2023-11-07 22:04:28
Andrea Sibaja, Jordan Inijuez and Darian Chacon force a smile. The three posed for a photo an article of National Public Radio (NPR), a broadcasting syndicate in the USA. Actually, the Costa Ricans, who live in Boston and are visiting Berlin, didn’t want to pose in front of a camera at the moment the photo was taken – they wanted to dance, drink, sweat, party in Berghain, a club that had been on their to-do for a long time -List, it says in the article.
But Sibaja, Inijuez and Chacon did the math without the bouncers. A look, a shake of the head – that’s it, the three Berlin guests are not allowed to celebrate that evening. They expressed their incomprehension to NPR. Especially when they hear that the Berlin clubs are currently not doing well.
The nightlife in our city was running out of guests, according to the article published a few days ago. “And yet they still reject us,” says Andrea Sibaja. Berghain, one could read, is in trouble – and must therefore be happy for every guest and let everyone in. Although this conclusion is greatly exaggerated, quite silly and a bit embarrassing, it is true: Berlin’s club culture, which has only just emerged from the pandemic, is currently not doing well – like pretty much every other industry that is concerned with this Pleasure, about what can be dispensed with.
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The NPR article quotes DJ Zak Khutoretsky, who regularly plays at Berghain under his pseudonym DVS1. Before the pandemic, it was easy for Europeans in particular to fly to Berlin for a weekend, rent a hostel, go party and leave in time to get to the office on time on Monday morning. “But I think it became more difficult after Corona,” said Khutoretsky – the phenomenon known in Berlin as “Easyjetset” did not regain its former strength after the end of the pandemic.
Does everyone still want to go in there? In the USA people are not convinced of this.Imago
In addition, according to the DJ, other crises have almost seamlessly followed the corona pandemic; that money is no longer so easy for potential clubbers; that they thought twice about whether entry fees of around 20 euros were really possible. The chairman of the club commission, Lutz Leichsenring, who is also quoted in the article, also says: Current figures hardly come close to the almost 1.5 billion euros that were spent annually by guests in Berlin clubs before the pandemic. “There is inflation, there is an energy crisis and there is also an increase in the minimum wage,” said Leichsenring. People are spending less money, “it’s a very critical time.”
A tourist trio dresses up for Berghain
However, it is doubtful whether Berghain is so worried about its visitor numbers that it really has to let everyone in. The NPR article says they were there just before midnight on a Thursday evening and there was no line. “Maybe it’s too early,” the author writes (and every Berliner knows that that’s right) – but maybe “times are hard,” in other words: there’s a yawning emptiness in front of the city’s most famous club because there’s simply no one left go celebrate. Another brave conclusion – like the one that Andrea Sibaja, Jordan Inijuez and Darian Chacon should actually have been allowed in in these difficult times of crisis, in which Berghain has to be happy for every guest.
Toughest door in town? Berghain’s politics are still notorious.Imago
Anyone who has ever been there and watching the NPR picture of the three However, he suspects what might actually have been the problem here: All three wear black, zip-up sweaters and North Face jackets; Andrea Sibaja has put on a black faux leather skirt, probably as a concession to the club’s infamous image. In short: the tourist trio dressed up for Berghain; prepared in the way that absurd travel guides would recommend.
“I’m one of those people who usually wears black, and I felt like maybe I was one of them,” Sibaja says. She wanted to hang out with people who were similar to her – “and yet I was rejected.” This echoes what has been a myth for years, especially among foreign visitors: that there is a fixed dress code at Berghain – that what matters most is what is worn in the club and for the club.
Berliners know that clothing plays a less important role in Berghain’s door policy. Anyone who has been there will have seen a lot of guests in black – lots of leather, lots of latex, lots of borrowings from the fetish scene, which is also due to Berghain’s roots as a gay club. But there are also men in sweatpants and women in sequin dresses, boys in silk blouses and girls in fine-rib vests.
What unites them seems to be less a specific dress code than an attitude – one that consistently excludes the willingness to dress up specifically for any club. This doesn’t seem to have caught on in the US yet.
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