C2C Festival, Italy’s preeminent avant-pop music event, made its much-anticipated U.S. debut on Friday, May 9, transforming Queens’ Knockdown Center into a hub of genre-defying sound and experimental performance.
Coinciding with Frieze Art Week, the inaugural North American edition of the festival showcased the bold creative vision that has defined its two-decade legacy in Turin.
Presented in partnership with New York-based creative studio MATTE and the Knockdown Center, C2C Festival NYC brought a boundary-pushing lineup to the 50,000-square-foot former factory space in Maspeth. The one-day event featured powerful and eclectic performances from Oneohtrix Point Never, Nala Sinephro, Two Shell, evilgiane, Jlin, John Glacier, Kode9, Nick León, Dave P and Devon Turnbull/Ojas.
One of the evening’s most poignant moments came during Oneohtrix Point Never’s set, when Daniel Lopatin (OPN) paused to honor Sergio Ricciardone, the late founder and director of C2C Festival, who passed away on March 11 at the age of 53.
“We recently lost a member of our community, Sergio Ricciardone,” Lopatin told the crowd. “Someone who believed in me and supported me from very early on. I wanna dedicate this show to you, Sergio.”
From its origins in the early 2000s as Club To Club, the festival has grown into one of Europe’s most progressive music platforms. Since its 20th anniversary in 2022, C2C has symbolized its evolution with a new emblem: a winged figure representing the “future state of the body.”
The symbol embodies the festival’s commitment to bodily freedom, collective experience, and artistic enlightenment—a mission clearly reflected in its first American showcase.
Friday’s program highlighted that ethos with immersive and unconventional performances that blurred the lines between club culture, contemporary art, and experimental sound. True to its identity, C2C NYC brought together artists who challenge musical boundaries and redefine live performance.
The event’s setting, the Knockdown Center in Maspeth, added another layer of historical and architectural resonance. Once a glass and door-frame factory, the building is now a dynamic cultural venue that supports interdisciplinary programming, making it an ideal home for C2C’s stateside arrival.
For MATTE, the collaboration underscores its decade-long mission of fostering creative intersections between brands, artists, and audiences. Together with C2C and Knockdown Center, the team created a singular experience that bridged continents, cultures, and cutting-edge artistry.
As C2C Festival plants its flag in New York, its debut feels less like a detour and more like a natural extension of its global artistic language—one that speaks fluently in rhythm, resonance and radical imagination.
