Copenhagen events this week

Where to go in Copenhagen: events, concerts and shows worth your night

Copenhagen is Denmark’s biggest city, and not only by size. On any night it has more concerts, club nights, exhibitions and performances than the rest of the country combined, and most of them sit within a 15-minute bike ride of each other. Below is where to go in Copenhagen when you want more than a walk along Nyhavn: the venues locals use, with addresses, and what tends to be on when.

Concerts and live music in Copenhagen: start at VEGA

Most touring acts that aren’t arena-sized play VEGA (Enghavevej 40, 1674 København V, vega.dk), a listed 1950s trade-union building in Vesterbro with three rooms: Store Vega for 1,500 standing, Lille Vega for 500, and the Ideal Bar at street level for late, cheaper gigs. It puts on around 350 concerts a year, so there is nearly always something on. In summer, Tivoli Gardens (Vesterbrogade 3) adds open-air concerts to the mix, including its long-running Friday-night series, and the whole city turns into a stage during the jazz festival in July.

Copenhagen nightlife: clubs and DJ bars in the Meatpacking District

Kødbyen, the old Meatpacking District behind Copenhagen Central Station, is the densest place to go out in Copenhagen: former slaughterhouses now filled with bars, restaurants and dance floors. The anchor is Jolene (Flæsketorvet 81–85, 1711 København V, Instagram), a no-attitude bar and club that has run house, techno and dub nights since 2007, Thursday to Saturday until the small hours. Arrive before midnight at weekends if you’d rather not queue. Nørrebro, across the lakes, is the other half of Copenhagen’s night: smaller bars, later closing, a younger crowd.

Ballet, opera and theatre in Copenhagen

The Royal Danish Theatre (kglteater.dk) runs the city’s opera and ballet across two houses: the Opera House on Holmen (Ekvipagemestervej 10, 1438 København K), across the water from Amalienborg, and the Old Stage on Kongens Nytorv, where most Royal Danish Ballet performances take place. The season runs from late August to early June, with the classic story ballets around the autumn and Christmas, and a family Nutcracker every December. Tickets for the whole season go on sale in spring, and the big titles sell out first, so book ahead if you’re visiting for a specific show.

Art galleries and museums in Copenhagen, and the one worth the train ride

Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Nyhavn 2, 1051 København K, kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk), between Kongens Nytorv and Nyhavn, is the Royal Academy’s exhibition hall: contemporary art only, three or four new shows a season, and free entry on Wednesday evenings. Its open-call Spring Exhibition, running every April and May since the 1850s, is where new Danish artists get seen first.

Cisternerne (Søndermarken, opposite the Zoo, 2000 Frederiksberg, frederiksbergmuseerne.dk) is an underground water reservoir turned exhibition space, with one site-specific installation a year by an international artist, open from mid-March to the end of November. Go on a weekday; weekend queues can be long.

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Gl. Strandvej 13, 3050 Humlebæk, louisiana.dk) is 35 minutes north by train and open until 10 pm from Tuesday to Friday, which makes it an evening out rather than a day trip: six to ten major exhibitions a year and a sculpture park on the Øresund.

Copenhagen festivals and events by season

• Early summer: Distortion, five days of free street parties moving through Nørrebro, Vesterbro and Frederiksberg before a ticketed finale by the harbour.
• Late June into July: Roskilde Festival, Northern Europe’s biggest, 30 minutes west by train, followed by the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, ten days across more than a hundred venues with hundreds of free outdoor concerts.
• August: Strøm, the electronic music festival, then Copenhagen Pride.
• Autumn: Kulturnatten, Culture Night, one Friday in October when museums, churches and government buildings stay open till midnight on a single pass; the new theatre and ballet season also opens.
• Winter: Tivoli’s Christmas season from mid-November, and the Copenhagen Light Festival in February.

Things to do in Copenhagen tonight and this weekend

The listings above are the live version of all this: every concert, show, club night and exhibition on in Copenhagen tonight, tomorrow and this weekend, with times, prices and tickets, updated every hour.