual.

Changes and potential disturbances to the surrounding urban fabric can and should be managed, and that’s what the joint neighbourhood campaign between Gólya and Kazán Közösségi Ház is helping us with. As long as you’re able to build a real, living relationship with local residents by communicating with them, treating them as partners, organising events for and with them, and supporting the community on its own terms, you can also count on their support in return. We make a conscious effort not to exist solely within our own subculture or bubble.

If the relationship you’ve built is genuine, then even when you do cause some disturbance, people are more likely to respond with understanding or tolerance – perhaps with some frustration, but still with a willingness to engage directly or give feedback.

We’re already in a fortunate situation with our guests. People who come to Gólya to have fun have, from the very beginning, easily understood that maintaining good relations with our neighbours is a shared interest and essential for sustainable operation, and that this requires a certain level of self-restraint. By now, for most of our visitors, it’s second nature that part of the Gólya experience means not smoking out on the street, not making noise outside, and not taking alcoholic drinks beyond the venue. We’re really grateful to them for that.

Also, we don’t need any outside feedback to realise that no one around here is keen on parties that run on until 6 AM – and to be honest, we’re not keen on pushing for them either. Shifts that long aren’t motivating for the Gólya crew; a closing up time dragging into the morning hours isn’t sustainable in the long term, nor are the lifestyle sacrifices and compromises that go with it. This aspect rarely comes up when people debate whether parties that last until dawn are justifiable.

PB: In Hungary, there’s a constant tension between publicly funded and market-based venues (and events more broadly), one that’s been further intensified by the arrival of House of Music Hungary. I’m thinking, for example, of situations where a venue like Trafó or a grant-funded project pays X thousand euros to a performer – a fee that would be entirely unrealistic in a market-driven context, which can end up setting or distorting price expectations across the board. One response to this might be that it’s no issue, that artist simply won’t play at Gólya – a kind of natural filter. But is it really that simple?

SK: House of Music Hungary a peculiar phenomenon – I guess most people still remember how and why it came to be and from how much money, Japanese starchitect or not. It’s since become a venue of prestige, with a pretty huge budget and actually world-class programmes that increasingly draw in artists and organisers who also regularly appear at Gólya – people who consider themselves, by their own definitions, to be countercultural or at least independent actors of the scene. It’s an interesting process of legitimisation: House of Music Hungary has become one of the highest steps of that previously mentioned ladder, and for me, the underground-type events held there have acquired a strange, distorted kind of ranking.

Beyond its origin story which was tainted from the start, it runs on virtually unlimited public funding and caters to a relatively narrow audience. As someone from Gólya, it probably won’t come as a surprise that I’d imagine such an institution quite differently: it should be aimed at a broader public, with genuinely diverse programming and a low threshold for participation. It should be the House of Music for Everyone. But even then, the question remains: can it ever truly belong to everyone, when its creation stands in such stark contrast to the very principles that would define an ideal, inclusive, community-focused venue? And beyond all that, there’s the simple fact that the building is likely to remain standing where it is for a very long time.

As for Trafó, my reflex response is that it plays a different role: it’s the House of Contemporary Arts. It’s high culture, with many large-budget, technically complex programmes, which the ticket prices reflect too. There’s a certain elite, highly intellectual atmosphere that surrounds it, even though, reading Trafó’s mission statement, it seems to have promised something broader, or at least more inclusive originally.

Gólya, on the other hand, is in a completely different category compared to these institutions, both in terms of scale and budget, and therefore its possibilities. And honestly, I doubt anyone’s particularly interested in my vague, surface-level opinion on either House of Music Hungary or Trafó. It’s probably for the best that I don’t have to say anything about Müpa (Palace of Arts, Budapest), even though that’s actually the place I go to most often.

And yes, the overall answer is that artists with several thousand euro fees simply don’t perform at Gólya, nor do we particularly desire them to. We have a different perspective on art, the value of art, and Gólya’s role. In this respect, Gólya’s primary aim is to uphold a community cultural centre that reaches as many people as possible with an eclectic, easily accessible programme.

Of course, part of having diverse music programmes means that popular international artists with high fee demands also perform at Gólya. Our experience so far – perhaps unsurprisingly with events organised directly by Gólya – is that these acts see supporting the venue’s mission, operation, and role as important, and that’s why some of these bigger dreams are occasionally realised here as well.

In the near future, we plan to ease the constraints of market-based funding, but primarily not to increase our budget for high-fee international elite performers – rather, we’d like to reduce the financial pressure on our programmes, so that within the framework of the previously mentioned considerations, there’s more room for experimentation, accommodating amateur productions, and hosting free events.

PB: What’s your opinion on communication? How can people be reached and motivated nowadays to attend an event? It often seems like the music alone isn’t enough. There needs to be an added spectacle that partly revolves around the music and other relevant aspects (visuals, sound, etc.), but equally involves other factors, mainly social ones, such as the need for some kind of (makeshift or legitimate) narrative or the appearance (or creation) of a FOMO effect.

SK: There’s no problem with communication itself. For Gólya, due to its often referenced vision and mission, it would be especially important to communicate intensively with its audience about content-related matters, preferably beyond Meta’s platforms, but unfortunately, there’s very little capacity for this alongside promoting our programme on online platforms. And sure enough, it’s not enough to simply say “this will happen, come,” and expect people to show up (as we discussed earlier, there are various reasons why guests have become harder to draw in) – on a communication level, everything needs to be given a lot of attention, every event has to appear very “serious,” unmissable, innovative, and one-of-a-kind. This is challenging because there are very few events in Budapest’s nightlife that truly feel unrepeatable or don’t give me an “I’ve seen this before” vibe. And of course, the whims of algorithm can also complicate things. Meanwhile, all of this feels very superficial, empty, and distracts from the core essence.

PB: Finally, what upcoming Gólya events can you recommend?

SK: In the summer, we don’t organise our programme in the usual way. During this period, we offer exciting and experimental experiences tailored to the specificities of summer, despite (or alongside) holidays, festivals, and the heat.

Balomania | rooftop screening (07.29.)

Rooftop + film screening: a little open-air cinema experience in District 8. I saw this film at the Verzió Film Festival – it has a very special atmosphere and shows a unique way in which people living in poverty in Brazil resist the powers that be with autonomy and dignity.

Women in the Movement – Gólya quiz with the School of Public Life (07.29.)

This quiz series has been running here for years. On this occasion, our friends at the School of Public Life are organising it and compiling the questions. An important topic: the role of women in local social movements – offering both inspiration and knowledge.

There’s a wedding on our street (07.31.)

If you’ve ever wondered what happens at Gólya when we’re closed to the public for a private event (or if you’ve ever walked away disappointed because of it) – or if you’re curious about the Gólya wedding experience – come by on Thursday. Meal tickets are highly recommended: stuffed cabbage and endless desserts await.

Zsákbamacska (“Lucky Dip”) 08.02.

This is a new series we’re launching. Four up-and-coming bands in four different styles, with their identities remaining a surprise until the event itself. Our aim is for these Zsákbamacska nights to provide opportunities for performers who are just starting out or aren’t well-known enough yet to headline a full evening alone. Often, the experience isn’t about popularity.

“Genocide is not self-defence” support gig 08.08.

This is an important cause regardless of the season. Even though we know the limits – standing up and offering support can never be as significant as it truly needs to be. Great bands, fun DJs.

Originally written by Péter Bokor for MMN Mag. Translated from Hungarian by Gabriella Gál.

This article is brought to you as part of the EM GUIDE project – an initiative dedicated to empowering independent music magazines and strengthen the underground music scene in Europe. Read more about the project at emgui.de.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.