Italy's Most Overtouristed City By Day Hosts Europe's Hottest Hardcore Punk Rock Scene By Night

Venice is a world-renowned city popular for its meandering alleyways, singing gondoliers, and being one of the most "overtouristed" destinations in Italy, but surprisingly, it is also home to one of Europe's most hardcore punk rock scenes. While wide-eyed visitors enjoy romantic gondola rides and walk through cobblestone streets and bridges, this unexpected community, known for distorted guitars and anti-establishment lyrics, has its own thriving subculture right in Marghera.  Much like New York, Venice has administrative boroughs within its municipality, and Marghera is one of them. That's right, this charmingly quaint Mediterranean port city, host to over 15,000 tourists per day, comes even more alive at night with its underground clubs and punk music amidst the colorful backdrop of Venetian architecture like St. Mark's Bell Tower, the tallest structure in Venice offering the best panoramic view. 

Venice's punk scene exploded with the creation of the first Venezia Hardcore Fest back in 2013, beginning as a grassroots movement and eventually transforming into a mecca for hardcore punks. The Hardcore Fest took a hiatus in 2020 for a couple of years but was back in full force in 2023 for it's 10th year milestone and post-pandemic return. The Venezia Hardcore Fest is still going strong, celebrating year after year of music and mosh pits in Marghera, where folks dance in circle pits and crowd surf over other sweaty bodies as a lineup of 30 bands rocks the crowd. This two-day music festival even features a skate ramp where skaters can shred and showcase their extreme moves. Who would have thought that this fairytale city of romance and canals would have such a bustling underground hardcore punk community?

Marghera is located in an industrial area of the city near port and cruise terminals and not the typical area where a tourist might wander to on their romantic vacation to Venice, making it the perfect location for a local hardcore punk rock club scene. Located in this industrial hub is the Centro Sociale Rivolta, home of the Venezia Hardcore Fest, an old abandoned factory in the industrial district now turned into a space for concerts and cultural events. CS Rivolta captures the spirit of the punk scene as a place originating in rebellion to create a space that fosters growth and new ideas. Centro Sociale Rivolta carries the zeitgeist of the punk ideal and proves how powerful music is in bringing this community together.

The Venezia Hardcore Fest was first conceptualized in 2013 as an event to unify people through music and is still drawing crowds to this day with its wide array of hardcore, grunge, rock, and metal performers and fans. You can almost picture crowds of hardcore punks walking through the streets of Venice with their skateboards and screamo shirts on their way to the CS Rivolta to enjoy a good mosh pit. The Venezia Hardcore Crew should be proud of what they have accomplished for their hardcore community, considering bands from all over the world come to perform at the Venezia Hardcore Fest, including Jivebomb from Baltimore, Arma X from Madrid, Bongzilla from Wisconsin, and London's High Vis. It's pretty incredible and uplifting to think this all started with three twenty-something guys, bored with life, who wanted to do something by the people and for the people, just throwing around ideas in a parking lot one day. 

During the Venezia Hardcore Fest, there is ample space at the CS Rivolta for punk rockers to watch the bands, mingle with merch booth merchants and compete with other skaters at the indoor ramp. One can imagine masses of hardcore punk enthusiasts gathering along the industrial graffitied landscape juxtaposed against Venice's cathedrals and historic buildings, rocking out to screamcore bands like Raein, Face Your Enemy, and The End of Six Thousand Years, and almost feel a sense of surrealism. The festival, run completely by volunteers, features two stages for bands to perform on and a different lineup of bands each year. The venue tends to draw a huge crowd throughout the weekend, and the mosh pits get wilder and wilder as the event goes on.

The Centro Sociale Rivolta is not only a concert venue, it is an epicenter of a social movement based on anti-capitalist activism and an inspiration for punk rock ideology; it is sometimes a gathering place for organizing protests and encouraging people to vote. Even the inception of the venue is steeped in punk rock lore, taken over by squatters in 1995. Since then, it has been a place for artists and activists to gather and express their thoughts, and for those with a common ideology to voice their collective anger and resistance to the establishment whether it be through music or mixed media. As long as there is social unrest, there will be underground movements and a desire for the collective to join together and voice their anger, in hopes that someone will listen. Venezia Hardcore Crew has found a place where they can do just that, the CS Rivolta, a gathering place for punk rockers and hardcore fans alike.