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It all started in 1995 when Jens Thele – as a DJ and musical head – opened a club for house parties called “Kontor” in a venerable office building in downtown Hamburg. The office soon became one of the city’s trendiest stores, and not only among the public, but also among the DJs, who found the perfect playing field for their latest vinyl discoveries and their own productions.
Combining club and label turned out to be a brilliant idea. Kontor grew at breakneck speed. After initial successes with DJs and producers from Hamburg, word of the Kontor concept quickly got around and national and international acts knocked on the door of the small office in Hamburg. They ensured that acts and labels quickly became known across Germany and beyond.
“We attach great importance to working with artists in the long term and were album-oriented right from the start,” explains Jens Thele, thereby summarizing one of Kontor’s recipes for success. Because what was previously considered impossible in the dance field, Kontor implemented: establishing long-term artists who are far more than just a one-hit wonder, but who also have album successes all over Europe and far beyond.
The marketing of his acts all over the world is organized from the port of Hamburg, where Kontor has lived in a modern office building since 2004. For Kontor, the path to the future is also via new media. With its former New Media department, Kontor has built one of the most effective digital aggregators in the world: Kontor New Media, which is used by around 1,000 labels for Internet sales – and not just in the dance sector, but in all sectors and genres of music, as well as film, TV and audiobook.
“Kontor.TV” was launched in 2006. With more than 5.1 million subscribers and 5 billion views, it is the most viewed German YouTube channel. The Kontor playlists, which started in March 2012, already have more than a million followers via the streaming services Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Unlimited, Napster, Deezer and Tidal.
Hamburg, September 2019