While many are hopeful that a return to normalcy is imminent with the COVID-19 vaccine becoming available, the Berlin Club Commission isn’t so optimistic.
Commission Chairwoman Pamela Schobeß warns that the club scene of Berlin may not return to 100% until the end of 2022. She told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur that clubs “are the first to be closed and the last to be allowed to reopen,” Rbb24 reports. Schobeß is also the CEO of local club Gretchen, and noted that clubs would additionally require substantial financial support from the government from now until a full return is possible.
A representative from Friedrichshain club ://about blank told Resident Advisor that “2021 does not really promise to be any better than the past 2020,” urging club goers and industry workers to be patient.
“What we know and appreciate as a club culture depends on intensity, closeness, contact, intoxicating nights, sharing and exchange,” the representative told RA. “As long as there is a risk of exponential infection and people die from COVID-19 every day, a return to the dance floor is not to be expected.”
“The corona crisis intensifies capitalist injustices and worsens the social division, so that the economic conditions for carefree clubbing also deteriorate significantly,” they continued. “To what extent the Berlin party situation as we enjoyed before corona can be restored at all is not foreseeable.”
Image credit: Alexander Popov
