Some of you might remember my topics about a secret Zillion party...some of you not :o)
Since then I've got a lot of question about Belgium's most famous club.
I always promised I would make a topic about this and now the time seems right.

The story so far :

A few years ago Zillion was closed. Offcially because it was not safe and the owner didn't have the right permissions. Every attempt to get the right permissions was sabotaged by the city hall of Antwerp. The owner was thrown in jail for more than a year so he couldn't prevent the final closing of his club.
(they found a way to keep him in there without actually convicting him).

Last year he was released, but the club was stripped down and almost everything inside was sold.

At the end of last year the owner gave a few private parties.
I was lucky enough to get a few invitations.
Now some of the parties were closed by the police. Others could go on.
(because I was there I can say : don't believe everything that was written in the newspapers)

At the end of the year the owner decided to give a big new year party for all the Zillionairs. This was a dream come through... well not really. It was forbidden by the mayor of Antwerp.
(who had also cancelled the Xmas party. If you are looking for the Grinch: he's living in Antwerp now)

Because the food was already ordered it was decided that all the homeless people of Antwerp could come and spend the New year's eve at Zillion.
It goes without saying that this was a publicity stunt, but nontheless a noble publicity stunt. Although I'm not homeless I also went there to give my support to the owner and to help out if necessary. He showed me the letter of the mayor. He only gave his final approval at 5pm. This resulted in very little homeless people showing up. Too bad, because the few that did show up had a great time.
(The mayor didn't allow dancing, beer and opening of the main room).
When the party was over the homeless people received warm coats that were left behind in the club years ago.

The story now

The club is still closed now (and it seems it will be for a long time).
The owner is still not giving the place up, but I think he will have a hard time reopening.
There were talks of opening a new club somewhere else, but also those plans seem to be in the fridge right now.

Now where is this topic going ?
Well here's the latest news.

Last week a new party was announced. This time not private.
It's the best news I received this year and I'm so happy I want to share it with my online family. (sidenote: the day after the announcement the owner was again sentenced to 1 year of prison, but because he appealed (don't if that's the right word) the party can go on).

So everyone write it down : 24th of april Zillion : The Reunion !
I expect everyone there !
:o)

If anyone has some more questions: feel free to ask.

More info on : www.zillion.be -> check it out !

Rafke P.
Zillionair 4 life !

nice read
except you left out the part why the mayor wants the place shut down except to say he is the grinch :D
what are the missng parts ?

Well, the club was controversial from the beginning.
OK the owner did some thing which were against the law, but every self-employed man would do the same thing.
You can convict him and force him to pay money, but if you follow the complete story you will notice that there is something fishy about the way he was held in jail.

Another example : they close the place down because there are not enough fire exits. The owner says : OK I will build some more. He needs a building permission for that, but city hall refuses to deliver it.
(not that the club needs more exits imo. I witnessed a few evacuations : in a few minutes the club was empty)

On saturdays all the streets in the neighbourhood were blocked because of the many visitors. This can not be controlled by the owner. He has authority on the street. Still he was blamed for that.

The thing is : he stepped on someone's toes. I don't know who's. But that guy has to be a big shot.

Another thing is : they are building a new justice building right next to Zillion.
And they don't want the club next to it.

I know a lot of people think different about this than me.
At first I also thought the owner was a big crook, but with the latest events I'm thinking he is more a victim of a political game.

So there I was celebrating new year with the biggest crook of Belgium
(at least if I have to believe the newspapers).

and tomorrow is the first of april

Yes, you are right stachken, but the party was anounced some time ago.
It was only confirmed this week.

In any case it's not an april fools joke from me. Zillion is nothing I joke about.
It's like my Divxstation of clubs. Without it, I'm lost.

EDIT : and I think Frank Verstraeten (owner) can not afford a joke like this right now.
          He would lose the few believers he still has.

that website is crap
thats not zillion style at all

with all respect but I don't believe anything of the party

indeed: it's not Zillion style at all, it's Frank Verstraeten all the way !

This guy is a genious. He comes up with brilliant ideas, but then he needs a website to showcase these ideas very quick. Those websites really lack the Zillion style, but take a look at the banners and movies...

They are Z style.

