Skip to main content
DJ Mag Top100 Clubs
1
Green Valley
| NON MOVER

Location: Camboriú, Brazil
Capacity: 12,000

greenvalleybr.com

Outside of the great Brazilian metropolises of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, a few remote, forest-bordering clubs such as Warung and Sirena have been important for staging big electronic dance music parties to help facilitate the burgeoning Brazilian electronic music scene. But none has had quite the global impact of Green Valley in the Santa Catarina region in southern Brazil.

It started out simply as a party in the jungle. Some electronic dance music fans wanted to put on a big rave in 2007, and booked none other than Carl Cox to headline in a makeshift tent on an old airfield. When this event was a spectacular success they started booking other international DJs and growing some infrastructure to begin making it into a permanent venue.

A mere three years later it had shot into DJ Mag’s Top 100 Clubs poll at No.27, and by 2013 it had been voted the No.1 club in the world. Quite an achievement! GV scooped the most votes again in 2015 before winning again in 2018 and 2019. 

The big news this year is that DJ Mag readers have voted Green Valley to No.1 for the third year in a row — the only club to ever achieve this accolade. So it’s a big congratulations to the Green Valley team on securing this memorable hat-trick!

From its humble beginnings only a dozen or so years ago, Green Valley has been continuously adding more features and areas as the years have rolled by — quite like the way some Ibiza clubs evolved and upgraded over the years. Much of it is open-air; thanks to the warm climate, it has a vibe more like a festival than a dingy underground club space, and feels as free and airy as any outdoor fest in any manner of exotic locations. 

The main arena is covered by a vast tarpaulin, tent-like structure — and this has been upgraded over the past year so that it’s 20 metres longer and 10 metres higher than previously. The main stage has also doubled in size, while the backstage and VIP areas have recently had a revamp. This will have given increased luxury to some of the many big-name DJs who have starred at the club over the past year, including Fatboy Slim, FISHER, NERVO, Nicky Romero and Meduza, as well as Brazilian superstars ALOK and Vintage Culture. 

Main stage proceedings are generally warmed up by residents Dropack, Doozie and the inimitable Rodrigo Vieira, augmented by all manner of LED walls, lasers, CO2 cannons, and more special FX than a Hollywood blockbuster.

Just recently, a slew of new bars have been built — the Absolut bar and booth, the Red Bull Drinks bar, the Elyx bar and booth, and so on — and some swish new decking and chillout lounges added to the lake area. Yes, Green Valley has a lake! How many other clubs can say that?

Adjacent to the lake is the UNDERline_ stage that hosts more underground visiting DJs, peppered between sets by residents Pabricio Pecanha, Full Duplex and San Schwartz, and there is also another festival-size stage on a higher level that’s used for special occasions. Green Valley crowds sure know how to party too, and love the club so much that they vote for it in the Top 100 Clubs poll in their tens of thousands.

With its distinctive green butterfly logo dotted about the place, and a succession of ongoing international tours in the bag (until the coronavirus put paid to 2020’s plans), Green Valley is a brand that pays maximum attention to all aspects of the nightclubbing experience with the utmost professionalism. The GV team has created a magnificent party playground, rich with amazing spectacles and bona fide ‘moments’, and fully deserve their hat-trick of victories.