Refuge NYC to Celebrate 1-Year Anniversary With Monthlong Showcase: ‘We’re Not Even Half Done With What We Want Refuge to Become’

Refuge NYC is going all in on its 1st birthday, with the club planning a one-year anniversary celebration set to last a month.

On Wednesday (Aug. 12), the club announced a stacked lineup for this four-week event, with the bill featuring Gabriel & Dresden, David Morales, The Martinez Brothers, Two shell, a 12-hour set from Deep Dish and more. The 15-night run starts Sept 5 and ends Sept. 27 with Brothers Macklovitch, the duo composed of IRL brothers A-Trak and Dave 1 from Chromeo. See the complete lineup below.

Founded by longtime nightlife figures John Dimatteo and Craig “Shorty” Bernabeu, Refuge NYC opened in September of 2025 with a vision for an intimate, dancefloor-focused space built around a state-of-the-art soundsystem. They’ve surely succeeded, with Dimatteo and Bernabeu reporting that in the club’s first year, the space has put on roughly 210 events that have collectively brought in more than 100,000 guests.

“In many ways, we still feel like we’re just getting started,” the pair tell Billboard in a joint statement. They in fact say they’re only halfway done building the club to their vision, with the latest addition being a custom-built, four-corner analog sound system for Refuge’s new outdoor space. This “version 1.0 of the Refuge Courtyard,” as they call it, opens Aug. 15 with Dutch artist Julian Fijma, followed by Brooklyn’s own Tee Em Dee on Aug. 16.

Speaking to Billboard via email, Dimatteo and Bernabeu here discuss the first year of Refuge.

What have been the highlights of the club’s first year?

The biggest highlight has been seeing Refuge grow so quickly from something embraced by our local community into a destination for the global dance music community. The fact that people have been making trips to come here blows our mind.

In our first year, we’ve hosted more than 210 events and welcomed over 100,000 guests. Eventbrite data alone shows people traveling to Refuge from approximately 1,300 cities across 73 countries and six continents. It’s also been exciting to see a healthy all-night and after-hours culture return to New York.
Ultimately, the highlight has been watching a real community form around Refuge, from our neighbors in Brooklyn to people traveling from around the world to dance with us.

What have been the major challenges?

The biggest challenge has been navigating an ongoing construction project while operating a busy venue at the same time. We’re not even halfway done with what we ultimately want Refuge to become, and we’re constantly balancing improvements with day-to-day operations.

Right now, we’re in the middle of adding more bathrooms while continuing to host events every week. Behind that is a lot of work people don’t see: permits, compliance, inspections and all the logistics that come with continuing to build while operating a venue almost around the clock on weekends. We opened Refuge knowing that the vision was much larger than what we could build on day one, so in many ways we jumped off a cliff and started building the airplane on the way down.

At the same time, we’ve had to scale our team and infrastructure without compromising the sound, programming, hospitality and attention to detail that made people connect with Refuge in the first place.
Ultimately, these are good problems to have. They’re the challenges that come with growing faster than we expected while continuing to build toward a vision that is much bigger than what Refuge is today.

What role is Refuge playing in the grand scheme of NYC nightlife?

New York has always had a home for electronic music. You can trace that lineage from The Loft and Paradise Garage to Sound Factory, Twilo and the clubs that followed: places that stayed open well into the morning, welcomed people from every walk of life, introduced new sounds and helped push the culture forward.

As electronic music became mainstream, commercialization, bottle service and VIP culture changed much of the clubbing experience for our music, and some of the key fundamentals of our scene were lost in the interest of profits. We want Refuge to uphold the fundamentals of a proper dance music club: music and sound come first, the dance floor is sacred, everyone is welcome, and the experience is about the collective rather than status or exclusivity.

That also means challenging the outdated idea of what “after-hours” means. Some people stay out until sunrise; others wake up early, grab a coffee and come dance at 6 or 7 in the morning. We see both every weekend. It’s about respecting where the culture came from while helping push it forward for today and for future generations.

How do you plan to keep innovating in terms of booking, sounds, etc.?

Musically, we stay immersed in what’s happening on the dance floor and in constant conversation with artists, labels, promoters and producers. We don’t look at follower counts or Spotify statistics when deciding who belongs on a Refuge lineup. In fact, our founders don’t even have Spotify accounts. We’re not picking stocks. We’re programming a dance floor.

A lot of it is instinct, but instinct only works if you’re paying attention. We combine our own personal taste with what we’re seeing and hearing in the club. The dance floor ultimately tells us more than an algorithm ever could. We’re equally excited by timeless legacy artists and emerging talent, both on a national and local level. That intersection between generations is particularly exciting to us. Great music doesn’t have an expiration date. For us, innovation isn’t about chasing trends. It’s about trusting our ears, our instincts and the dance floor while continually evolving the Refuge experience.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

We also want to say thank you. Refuge would not exist without the artists, our staff, our partners, our neighbors, the local community, the people who supported us before we opened, and everyone who has walked through our doors over the past year.

Refuge One Year Anniversary Celebration Schedule
September 5: Gabriel & Dresden
September 5: David Morales
September 6: Natasha Diggs
September 10: Vanjee
September 11: Volen Sentir, George Hewek
September 12: Rodriguez Jr Live.
September 12: Cuttin headz with The Martinez Brothers
September 17: Two Shell
September 18: Chris Liebing, Black Asteroid, Akua
September 19: Ahadadream
September 19: John DiMatteo + Serge Devant
September 25: Deep Dish 12 hour set
September 26: Victor Calderone, Shahar
September 27: Brothers Macklovitch