photo: Birgit & Bier.
Despite many different efforts and many alternative concepts, it’s the Berlin club scene that is probably suffering the most from Berlin’s cultural landscape during the pandemic as the majority of the places have been locked down now for over a year. While their future is in the balance and a re-opening for indoor partying is not really inside, at least a political movement has managed that they are recognized as places of culture which makes a big difference for them when it comes to taxes and funding.
But the Berlin nightlife scene has always been inventive, so pretty much like last year after the first lockdown where the few clubs that have the luxury of an outdoor area came up with alternative usage concepts such as beer gardens to be able to partially re-open over the summer, the same thing is happening right now with the first clubs already open again for guests.
If you are looking to already be dancing, we have to disappoint you, there is no word out yet when clubs can host open-air parties again like last year. But I think with rapid testing available for free across the city we expect that to happen much earlier than last year. What we are concerned about though is the fact that only around 25% of all places even have an outdoor area. So what happens to the other 75%? We hope the city can come up with concepts to support these places and somehow fill in the gap that these places are leaving.
The Berlin Clubcommission has compiled a few lists of which clubs are currently open again with “light concepts” using their outdoor areas like beer gardens and bars. The fact that there are still no parties might sound a little disappointing, but remember these are still our safe spaces and places of coming together. We need to be there and support them even with these strange circumstances, otherwise, they might not be there afterward. The list is as follows:
The following places are also open as free rapid covid test centers. It makes sense the clubs would already establish the infrastructure for on-the-go testing. I would not be surprised these clubs will be the first to allow dancing once the test comes back negative. But we’ll have to be patient until that will happen.
What we are also looking forward to new concepts on how club spaces are used for other forms of cultural expression and entertainment such as the Overmorrow immersive exhibition at Wilde Renate or the various exhibitions and installations at Berghain and Halle. We hope there will be more formats like that.
But of course, more than anything we look forward to be dancing again!
