The C2C Festival, a renowned international music event celebrating contemporary and experimental sounds, will make its U.S. debut next year at the Knockdown Center in Maspeth.
The Italian festival is co-presented by MATTE, a creative company based in New York. Scheduled for May 9, 2025, it will feature a diverse lineup that spans genres such as electronic music, jazz, pop, rap, and more.
The festival’s lineup includes Oneohtrix Point Never (OPN), Nala Sinephro, Two Shell, EVILGIANE, and John Glacier, all returning to the C2C stage with new productions. Sinephro is known for her ambient jazz compositions, while Two Shell focuses on EDM and club music. EVILGIANE, an American rapper and producer based in Brooklyn and London-based rapper-producer John Glacier, will also perform.
OPN, an experimental electronic music producer, will present “Again2” with live puppetry and a video by NYC-based digital artist Freeka Tet. Additional lineup details will be announced soon.
Since its inception in the early 2000s, the C2C Festival has grown from a major European dance event to an international celebration of contemporary and experimental music. It is now recognized as a platform for avant-garde and genre-defying artists.
“Bringing the C2C Festival to the U.S. marks a pivotal milestone in the festival’s long journey,” said Sergio Ricciardone, Founder and Director of C2C Festival. “C2C has grown into a global platform for contemporary and avant-garde music. Choosing the Knockdown Center for our first U.S. edition aligns perfectly with our vision.”
“Bold and forward-thinking, the C2C Festival is excited to share its distinctive artistic vision with new communities,” Ricciardone added. “This event will foster cultural exchange while continuing to recontextualize music and art on a global scale.”
With its 22nd anniversary celebrated in 2024, the festival has a cross-genre aesthetic and shines a light on evolving transglobal scenes, recontextualizing music culture and art forms through immersive performances in unique environments and extraordinary locations.
The Knockdown Center is a fitting venue for the event as it aims to create a radically cross-disciplinary environment. The particularity of its architectural environment and history leads them to ‘gravitate toward projects that demonstrate a sensitive reactivity to site and environment.’
This 50,000-square-foot building has been continuously used for more than 100 years: first as the Gleason-Tiebout glass factory, then as the Manhattan Door factory. It is named for the Knock-Down door frame, which Samuel Sklar invented in 1956 and remains an industry standard.
Tickets to C2C Festival NYC are available here.
