When: 01.10.2026, 11:15-12:15
Where: Albert Hall (Albertgasse 35, 1080 Wien)
Participation: Sign up & registration required (More info below <3)

Vienna’s Gürtel is one of the city’s most active nightlife areas, and this year, the Waves Vienna Festival will take place across its venues. At the same time, it is also a space where questions of safety, access and coexistence are continuously contested and negotiated.

As part of the Neighbourhoods for All project, the Gürtel serves as a pilot area to explore how safety in nightlife spaces can be approached from different angles. Bringing together perspectives from urban planning, nightlife advocacy, technology and club practice, this panel reflects on how safety is currently understood, experienced and addressed.

Who gets to feel safe in nightlife spaces, and who doesn’t? What kinds of changes, from infrastructure to policy to in-house security measures, are needed? And what can be learned from specific contexts like the Gürtel when thinking about broader, long-term change?

Panelists:

esti – HYPERTRASH & Ärger
esti is a DJand organizer in Vienna's queer-alternative nightlife scene. They are known for their love of eccentric and abrasive yet pop heavy sounds. Platforming electronic subgenres and providing physical spaces through their work at HYPERTRASH and Ärger.

Carlotta Marceau – SafeNow
Carlotta is a social innovation manager with a focus on change management in public space. At SafeNow, a mobile safety app company, she is a Senior Customer Success Manager, working on complex client projects that bring together partner venues, event organisers, and cross-functional teams – translating on-the-ground realities into practical, safer solutions for public and event spaces, including through the Neighbourhoods for All (NfA) project in Vienna.

Amir Salem – VibeLab
Amir is a project lead and researcher specialising in urban and night-time policy. At VibeLab, he leads research and advocacy projects on safer, more inclusive nightlife for city governments worldwide. His work brings together people across nightlife, from club operators and cultural workers to decision-makers, translating findings into evidence-based policy recommendations, including through the Neighbourhoods for All (NfA) project in Vienna.

Maggy Samojljuk – Club Lucia
Maggy has worked at Vienna's Gürtel for over ten years, and at Lucia she's more than just a booker – she's part of the place. Music should be for everyone, no matter where you come from: that's what she stands for, along with diversity in the scene.

Sabine Lutz – Stadt Wien
Sabine studied architecture and regional planning and has been working for the City of Vienna since 2014. Since 2023, she has been the programme coordinator for the Gründerzeitviertel/Westgürtel target area, one of Vienna’s strategic urban development areas. Her work focuses on climate-resilient neighbourhoods, sustainable mobility, the design and improvement of public spaces, and strengthening participation and local identity.

Moderation:

Djamila Grandits – D–Arts
Djamila is a Vienna-based curator. Part of CineCollective and D—Arts. Her practice is grounded in care and curiosity for (moving) image cultures, media practices and collective movements. In her research she is looking into moments of trouble, rupture and glitch as speculative (curatorial) movements emerging from discomfort. Djamila works as a moderator and as a strategic and dramaturgical consultant on the intersection of cultural production and anti-discriminatory, transformative practice.

About Waves Vienna

Since 2022,  Waves Vienna has had a new leitmotif besides the conference focus on East meets West: diversity. Since then, each year a new aspect from the large range of topics is worked on as a red thread for the discourse and festival programme. While the live programme features a wide variety of national and international acts, the conference offers a diverse discourse programme with panels, keynotes, workshops, master classes, and many networking opportunities. The large range of topics is worked on as a red thread for discourse and the festival programme.

Conference

The Waves Vienna Conference constitutes a part of the festival offering the possibility to attend lectures and panels as well as to participate in workshops and masterclasses. The subject-specific programme will deal with the topic „East meets West“ serving as the basis and inspiration for many years of pan-European cooperation.

Community Special

A limited number of free tickets are available for the first day of the Waves Vienna Conference (regular price: €39–85). Make sure to register for the panel discussion early – tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis!

Registration

Please make sure to sign up for the event here.
And register here to get your free Waves Conference ticket.
Please make sure to have your ticket/QR code on hand, as this is required to join the Conference <3