Europe

‘Berghain is not a zoo!’ Are Berlin’s coolest clubs becoming boring tourist traps?

Some locals are angry about the commodification of the city’s once-underground hotspots

Head doorman Sven Marquardt enforces Berghain’s inscrutable door policies. Photograph: Andreas Rentz/Getty

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Derek Scally in Berlin
Fri Aug 18 2023 - 16:00

If your own personal Jesus is too 1990s, how about your own personal Berghain Jesus? Berliners were alarmed and amused this week to hear of an enterprising soul promising tourists guaranteed entry to Berghain, the club equally famous for its techno music, sound system, austere architecture and tough door policy.

For just €199, the latter-day saviour reportedly offered secure passage to the clubbers’ promised land with a combination of costume, connections and coaching.

The offer was made within Airbnb Experiences, an offshoot of the controversial accommodation-booking platform, allowing tourists pay for “authentic” experiences with locals.

Visitors to the German capital have a wide offering, from “Rude Bastards Tour” or “No Diet Club street food” to “techno painting”. But the most controversial are the club tour “experiences”.

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[ Berghain: the best club in the world, but for how long? ]

Berghain Jesus has vanished from the platform (though may yet return in glory), but others are still making similar promises. One, a self-described “Berlin addict for more than 25 years” offers a tour starting at €250 offering “all the secrets of Berghain” followed by a “VIP guest list experience, not available anywhere else” to Berghain or another “exclusive Berlin club”.

Already unconfirmed online forum reports are circulating of tourist groups being led around even Berlin’s most fabled club. As one upset poster added: “Berghain is not a zoo!”

“Many visitors to the club are upset that paying a guide to get you in violates the ethos of the space,” commented the Exberliner, a city magazine.

The exterior of Berghain nightclub. The techno club typifies Berlin’s libertarianism, hedonism, industrial architecture and love of quality electronic music. Photograph: Iain Masterton/Getty Images

Debates in Berlin about whether Berghain’s hype is deserved get emotional quite quickly. The authenticity question looms large after the club’s main doorman piggybacked on Berghain’s name to achieve modest celebrity as a photographer. In a telltale sign that the club’s best days may be behind it, the academics have moved in over the past decade. The latest paper from last year was called “Berghain: Space, affect and sexual disorientation”.

Fears about overtourism are as old as Berlin’s notorious nightlife

Such tracts produce more eye-rolling than most popular clubber drugs and catalyse a wider debate about whether Berlin – its clubs, underground bars and music venues – is being commodified and Instagrammed to death.

“Ever get the feeling,” the Exberliner magazine asked, “that Berlin is turning into a theme park?”

Fears about overtourism are as old as Berlin’s notorious nightlife. A century ago, enterprising publishers capitalised on the city’s notoriety with a flood of guidebooks such as Depraved Berlin and Degenerate Germany. Generations of gay pilgrims to Berlin followed British author Christopher Isherwood’s promise that “Berlin meant boys”.

As Berlin’s clubs re-establish themselves post-pandemic, a new generation of visiting clubbers seem happy to leave Berghain, and its legendary queue, off their list.

“There’s a big difference between clubs like Berghain and the more local ones,” said a San Francisco-based DJ who performs under the name Sc3n3slvt, during a Berlin visit this week. “The local clubs did live up to their reputation, though I did think it was gonna be a little more extreme for all the hype and reputation the city has.”

Berlin