[LeanderK]

to elaborate on the second, since it's a scene I identify with. For me, these clubs are culture. You listen to the music, follow the djs and select the venues for the artists that are playing. You come for the experience, not (just) to seek a sexual partner. I am in a healthy, non-open relationship and I am just as drawn to those nightclubs as I would have been without. You dance, dance and dance and get lost in the music, the abstract space the artist is creating. It's very unfortunate that those places are not recognised in germany for their cultural focus and therefore don't get the protection other cultural places do. These clubs can't really go commercial, it kills everything they stand for. The clubs and the scene usually has ties to the local art-scene, that's why many double as art-spaces by day. It's the only thing they can do without loosing their identity, but unfortunately art-spaces are also not big money-makers.

They also have strong ties to the LGBTQ-community are important for them as spaces where they can freely express themselves.

I don't think many politicians can really understand the idea that a nightclub can be culture, just like concerts, museums and art-spaces. A focus on something other than profitability.

[kortex]

My favorite dive is in that category, a goth industrial club in a former hole in the wall burger joint. The front is retro diner, the dance hall is cramped, filled with psychedelic art, and sports three giant paper maché tentacles emerging from an octopus mural from an undersea theme night five years back. The alley where everyone smokes is covered in graffiti. The sound system has gremlins and the speakers distort, arguably improving the harsh industrial tracks. It's the most welcoming place in the whole city (except for that one time a volatile neo-nazi showed up - he got literally thrown out the door, we don't tolerate intolerance). Ultra LGBTQ friendly.

I have no idea how they stayed afloat during the best of times and I'm not sure it's going to open up once covid is gone. But the community itself has been around since the 70s, hopping from one seedy joint to the next as they got shuttered, demolished, turned into swanky gastropubs and hospital parking lots. Something will arise from the ashes.

[Symbiote]

If you find yourself in London, head to Slimelight at the Electrowerkz.

It's (supposedly) the longest-running dark/alternative night in the world, starting in 1987. The venue was built as a two-level horse stables in the 19th century, so there's a strange, sloping ramp to the first floor. It was an electroplating works for much of the 20th century, before being squatted in the 1980s by the punks and goths. The back of the building is now a specialist scrap metal merchant, which is a source of some of the decoration -- there's an old tank outside, bits of ex-military aircraft, the seats in the "quiet" area are rocket launcher ammo cases, the industrial signs saying "Sellafield Nuclear Authority — Restricted Zone" and the like are real.

Bits of the building have been used to raise money at times; e.g. a restaurant, film shoots, weddings, other club nights, but the main goth/industrial party is on Saturdays, 23h-07:30h. They at least used to sell cake and jerk chicken. When I first went, you had to be signed in by an existing member, but you could also bring your own drinks if you didn't want to use the cheap bar. That's no longer the case, and the bar is OK-for-London prices.

I'm rarely in London on Saturday night nowadays, so I haven't been for a while, and I don't know how many people go to the club. (In the past, there have been periods where it's been a bit quiet.)

It looks like they just received a £78,000 grant from the UK Arts Council, which is excellent news [1].

[1] http://islingtonnow.co.uk/electrowerkz-grant/

https://www.facebook.com/SlimelightOfficial

[hollowcelery]

Slimelight is truly special. There was a period of a few months where I'd go almost every Saturday night. That dancefloor is really something special at 5 or 6am, like being on another planet.

Sadly it's still mostly quiet these days (well now it's completely quiet, but pre-Covid it was also quiet). But I went to one of their birthdays two or three years back and it was packed. London's whole goth scene descended on it.

[ahumanbeing]

I came here to mention how stunned I am to know where you are describing; been around the US and never found a club as unique for layout or people

Although for a dance scene it was a lot more booze driven than drugs when I was local to it, and they had old vinyl booths around the walls of the dance floor but no bottle service

[hluska]

That place sounds like my personal definition of heaven.

[novok]

Didn't berlin treat berghain as 'cultural place' when they moved it to another spot?