EDM News
Intimate dance-music venue to debut near Deep Ellum Dallas
CTRL Room will host local, national, and international DJs
A new music-focused venue operating in the electronic dance music (EDM) realm is about to debut in Dallas: Called CTRL Room, it's a dual-concept nightlife experience opening at 2511 Swiss Ave., in the former Citizen bar space, which closed in January after a decade.
According to a spokesperson, CTRL Room will open on April 9 — just in time for the Breakaway Music Festival, an annual national touring festival, which will stop in Dallas on April 10-11.
CTRL Room has partnered with Breakaway to promote the festival and will serve as one of the festival's official after-party venues.
CTRL Room is from the same team that owns restaurants such as Vidorra and Serious Pizza. It's designed as an alternative to the usual oversized EDM venue, with a focus on creating a space where every set feels personal.
It'll be located in the middle of the so-called North Good Latimer District, an unexpected club zone in a neighborhood just east of downtown Dallas, straddling Good Latimer Freeway near the Deep Ellum DART station, which is home to high-volume bars such as Greenlight Social, Sporting Club, and Vice Park.
The bar is collaborating with Next Level Events, a nightlife and electronic music promotion company that organizes after-hours and rooftop events in venues across Dallas such as Coba Dallas, located in the former Whiskey Hatchet space in Deep Ellum.
The festival
Breakaway is a fast-growing music festival that was founded in 2013 in Columbus, Ohio as a single-city event. Initially focusing on Ohio, the festival expanded regionally in 2016, later becoming a national touring brand with more than 300,000 fans across a dozen cities by 2025. It claims to be the largest touring music festival in North America that is focused on electronic dance music (EDM) and hip-hop.
Breakaway also has a Texas connection. According to founder Adam Lynn, the first one in Columbus took place at the Columbus Crew Stadium, owned by Lamar Hunt Jr. and the Hunt family, who invited him to bring it to Dallas, as well.
Two bars one roof
The venue, which has been completely redesigned from its Citizen days, has a capacity of 700, but is divided into two distinct environments, described thusly:
- CTRL Room: Dark, immersive main room with a capacity of 400 will deliver a tightly packed experience that rejects the typical warehouse scale in favor of something more immediate and connected, including proximity to the DJ. It's rooted in house and dance-music culture, with a rotating mix of DJs, emerging artists, and local players.
- TreeHaus: This 300-capacity space hidden within the venue is an intimate, organic space layered with natural textures, greenery, and warm lighting. It’s a sensory shift designed to slow the tempo without losing the rhythm, offering a more fluid atmosphere.
After the afterparty
CTRL Room is launching as a Breakaway Music Festival afterparty destination, but it will transition into full-time venue in its own right once the festival has moved on, with programming and artist announcements to follow in the coming weeks. While the opening was planned to coincide with the festival, it will be fully operational every week thereafter, with local, national, and international DJs lined up for the coming months.
Rendering of interior of Thea DallasCourtesy rendering