Connecting the live music industry
Danish venue TRAIN enters a new chapter in Aarhus
August25
One of Denmark’s most legendary and important live music venues, TRAIN is entering a new chapter with a purpose-built venue at Sydhavnen in Aarhus. VIP-News spoke with CEO Carsten V. Nielsen about the move and the new opportunities it will create.
After 28 years at its long-standing home in Toldbodgade, TRAIN is preparing to open a new chapter in Denmark’s second-largest city, Aarhus, with the launch of a new purpose-built venue at Sydhavnen in September 2026.
The move marks one of the most significant developments in the venue’s history, expanding TRAIN’s production possibilities and strengthening its ability to accommodate a broader range of national and international touring artists.
Founded in 1998 by Chris Anker-Petersen with the ambition of bringing rock back to Aarhus, TRAIN has since become an established part of Denmark’s live music infrastructure.
VIP-News spoke with CEO Carsten V. Nielsen about the strategy behind the new venue, TRAIN’s relationship with external promoters and agents, the changing Aarhus concert market, and whether the original mission of bringing rock to the city remains relevant nearly three decades later.
After 28 years at the same location, why was now the right time to move TRAIN, and what will the new venue allow you to do that you couldn’t do before?
Toldbodgade has been a loyal and important home for us for nearly 3 decades, and played a huge role in making TRAIN what it is today. But the building also placed some natural limitations on what we could do – both in terms of production, capacity, logistics, service and the overall experience for artists and audiences.
The new venue at Sydhavnen gives us the opportunity to build the venue around the needs of an updated and more modern live music operation rather than adapting our operation to an existing building. That is a significant change.
It gives us more space, much better production facilities and greater flexibility, while also allowing us to create better working conditions for artists and our staff - and, not least a stronger experience for the audience.
So this isn’t simply about getting bigger. It is about creating better and more future-proof conditions for the live music in Aarhus.
What does the new setup mean in practical terms – capacity, production and the kind of artists and shows you’ll now be able to bring to Aarhus?
Our new venue has two concert halls, with capacities of approximately 1,500 and 350 standing guests. First and foremost, this means an increased overall capacity, and secondly, a far greater flexibility in scheduling our concert lineup
Production-wise, this is a major step forward. Both halls have been designed with modern concert production in mind, including new and improved sound, acoustics, lighting and technical infrastructure. The stage size, clearance, and access conditions are significantly larger, higher, and overall, improved by far.
Combined, it allows us to work with an even broader range of artists - both national and international.
How do you work as a venue commercially? Do you mainly promote the shows yourselves, or can outside promoters come in and rent TRAIN for their own shows?
It`s basically a combination.
We do present a fair amount of our concerts by ourselves, but on the other hand, we have a long and extensive tradition of collaborating with external organisers. In some extension, also on external stages, larger or smaller than our own. In other instances, it can be a more straightforward presentation by an external organiser who rents the venue.
We`re not bound by a specific model for concert promotion; instead, we strive to create the best possible, flexible venue, where we aim to create the best framework and conditions for each individual concert.
How do you work with promoters and agents when it comes to bringing artists to TRAIN? Are there partnerships you’ve built up over the years that are particularly important?
Relationships are absolutely fundamental to what we do - and what we in the end, are able to present in our programme.
Live music is still very much a relationship business - and based on trust. Promoters and agents need to know and experience that a venue will deliver professionally, that the production will be handled properly, that the audience will be there - and both them and the artist will have a good and secure experience.
As a venue, we have shown and proven over many years that we work consistently and professionally to ensure the best possible concert production for everyone. Now, at Sydhavnen, we have even better conditions to secure that.
With a bigger and better-equipped venue, will you now be going after shows that previously might have gone to Copenhagen or other Danish cities?
Yes, absolutely – but it`s not a simple competition between Aarhus and any other Danish city.
First and foremost, this is about creating a better and more attractive framework for live music. To expand the music scene in Denmark, and naturally, especially to expand the opportunities for the western part of the country. To promote an increased balance, due to a new and attractive scene and setting. Not necessarily at the expense of venues in other cities, but as a supplement to bring even more concerts to the entire country.
Denmark is a small country, and our audience comes from north and south, east and west - just as they do in the capital. Aarhus is centrally located, the country`s second-largest city, with the youngest population percentage, very good infrastructure, a large surrounding region, and is generally an obvious choice for stop on international tours.
Aarhus is obviously competing with Copenhagen – and to some extent other cities in Northern Europe – for international tours. What do you think Aarhus needs to do to get more of those tours through the city?
TRAIN has a long history of presenting a strong international lineup of major global artists. We continue to do so, but the live scene has also changed in recent years, e.g. with artists` tour production costs rising significantly, thereby tightening the demands for profitability regarding ticket sales, capacity, and tour length. This imposes new demands on venues, where, not least, the potential revenue from ticket sales can become crucial for a tour stop. In several cases reduced to one tour-stop in Denmark. We need to challenge that - and at the same time secure the means and goals to do so.
So, first of all, we need what we got now, a bigger venue with a relevant capacity. But that`s not enough; at the same time, we must ensure that we have a fully functional, professionally run, service-minded and modern venue that is attractive to both musicians and the audience. And last, but not least, we have to maintain our collaboration and relationship with agents and promoters to secure they see us as a preferred and attractive venue.
When Chris Anker-Petersen started TRAIN back in 1998, one of the ideas was to “get rock back to Aarhus”. Do you think TRAIN has managed to do that – and is that still part of what TRAIN is about today?
I am not really sure that TRAIN has ever restricted itself to a single genre, but the venue certainly succeeded in elevating the music scene in the city - and presenting major national and international acts that would not have performed otherwise.
Over the years, the profile has fortunately developed further, reflecting a much more diverse music scene with room for far more genres than just rock. As a venue, we prefer not to be locked into specific, narrow genres. Instead, we would much rather reflect the breadth and dynamics naturally inherent in the evolution and relevance of music through different times.
We still love rock. No question about it, but definitely not as the only choice.
Running live venues has become more expensive, while there’s also a limit to what audiences are willing to pay for tickets. How difficult is it to make the economics of a venue like TRAIN work today?
Like any other business, we need to work smart and efficiently. At the same time, balancing the economy has become a real challenge. Almost every aspect of putting on a concert has become more expensive – production, staffing, transport, security, energy and the cost of running the building itself. At the same time, ticket prices cannot simply increase at the same rate, because audiences also have their financial limits.
That means we have to become more professional and more efficient in the way we operate. For TRAIN, the new venue is partly an answer to that challenge. Scale and flexibility matter. Capacity and being able to operate two rooms, improve production efficiency and create better conditions for different types of shows gives us more opportunities to build a sustainable overall operation.
Fortunately, Denmark has a strong live music culture. Danish audiences are generally a live-concert-loving-people, very willing to go to concerts, while the Danish music scene is broad, diverse and constantly developing with new talent and emerging artists. That creates a very good match.
There is, of course, a limit to what audiences are willing to pay for a concert. Combined with rising costs for both artists and venues, this creates a genuine challenge. That is why we need to secure a strong, diverse and high-quality programme, while presenting it in a modern and professional setting. If we can get that balance right, we can create a sustainable economy for the venue, fair and reliable income opportunities for musicians and artists, and a strong value-for-money experience for the audience.
We believe that TRAIN’s new venue at Sydhavnen is an important step towards achieving exactly that.
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