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Above all, patience is required here, as the queue outside Berghain can sometimes stretch for several hours.
Image: Christophe Gateau/dpa
Berghain has been the hippest techno club in Berlin for more than 20 years. But if you want to get in, you often have to have a lot of stamina. Now scientists claim to have uncovered the secret of the door.
Berghain is famous. People from all over the world travel to the German capital weekend after weekend just for the techno club.
Berghain was founded as the successor to Ostgut in 2004, when many club nights were still aimed at gay men. Today, the audience is much more diverse. There is room for up to 1500 people in the club.
One of the best-known tips for anyone wanting to enter the former control room of a heating plant in Berlin's Friedrichshain district is: dress in black.
But is that really true?
Researchers from Freie Universität Berlin, the University of Bath, King's College London and Karlstadt University have now investigated who gets into Berlin's hippest techno clubs and who does not.
In order to unravel the secret of admission to Berlin's techno clubs, the researchers conducted 38 interviews with club owners, bouncers, DJs, security staff and other night owls.
The researchers also analyzed media and archive material and observed in real life how guests of a renowned Berlin club were selected in around 500 cases.
The result of the study: it is not only the fashionable appearance that seems to be decisive, but rather the balance "between conformity and individuality".
Photographer Sven Marquardt is by far the best-known Berghain bouncer.
Image: Keystone
It is also important how a person behaves while waiting outside the club door, i.e. whether they have charisma and whether they talk to other people.
So if you want to get into a hip Berlin club, you have to be able to fit in and stand out at the same time. Or to put it in a nutshell, which has been circulating in Berlin for years: be self-confident, but not arrogant.
"Der Spiegel" concludes :"According to a study, the criterion for selecting guests is a paradox." Meanwhile, "20 Minuten" headlines exuberantly: "How to get past it: researchers crack the Berghain code".
Well, one thing remains clear: if you want to go to Berghain, you need a lot of patience, because the queue outside the techno club is often incredibly long.
I also had to experience this a few years ago: You can find out whether I got in in the end at this link
