Abandoned shopping centre to be transformed into club festival

Stinsen opened in 1995 and was once one of Stockholm’s largest shopping centres. Then the shops left one by one, and today the premises stand empty. Only two gyms remain.

On 27 November, the place will come alive again, as the new festival Mall Call moves in and fills 30,000 square metres of shopping centre with electronic dance music.

The set-up is a club festival with two larger stages, plus everything that can fit inside the small shops around them. According to organiser Love Lagerberg, they will take over old pharmacies, opticians and sweet shops, with surprises promised along the way – including a secret bar hidden where visitors least expect it. The inspiration comes from Drumsheds in London, a club housed in a former IKEA store.

There’s a reason the festival is heading to Sollentuna. Stockholm’s music scene has been moving outwards in recent years, from Slakthusområdet to Frihamnen, and now north to Häggvik. In an interview with DN, Lagerberg describes the aesthetic of the forgotten as exciting, with escalators and shopping trolleys still in place. There’s something ghostly about it, as he puts it.

And it’s temporary. Plans for housing in the area have been in place for some time, and Lagerberg describes the festival as a snapshot of a place that is already undergoing change.

The first artists for Mall Call will be announced on 31 August.