AEF2026: AFTER

This summer, Athens Epidaurus Festival's main city venue, the former industrial complex in Pireos 260, celebrates 20 years as one of the city’s most vital cultural meeting points. Under the artistic direction of Michail Marmarinos, this year’s landmark programme unfolds across two months of theatre, dance, music, performance, and multidisciplinary works, bringing together more than 50 events by acclaimed international artists alongside some of the most exciting voices from Greece’s contemporary scene. Pireos 260 will live through the Athenian summer as a dynamic space where emerging creators, established names, and curious audiences come together to explore what contemporary performance can be today. New collaborations, technology-driven works, and immersive experiences sit alongside bold theatrical productions, live music, and cutting-edge choreography.

Amongst these multi-genre experiences is AFTER, a brand-new, late-night music series curated by Dimitris Tsakas and Iro Nikolaou. Turning Pireos 260 into an independent micro-concert venue, this initiative keeps the festival energy buzzing long after the main stage shows fall silent. Alternating between the open-air Garden and the central Platea, the 13-night programme blends jazz, rock, psych-pop, electronics, and traditional rhythms into an unpredictable after-hours hub where the music starts exactly at midnight.

Late-Night Lineup

29/05: Opening Party: Local psych-rockers CHICKN return from a four-year hiatus with a set of krautrock and space folk, sharing the bill with Eleni Papalitsa (GVG LOU) for a dose of queer-pop performance art.

05/06: Metaman delivers an analog synth journey bridging atmospheric trip-hop and acid rave.

10/06: The Camerata Junior string quartet performs minimalist and cinematic scores by Philip Glass, Jonny Greenwood, and Ludovico Einaudi.

14/06: Sokratis Sinopoulos and Yann Keerim present Topos, a creative dialogue for lyra and piano improvising over Bela Bartok’s folk dances.

22/06: Televisio channels a cinematic blend of 1970s Anadolu funk and contemporary trip-hop rhythms.

30/06: The Dimitris Tsakas Trio sparks a vivid, drum-and-bass-backed jazz conversation led by the series co-curator.

01/07: The Bonnie Nettles bring high-energy, fuzzy guitars from the forefront of the local indie-psych scene.

05/07: The Serafeim Bellos New Generation Quartet pairs experienced drumming with a new wave of jazz talent tackling American classics.

12/07: Berlin-based artist Krista Papista stages Heartmode, a site-specific hybrid live performance mixing Mediterranean mysticism, experimental EDM, and traditional tsifteteli loops.

18/07: The George Kontrafouris Baby Trio showcases a high-octane roster of young jazz talent driven by the rich sounds of the Hammond organ.

20/07: Nikkolas Dashy spins a late-night DJ set fusing house and tech grooves with Afrohouse and Mediterranean beats.

22/07: Billie Kark presents an ethereal yet highly danceable concert combining electronic synth-pop with traditional polyphonic influences.

27/07: Closing Party: Traditional music ensemble Kideria throws an authentic folk feast (panigiri), drawing songs from across Epirus, Thrace, and the Aegean islands to close out the festival season.