Dada Beijing Celebrates 12 Years with 69 DJs

By Yinmai O'Connor, July 12, 2024

Dada Bar has been a Beijing institution since its original location opened up on Gulou in the summer of 2012.

It quickly became a staple of Beijing’s nightlife and – along with its upstairs neighbor, the popular rock bar Temple – it made Gulou home to countless legendary nights and, for quite a few partygoers… epically messy mornings as well.

In 2021, Dada moved to its current location in the basement of Ritan International Trade Center, just north of Ritan Park in Chaoyang.

That was in the midst of COVID – a difficult time for businesses to say the least – but the iconic venue has prevailed.

Dada Beijing party posters

Over the years, Dada has hosted hundreds of international music acts, including live bands, DJs and recording artists, as well as helped launch the careers of many local talents.

Twelve years on – still going strong, at a bigger, better, and more central location – Dada's anniversary this Thursday will be free entry and feature 69 DJs that are each playing one song only, and of all different styles of music.

We spoke with Dada founder Michael O to learn more about the venue and its epic anniversary celebration.

What's the plan for the anniversary party?
We'll have 69 DJs and each DJ plays one song only. We've invited DJs from all over the city – some amateurs, some old school veterans, and some from the big mainstream clubs that would never play at Dada otherwise.

We've done this a few times – including in other cities – and it’s absolute chaos and totally fun. I beg the DJs not to try to mix, not to worry about what the song playing before them is, etc.

I don't know of any other club anywhere doing this. It's actually quite stressful to manage, but we like curating a little deliberate anarchy from time to time – there’s always surprising results.

Dada founder, Michael O, on the decks

How is the new location different from the old Gulou spot?
We did our best to keep the vibes from the old location, while making improvements.

The new location has a better layout, sound system, bar menu, seating, and is much more accessible – just blocks from hubs like Gongti, Sanlitun, Guomao/CBD, Utown and the BOX malls, and we're just north of the Ritan Park embassy neighborhood. It’s very central and in the same building as the new DDC venue.

The first Dada Bar was actually in Shanghai. It opened in 2009, before shutting down last year, but we opened up one in Kunming in 2020, and it’s still going strong.

There are a lot of new underground clubs in Beijing – how would you say Dada is different?
We've always been very open-minded and inclusive with the music we play and the crowd we draw, from techno to underground hip hop, funk and disco, drum and bass to hyper-pop, reggae and Afrobeat – even rock music nights.

Most other clubs are very tunnel visioned; they only focused on one style of music and target one type of audience.

That's so boring to us. We want to celebrate and share all the colors of the rainbow. We also make decent drinks – which is rare for a DJ party focused nightclub.

We're open Wednesday to Sunday, and we have DJs playing on all those nights. Our Wednesday and Thursday nights have been managed by the same crews for over 11 years with different DJs each night, but they're probably the longest running ‘weekly nights’ in the city – if not the country.

Friday and Saturday are completely different each night – usually with proper international recording artists and producers on world tours that perform all different styles of music. We don't have what you’d call ‘resident DJs.’

DJ Krush at Dada in 2023

Do you have any funny stories about Dada you’d like to share?
For the last three years at the old location, the landlord kept telling us we would get kicked out fairly soon and that the building would get destroyed, but there was never a date set in stone.

Finally, in 2021, we got a two week notice and held a 'closing party.’ Then the following Monday, we got a call saying we could stay open for a few more weeks because the inspectors found an endangered bird that had built a nest and laid eggs above our doorway, so they couldn't do any construction until the baby birds hatched and flew away.

This was about two days after our ‘grand closing’ event, and so we had to plan a bunch of events again. Everyone was like “What's going on?!" I had to tell the bird story at least 300 times.

Finally, about a month later, the birds flew away – I actually have it on video – and sure enough, the next day we got the call – game over.

Luckily, we'd already started construction on the new location near Ritan Park, so there was only a short gap between the old and new locations.