WOMB's Techno Night Session Turns 25 in Tokyo, and Bart Skils Is Headlining

Twenty-five years of a techno night is a long time to keep a dancefloor full at four in the morning. Session, the resident party at Tokyo's WOMB, has been doing exactly that since the club opened its doors in Shibuya in 2000, and tonight it marks the anniversary with a Drumcode headliner and three floors running until half past four.

Dates: Saturday, October 17, 2026, 23:00 to 04:30 Venue: WOMB, 2-16 Maruyama-cho, Shibuya, Tokyo Tickets: Door ¥4,000, advance ¥3,500, under-23 ¥2,000

Bart Skils headlines the main floor, which is the kind of booking that tells you Session isn't coasting on nostalgia. The Dutch producer is one of Drumcode's steadiest names, and his sets lean toward the rolling, peak-time techno that's kept Adam Beyer calling him back for years. He's joined on 2F by Drunken Kong and Session's own longtime resident, Tommy Wada, with visuals from H2KGraphics and lighting by Saito wrapped around the room.

The other two floors aren't an afterthought. 4F, running as CONNEXXION, goes melodic and progressive house behind Karibiza, who's come down from Sapporo for the night, alongside Ohta, Ahreum, Kris Fuji and Kiku. 1F, UNDERCURRENT, stays raw and hypnotic with Tokyo techno veteran Q'HEY leading Kulage, Yu-S-Ke, Soma Oue and Amélie, with VJ Wawawa on visuals. Three distinct floors under one roof, each running its own booking policy for a single anniversary night, is harder to pull off than it sounds, and WOMB has been doing some version of this split since it opened in Shibuya 25 years ago.

What makes Session worth noting isn't just the number. Tokyo's club scene has lost and gained plenty of venues and residencies over the past two and a half decades. A weekly or monthly night surviving that long, let alone one still pulling Drumcode-level bookings on its anniversary, says something about how WOMB has managed its reputation. There's a limited-edition anniversary T-shirt at the WOMB Store if you want a souvenir, but the actual point is on the dancefloor at 2am.

For a sense of what Bart Skils brings to a room like this, Drumcode's own radio series has a full live set of his, recorded at Comunión Festival in Bogotá and worth cueing up before tonight.

Doors open at 11pm and the night runs to 4:30am. If you're in Shibuya and 20 or older, under-23 pricing gets you in for ¥2,000; everyone else pays ¥3,500 in advance or ¥4,000 at the door. For a longer look at where else to go in the city, Loopliner's guide to Tokyo's house and techno clubs covers the rest of the map.

Cover photo and figure: Yuma Yoshitsugu, via DEEPTOKYO.