This party is for real : trust me on that.

i hope for you it is real

so....and what did the parties had that was so special?

it ern't just pary's

it was the discothek of belgium and country's around.
all the latest technologies were there

you can't explain it.
IT jsut had it

Da-kine : good question.

I often wondered that myself. It's like stachken said : you can't explain it.
The only thing I can come up with is : frank Verstraeten. His feeling for perfection is what made this club different from all the others.
For example : every evening before the doors opened all personel had to synchronise thier watches. That sounds completely ridiculous, but it's little details like that, that made everything run smooth.
The staff was well trained. Unlike the other clubs in Belgium, they knew their "resident" customers.
The bouncers were very well organised, I once saw this huge guy thrown out by a bouncer. He only used one hand !
Then there is the technology : the lightshow was impressive and the dancefloor could drop 0,5 meter carrying several hundreds of people.
(if you want to see what the light looked like you can follow this link :
http://dj-club.martin.com/casestory/casestory.asp?id=813. It's about another who bought a lot of stuff at the public auction of Zillion).
The sound was also very clear.

Ofcourse all this technology can be copied and so they did.
In Hasselt they opened Versuz with almost the same interior as Zillion and a lot of the old crew, but still they miss something.
(and I think that something is Frank Verstraeten)
Versuz now sucks donkeyballs.

Another important factor is the building. When I was there at end of last year it felt like returning home. So I don't want Zillion to open on another location.
The current building is the only one that can live up to the expectations.

For those who are interested here's the old article about one of the private parties : http://divxstation.com/comm/thread.asp?i=1&t=35344&r=6

Just for the record : for the new years party I had bought 4 tickets.
That cost me : 2x69 + 2x89 euro. When the party was cancelled I got my money back without problems.
This time the party is held in Lommel, where the mayor of Antwerp has no authority. I'm sure it will be closely monitored by the police, but I'm confident that the party will take place. (and this time it's only 10 minutes from my house :o) )

Rafke

aah, i still remember that you were a Zillion fan, not really my type of music/place, but nice for the fans that it's kind of coming back.

indeed pity that they were focussing so hard on Zillion!

well, i'm happy for you =)
hadox

To all who thought this was a april fools joke : I got my 4 tickets and there are commercials on all mayor Belgian and Dutch TV stations.
This party is going to kick ass.

Unfortunately there's also some bad news.

Frank Verstraeten (owner of the club) has always claimed that his club was judged by different standards than others. Recently he has sent around a letter to prove this. The letter was called "XXL The Easter Edition".
In this letter FV claimed that CLub X-XXL was going to organise a party for which it doesn't have the correct licenses (Vlarem). The club doesn't have a building permission and there will probably be more people in the club than allowed.
These are the exact same reasons why ZIllion was closed.

CLub X-XXL has the same lawyer as the mayor of the Antwerp (in his case against Zillion). He was able to get a court order to silence FV in this matter.
Fine is set at 5000euro for every letter he sends.

You can read the court order over here (in dutch) :
http://www.3d69.be/ZILLION/xxl/xxl.htm

A nice proof, that there was nothing wrong with Zillion , but that it's a personal vendetta against FV.

/me wonders who's behind this. It must be someone big.

I have lost all faith (at least what was left of it) in the justice system.

Rafke

RafkeP : there is a lot that you don't know.
you only see the beautifull site.
I have been there more then once to do some repairings on the itelligent light.i was a freelancer for light and sound equipment and what I saw and heard there ......

I think stach is right. What about the stuff that went on with Brigitaa and so on. And the fireworks that were stocked underneeth the dancefloor. Now I know Zillion had a unique atmosphere. I knew Mike Thompson an Mario (Zillion's resident DJ's) and they have been in the scene for a long time and knew very well what they were doing. They knew how to build atmosphere and in combination with the unique light & sound system (THX certified) the club had a life of it's own. Maybe it got a little bit too big for Frank to handle. Those things you don't exactly shout off the rooftops. But it's good news indeed. Hope the party is still gonna be held. And as for the Antwerp governement, Well no comment..... Hope that says enough :)

If you have things on tape (security cams) and you want to use it agains people don't think you will run away with it for free if you understand what I mean.

I'm in the evenement business for several years now.Heard a lot of storys.Allright mostly only 1/10th of what they are telling is truebut even then....

