Instant-Fogas: Pick the Right Night Before You Go, Because the Rooms Change Every Evening

Instant-Fogas costs nothing to walk into, opens at 18:00 every day of the week and closes at 06:00. The operator bills it as Europe’s biggest ruin pub and party complex: 18 bars and six dance floors in a run of old buildings on Akácfa utca, plus a garden. Three things decide your night: the rooms open in shifts, the bar and the club are different places at different hours, and the door has a short list of reasons to send you home.

This is the practical version: the door, the rooms and which night uses which, what the menu charges, the queue, and the rules for anyone under 18.

Free most nights, and what costs money

The nightly party is free, seven days a week. What the venue sells tickets for is concerts and special events, and those are ticketed only for the rooms they use, so a band playing in Robot does not put a price on the garden.

What	Price
Entry to the nightly party	Free
Ticketed concert, October 2026 range	3,000 to 8,000 HUF (about $9 to $25)
Cloakroom, when it is open	500 HUF (about $2) per guest
Reusable cup with token	400 HUF (about $1), refundable

Three rules sit behind the ticket price. A ticket is good for one entry, so leaving for a cigarette on the street and coming back means a second ticket. The wristband is yours alone once it is on. And the venue sells its own events only through its ticket partner, Tixa, so a ticket from anywhere else is your problem, not theirs.

The cloakroom is compulsory whenever it is running, which is a seasonal thing, and it is not a safe. Leave nothing in your coat that you will need before you go home: each extra trip back to fetch something from it costs another 500 HUF, and a lost cloakroom ticket costs 2,000 HUF (about $6) and a wait until after closing.

Entry, ticket and cloakroom rules from instant-fogas.com, read on 2 October 2026.

The door: dress code, ID and what stays outside

There is no dress code in the shirts-and-shoes sense. What the house rules let security refuse is clothing that is inappropriate or dirty, poor hygiene, heavy intoxication, aggressive behaviour, anyone who will not go through the security check, anyone who cannot prove their age when asked, and anyone thrown out before. That last one is worth taking seriously if your night started earlier somewhere else.

• ID. Bring the physical card. A photo of an ID is not accepted, and neither is DÁP, the Hungarian digital ID app.
• Bags. Nothing bigger than 30 × 30 × 30 cm gets in. A backpack from the day is the usual casualty.
• Left outside: food and drink bought elsewhere, umbrellas, walking sticks unless they are medical aids, bicycles and scooters, spray cans and marker pens, professional cameras, drones and flags.
• Pets stay home. Assistance dogs are the exception.
• Smoking happens only in the designated garden areas, and vapes count. Smoking anywhere else carries a 1,000 EUR fine, rising to 2,000 EUR if a smoke alarm brings out the fire brigade, plus a police report.
• Staff are off limits to your camera. Photographing them at work, or the work areas, is not allowed.

Euros are accepted at the bars. Pay in euros and your change comes back in forint, at the venue’s own rate of 350 HUF to the euro, and euro coins are not accepted. You will do better paying in forint.

Door policy, prohibited items and payment rules from instant-fogas.com, read on 2 October 2026.

Seven rooms, and which one is which

Photo: Nan Palmero, CC BY 2.0, resized.

Instant and Fogas Ház were two separate ruin bars until they merged on Akácfa utca, and the complex still behaves like a street of neighbouring venues that happen to share a security team. Several rooms have their own street door, and each has its own sound and its own crowd.

Room	What it is
Instant	The original ruin pub, moved here from Nagymező utca: a dance floor under the flying pigs, a billiard room and the early free concerts
Fogas	The garden, heated in winter and cooled in summer, with a dance floor off it playing hits until sunrise, and pizza and burgers
Liebling	The calm room: wine, a terrace, live music, the place to start or to regroup
Unterwelt	R’n’B, remixed chart hits and reggaeton
Level	First-floor electronic room built around its sound system
Frame	Drum and bass, garage, breakbeat, halftime, trap and Latin, on a Martin Audio rig
Robot	The rock and metal room: live bands, then a rock disco until morning

Between the rooms there are pinball machines, table football and pool tables, first come first served, and the Wi-Fi is free all the way down to the basement.

Which night opens which rooms

This is the detail that catches people out. The building is open from 18:00 every day, but the 22:00 party moves through a different set of rooms depending on the night.

Night	Party rooms from 22:00	Music
Monday	Fogas, Frame	Hip hop, R’n’B, reggaeton, EDM, bass, trap, techno
Tuesday	Instant, Fogas, Frame	House, EDM, techno, reggaeton, Latin, pop, R’n’B
Wednesday	Instant, Fogas, Frame	R’n’B, EDM, techno, hip hop, bass, trap, reggaeton, Latin, pop
Thursday	Instant, Fogas, Frame, Robot, Unterwelt	Hip hop, R’n’B, bass, EDM, techno, rock, metal
Friday	The whole complex	R’n’B, pop, house, hip hop, reggaeton, rock, metal, rap, techno, bass
Saturday	The whole complex	Bass, techno, hip hop, R’n’B, reggaeton, pop, rock, metal, rap, house
Sunday	Instant, Fogas, Frame	R’n’B, pop, house, EDM, techno

Robot Rock, the rock disco, runs Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 22:00 until morning. On some nights a band plays first in Instant or Robot from 20:00 to 23:00, free, and it is the best-value hour in the building.

So if what you want is Robot or the full labyrinth, plan for Thursday to Saturday. If you want the garden and one dance floor rather than the whole maze, Monday runs on just Fogas and Frame.

