A new chapter for BHAN: Carlo steps down as director

Giovanni (myself) and Carlo at the last BHAN at Egg on 9 May 2026. Photo: SNAPSI

As of 13 September 2026, Carlo stepped down as a director of BHAN.

It is a big moment for both of us, for the BHAN community and for a project that we have built together from the very beginning.

Carlo’s leaving message

“I’m very proud of what we’ve built together so far, but over time, Giovanni and I developed different visions for the future of BHAN, so I decided to step down as a director and give him the space to steer it in the direction he believes in, without me.”

Carlo Pizzuti, Co-founder and ex-Director of BHAN

Two friends beyond bhan

I want to say this loud and clear: Carlo will always remain the co-founder of BHAN and an essential part of its story.

He is simply stepping down as Director to give me the space to try to turn my vision for BHAN into reality — and I’ll share much more about what that means over the next few weeks and months.

When we founded BHAN, Carlo and I made one promise to each other: whatever happened with the project, we would never let it damage our friendship.

Eighteen months later, I’m proud that we have kept that promise.

We are closing this chapter of our collaboration with love, respect and enormous gratitude for everything we have built together, while protecting something even more important to both of us: our friendship.

Carlo making fun of my prophetic side at Anjunadeep Explorations 2026 in Dhërmi, Albania.

How it all started

To explain how we got here, I need to go back to where BHAN started.

Christian Löffler at Fabric

It all started on 15 March 2025, when Carlo and I went to see Christian Löffler at fabric. That night, somewhere on the dancefloor, we both understood the power of being truly present at a rave: of letting go of everything outside the room and simply being there, in that moment, with the music.

It was genuinely life-changing for both of us. Just to give you an idea, that was the night Sisi entered our lives, the first time we spoke with Christian Löffler, and the beginning of many other beautiful things that would take far too long to list here.

The planets had aligned that night at fabric. But we also knew that kind of magic was rare.

The famous hug on the notes of Versailles (Hold). The moment we started to dream our dream together. Photo: SNAPSI

Drumcode at Drumsheds

A few weeks later, we went to Drumcode at Drumsheds and understood something equally important: no matter how good the music is, the crowd and the wider experience around you can completely change the way you experience a rave. The space around you matters. The people around you matter. Feeling safe matters. Having enough space to dance matters. Being surrounded by people who are actually there for the music matters.

And that’s when we decided to do something about it. Because Carlo and I are like this: we don’t like complaining for the sake of it; we roll up our sleeves and do the work.

A photo by Carlo, capturing what, in hindsight, was clearly the beginning of my rave evangelism.

The BHAN inception

In April 2025, we started brainstorming. Carlo was travelling in South Africa, while I was in Brussels to visit my sister. But we are both digital enthusiasts, and we didn’t let distance stop us. So we opened a Google Doc and started dumping our all ideas there. That’s how the original 12-point etiquette was born.

The more we brainstormed, the more seriously we took our project. We started imagining what a different kind of rave could look like. Eventually, we decided to create it ourselves, and BHAN was born.

We spent summer 2025 spreading the word at festivals and raves. We started handing out our famous ‘I love your energy’ cards, we raised our BHAN signs — we dreamt our dream together.

Carl BHANning at Anjunadeep Open Air London 2025. Photo: SNAPSI

The first four (and a half) events

Over the following 18 months we organised four events at Egg, four afterparties in our respective homes, and one secret BHAN that will probably stay in our memories forever. We experimented, changed things, made mistakes, learnt from them, invested money and lost money.

At our final event at Egg, for example, we realised that we were still around £1,100 short of the minimum bar spend, so Carlo and I spent the end of the night buying Red Bulls, smoothies and fruit juices for everyone. If you were there, you might remember us desperately trying to convince people to please accept another free drink. It was absurd, stressful and somehow also one of my favourite BHAN memories.

One day, I hope I’ll find the time to collect all these moments in a book.

Two visions

From very early on, however, Carlo and I also started pushing BHAN in two different directions.

Carlo just wanted a safe and inclusive space where to rave without distraction, as we initially agreed, but my instinct increasingly moved somewhere else. I wanted BHAN to become more than an event.

Carlo BHANning at one of our events. Photo: SNAPSI

As an artivist, I wanted it to become a movement, a community, a force for good in the world — something that could genuinely make a difference in people’s lives, and use the dancefloor as a place to heal ourselves and practise values that could exist beyond it too. Because, for me, the way we navigate the dancefloor reflects the way we navigate the world.

Neither of those visions is wrong, but they are different, and over the course of the last year that difference became increasingly clear.

Eventually we reached a point where we had to decide what BHAN was going to become.

Carlo then made what I consider to be a courageous and generous decision: he chose to step down as a director and give me the space to take BHAN in the direction I believe in.

What now?

Carlo and I at Junction 2 last year during Parra for Cuva’s set.

I don't know exactly what will happen now. I know what I want BHAN to become, but I also know that projects like this evolve in ways you can never fully predict.

What I do know is how grateful I am for everything Carlo and I have built together. We laughed together, cried together, spent endless hours discussing details that nobody else would ever notice, and somehow managed to turn a conversation on a dancefloor into something real.

Carlo is one of the most important people in my life. His attention to detail and his care for the experience of every person who walks into a space are extraordinary, and they shaped BHAN from the very beginning.

Quite frankly, BHAN would not exist, or would not have resisted this long, without his determination. This was especially true earlier this year, when I was going through a major depressive episode and there were moments when I simply did not have the energy to keep pushing. Carlo did.

He kept things moving when I couldn't, he hold me afloat when I risked drowning. I will always be grateful to him for that.

Carlo will always be the co-founder of BHAN. Stepping down as a director does not change that. He was there at the origin of the idea, he helped build it from nothing, and his contribution is permanently part of what BHAN is. We are simply ending this particular form of our collaboration, and I feel very lucky that we are doing it with love, respect and friendship.

One more dance with carlo

This Friday, 18 September, will be the first BHAN without Carlo as a director.

Of course, I hope (and I am sure) it will be far from his last BHAN, and that in the future he can simply come, dance and enjoy it without having to worry about tickets, bar spends, lighting, flowers, fruit, guest lists or the hundreds of tiny things he has spent the last 18 months worrying about.

So if you can join us on Friday, please do.

Come and celebrate what we built together, come and mark the end of this chapter with us, and most importantly, come and give Carlo all the love he deserves.

BHAN would not be here without him.

Thank you, Carlo. 🧡