FV was good but he wasn't a saint.

Stacken, you were involved in the maintenance of my heaven ? You are a god !

I know the man is not a saint and I would certainly not give him my last savings (unlike some other people), but Zillion was closed for the wrong reasons.

You have to agree that the man was held in jail in some strange way.
(even my mother thinks that and she doens't like the man at all :o) )

I've been to the privates and read the newspaper the day after.
It was nothing like described in the article.

The fact that some private parties were allowed by the police shows that they were in line with the regulations.

I'm not too familiar with Vlarem, but I believe it contains exceptions for new year. So that party could have taken place.

Oh well, we will probably never find the thruth and the club will probably remain closed. At least I have my memories and no mayor is going to take that away.

But I will keep fighting for bringing back that Z-feeling :o)

Movieripper : about the fireworks. I often think about that myself.
But where did you get the information about the amount ?
From the newspapers, right ? They have already proven to be unreliable.

The fireworks were a big part of the atmosphere in Zillion. Now if you were the owner, where would you store it ? Well, I for one would put it in my basement.
Don't forget Frank's appartement is above the club, so it's in his own benefit that his building doesn't blow up.

The Brigitta story. She was has GF for a long time. She had to know were the cameras were and what was taped. You can be naïve, but Brigitta is far from that. (if I were doing Brigitta it would certainly tape it myself :o) )
It was proven that she stole some documents from Zillion to blackmail FV.

Remember how Frank was accused for the homejacking ?
He was put in jail for that. The club was closed. He was judged "not guilty".
He was released, but the club remained closed.

Again stories from which we will never know the thruth.

Indeed? So lets give him the benefit of the doubt but not get carried away. That man had a lot of power (if you build a project out of the ground that big as Zillion you have to know people) to get certain things done but also things like that can go to your head.

A nice story to add to this:

on new year's eve at the party in the zillion, Franky boy had a little present for all the people present.

At the 00:00 he dropped 1 million belgian francs (25 000€) from the sky, in bills of 25€. So everybody tried to catch one of those bills.

Very generous of him, and a nice present you would say, no?

Off course, Franky isn't stupid, he wrote down every number of the bill he threw out, and the next day, when counting his things, over 80% of the bills came back!!! Most of them along with even extra cash attached to it.

So he knew what he was doing...

Yup. Is like throwing a bone. This is not even humain.

Yeah Daxy I remember that night : I caught 800 belgian franks (20 euro) and my friend 1200 (30 euro). It was the first time I saw FV.
I still believe it was inspired by The Joker in Batman 1 :o)

It has something like : bow down before me people for I am your god.
But who cares ? Ofcourse I spent that 800 bef later that night.
That money would have been spent anyway, except now it wasn't my money.
It was a publicity stunt, but no matther how you turn it : it's was also a gift.

The fact that he wrote down the serial numbers shows how genious he really is.

The next year we went to celebrate with 6 people there.
For 1 round of drinks I had to pay 115 euros. I sure wish he had given away money that evening.

It was reallly a gift? Please!!! If that same money came back it's indeed showing off and saying "bow down before me cause I am your god". Just give away the drinks for free, would've been just the same without showing off. That ain't genius, it's abusive even. Abusive of people's situations. Ofcorse those people were happy, they had money to spend wich wasn't theirs, but then again, what was the point if that same money came back. As a publicity stunt it's lame!

You got a good point there Movieripper.

Still, if he had given away free drinks, Daxy wouldn't have brought it up several years later. So it was a good publicty stunt.

Yes he used me for a publicity stunt, but hey I don't have a problem with that as long as I benefit from it.

Yes he used the homeless people for publicity with new year, but if you are homeless and hungry and someone wants to feed you and give you a nice evening in exchange for publicity... I think that's a pretty good deal.
It's almost like Chris Rock says : a real homeless person is too hungry to be funny (or something like that)

You can also look at it the other way : we all paid FV to entertain us.
So who is abusing who ? It's just a business agreement.

Yeah Nice Stunt, but if FV had done it here in Singapore

I guess u would be seeing the Club on the Verve of Closing :)

Here if u threw money to people they would most likely pocket it for lunch or Dinner & a show the next day :) & most probably order Sky juice @ the club because its free :)