· 1 min read · portrait · collectif · madrid · hard-techno
Blackworks : Madrid's itinerant hard techno collective
From 200 people in a club to 30,000 at IFEMA in under five years : Blackworks is the hard techno movement that tipped Madrid. Founded in 2019 around Dexphase, early backer of Nico Moreno and Trym, now a giant festival rivalling Fabrik. Portrait of a Gen Z phenomenon.
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🎚️ From Dexphase to a movement
Blackworks was born in Madrid in 2019. Behind the name : Daniel Novoa, aka Dexphase, 21 at the time, working in a clothing shop, studying international business and handing out flyers in clubs at night. The first nights drew 200 people to small rooms, with local and national artists. The project started as a club, then shifted fast : a label, then an event agency. Seven years on, Blackworks is a fifteen-strong team and one of the engines of Spanish hard techno, a world away from Madrid's megaclub scene.
🔊 The booking instinct
The sound is hard techno, no detour. But what built Blackworks' credibility is the instinct : booking Nico Moreno, Trym and Charlie Sparks before those names became today's headliners. Spot them early, programme them early, before the hype. That trailblazer signature is what separates a collective from a plain promoter.
🏟️ From 200 to 30,000
The real jump is the scale. Blackworks first took over the big recintos : La Cubierta de Leganés for a Halloween 2023 with Verknipt, a New Year's with Boiler Room. Then the statement in March 2025 : their first own festival at IFEMA, in Madrid's giant pavilions. In under five years the collective went from 200 people in a club to 30,000 under the IFEMA halls, going head to head with Fabrik the same weekend as CODE. It's also a generational marker : hard techno as a post-pandemic Gen Z phenomenon, a crowd that was twenty at reopening and exploded into the recintos.
📍 Blackworks in 2026
The year is packed and ever wider. Open Air at Port de Sagunt near Valencia on 11 and 12 July, an anniversary at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya near Barcelona on 11 September, back to IFEMA on 25 September, plus dates in Pamplona, Mallorca, Tenerife and Zaragoza. The movement even spills beyond Spain, from Budapest to Croatia. To follow along, the official site and the collective's agenda on calrave.