Since its opening, the club's programming has been progressing towards a wider and more diverse range of contemporary electronic music, but there’s no doubt that the first couple of months were heavily influenced by the background of the club's founders. One of them, Sanjin, has been involved in the production of the locally-infamous event series called Polygon, which brought foreign and local techno artists together under the roofs of unusual locations, including the much talked about event at Prague’s main railway station. Two other founders – Michal and Cyril – have been running a warehouse series titled nite vibes, which had similar focus and style and had thrown events in an underground bunker or a huge concrete water retention tank to name a few.

Their common vision drew from what they had seen and experienced outside Czech borders, but the idea to build a club was born from a need to create a permanent and mainly independent place for locals. The club resident roster has been established, the building of a former soap-factory-turned-printshop has been subtly renovated and the club opened to the public in May 2017, even though it wasn’t quite finished yet. Reminiscing pieces of ceiling fallen on Marco Shuttle’s record, missing toilet cubicles or the collapse of the cloakroom construction still brings a smile to many faces.

One of the most distinctive features of Ankali’s identity are its double posters. Besides announcing the monthly programme, their conception is based on a collaboration with local illustrators, graphic designers, painters and photographers. The clever visual identity of the club allows for displaying a wide variety of media and visual styles and the poster series became an ongoing and evolving exhibition of local artists.

Visually, there is another factor at play which separates Ankali from other clubs and is partially a result of years of designing one-time warehouse events. The light and the use of it on the dance floor is of high importance and is treated with care. There are certain fixed elements which almost never change, but there is always something different each weekend, depending on the type of event and light designer’s idea.

Despite using digital technologies in the process, the resulting light effects are always based on analogue principles and devices, including simple incandescent light bulbs, fluorescent tubes, repurposed neons, PAR lights, color filters and a lot of smoke.

After the first couple of months of its existence, Ankali started making friends. Except for the club's programming own gradual heterogenization, it started collaborating with external promotional crews from different genres to diversify the monthly programmes even more.

Seminal local collectives like Endless Illusion or Rare offered their unique optics in building joint line-ups and younger or newly established groups like Wrong, Disco Církev or ONYX were given a space to grow. In the meanwhile, Ankali started working with foreign subjects like Herrensauna, Institut fuer Zukunft and Salon Des Amateurs along with many others.

If there has been one partner, which has imprinted itself on Ankali the most, it was definitely the Nachtdigital festival with its makers. The first joint event happened in the club's second year and what followed could be described as a short but intense romance. A memorable ‘Summer of Doom’, the warm up to the festival’s last edition in 2019, and the consequent Ankali’s stage programming in Olganitz, were a pinnacle of that relationship publicly, but has been maintained privately in many ways till today.

To define the club's sound after first years of existence, it’s worth taking a look at its programme which consists of several categories – nights which are marked with custom labels.

#archiv_teknologi focuses on contemporary techno wizardry with a darker and industrial setting, and is similar to #yuggadus, which leans toward more hypnotic and tribal dances.

#no_borders favors DJs who break boundaries within genres and their practice, while #soft_spot usually welcomes house djs and familiar faces. #heyday celebrates disco with its modern forms and #umami celebrates diversity in music and human identities.

Two foreign Ankali residents have their special nights. Claudio PRC runs the techno focused #volumi_dinamici night and Phuong–Dan has inaugurated the #night_came_early series, which tries to mess with established structure of DJ events. Lastly, Ankali runs a series of listening-focused evenings with live ambient music called #shoes_off, which are conducted in a capacity limited and scenographically enhanced environment.

In its third year, it was clear that Ankali became an established institution of the European club land. But while preparing the 3rd anniversary celebration, spread of the coronavirus and the necessary lockdown put halt to everything.

With an unprecedented amount of free time on their hands, the club crew has decided to move forward with the already planned expansion. The relatively limited and pre-defined interior of Ankali has created a need for a different kind of space, in which different music and types of events can be presented. Luckily, there was a space for growth right next door. Second part of the building in which Ankali resides has been taken over and with its multifaceted space with several rooms, winter garden and a spacious backyard, it was perfect for inhabiting the envisioned idea.

A multifunctional cultural and community centre, or an endless playground of sorts, has been born – Planeta Za. A smaller and more intimate dancefloor with a wooden floor and a skylight has been built to accommodate exploratory approaches to sound and music presentation. The large yard allows for many other interesting things, like summer cinema with live music or flea markets.

Most importantly, Planeta Za is a shared space, so apart from introducing a new group of residents which are welcome to make their ideas happen, there are now several other entities using the space. Radio Laude has found a new home in the small room on a second floor and has been broadcasting a growing array of online shows since then. Few local artists have their studios there and new projects for the space are being worked on at the moment.

During a short summer with eased restrictions only a fragment of the potential of Planeta Za has been explored. The full-scale use of both spaces still lies in a distant future. However there are some things in the making, including the Gravity project, and an art exhibition, both of which are re-thinking usual structures and possibilities of club culture.