Weekly party schedule and rooms from the events calendar at instant-fogas.com, read on 2 October 2026.

What the bars charge

One drinks menu carries the logos of every room, and it is the part of Instant-Fogas that surprises people in a good way: beer is priced like a pub, not a club. Every figure includes VAT and a 10% service fee, so there is nothing to add at the till except the cup.

What	Price
Draught Soproni, 0.5 l / 0.3 l	1,570 / 1,160 HUF (about $5 / $4)
Draught Soproni OD IPA, 0.5 l	1,760 HUF (about $6)
Draught Edelweiss wheat beer, 0.5 l	1,980 HUF (about $6)
Heineken, 0.33 l bottle	1,570 HUF (about $5)
Glass of wine, 0.1 l	930 to 1,130 HUF (about $3 to $4)
Jägermeister, Unicum or Absolut, 4 cl	1,880 HUF (about $6)
Pálinka from Békési, 4 cl	from 3,030 HUF (about $9)
Vodka, gin or rum with a mixer	2,210 HUF (about $7)
Vodka Red Bull, or a Jägerbomb	3,560 HUF (about $11)
Mojito	2,820 HUF (about $9)
Aperol Spritz or Hugo	2,710 HUF (about $8)
Negroni	3,130 HUF (about $10)
Long Island or Mai Tai	4,180 HUF (about $13)
Rákóczi Túrós, the house shot, four glasses	5,660 HUF (about $18)
Pepsi, or a 0.3 l mineral water	1,060 HUF (about $3)
Espresso	530 HUF (about $2)

The cup is an extra cost. Your first drink comes in a reusable cup for a one-off 400 HUF, and each later drink swaps it for a clean one. Keep the token: the cup is refunded only with it, at the return point by the cloakroom in the garden, and one person can return at most two cups.

Prices are in HUF, which is what you pay at the counter. Converted at 1 USD = 320 HUF, the ECB rate on 25 September 2026. Rates move, so treat the converted figures as indicative. Drinks prices from the November 2025 drinks list on instant-fogas.com, read on 2 October 2026.

Bar first, club later, and when there is a queue

Photo: Christo, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.

From 18:00 until the party starts at 22:00, Instant-Fogas is a large bar with a garden. You walk in, you find a table in Fogas or Liebling, you can hear each other. After 22:00 the dance floors take over and it becomes a club, and on Friday and Saturday a club with every room open.

The queue has one cause. When the number of people inside reaches the permitted maximum, security calls a capacity stop and lets people in only as others leave. If you go out during a capacity stop, you go to the back of the line, which is how a cigarette on the pavement costs you your place. The venue says thousands of people come through every evening, so the stop is a real thing on the big nights.

Two ways round it. Ticket holders for a paid concert get their own entrance rather than the free line. And for some big parties the venue sells a queue jump ticket, which is the only fast lane there is.

The simpler fix is the clock. Arrive before 22:00, find your room, and you are inside before the line exists.

Under 18s: early, accompanied and out by 23:00

Every weekly party is 18+. Minors can come only to concerts and events, and only on the venue’s terms.

• Under 10: free admission with a ticket-holding adult.
• Under 16: only with a parent, a guardian, or an adult the parent has authorised, with the venue’s parental authorisation form filled in completely.
• 16 and 17: either with a parent or guardian, or alone with a parental consent form completed in advance.
• At a ticketed concert: each event page sets its own terms for under-18s, so read it before you go. The October 2026 concert pages let 10 to 17 year olds in only with their own ticket and an adult who also holds one.
• After 22:00: only over-18s are let in.
• By 23:00: every under-18 has to be out of the building.

Security can also refuse under-18s before 22:00 if the night’s event calls for it, and no one under 18 is served alcohol or allowed in the smoking areas.

Age rules from the house rules and the October 2026 concert pages at instant-fogas.com, read on 2 October 2026.

Booking a table

Tables are booked online, for four people and up, no more than two months ahead and no later than 17:00 on the day. They sit in separate rooms, not on the dance floors, which suits a group that wants a base more than a group that wants to dance. You arrive between 20:00 and 23:00 and the table is held for 15 minutes.

Each booking comes with a prepaid drinks package: soft drinks or energy drinks, a round of beer or wine, or a bottle of spirits. Cancel at least 24 hours before opening time for a refund; a no-show loses the package. A table does not get anyone round a concert ticket or the age rules. Groups of more than 25 ask for a separate offer, and the whole building is not available for private hire.

If you want a bottle, the bottle service list puts a litre of Absolut or Jägermeister at 42,180 HUF (about $132) and a bottle of Moët at 72,580 HUF (about $227).

Table booking terms and bottle service prices from instant-fogas.com, read on 2 October 2026.

Instant-Fogas, Szimpla and the rest

Instant-Fogas is the club end of the ruin bar format: open until six, free every night, built for dancing across several genres at once. Come for the night out.

Szimpla Kert, a few streets away on Kazinczy utca, is the original and the calm one. The Szimpla Kert guide covers its door and its boards the same way this page covers Instant-Fogas.

If the night you are planning is 31 December, the New Year’s Eve comparison is the page you want. For the wider district, the ruin bars guide has the rest of the district, the stag and hen guide is the one for a group, and the live music guide picks up where Robot leaves off.

Getting there

Akácfa utca 49-51, 1073 Budapest, in District VII, the same party quarter as Szimpla Kert. Several rooms have their own street door along the block, so check which one the night’s party uses. Lost something? Come back at opening time or write to the venue; lost clothing can only be asked about in person at the cloakroom.

Address, contact and lost property from instant-fogas.com, read on 2 October 2026.