Lutz Leichsenring is committed to this question. The 41-year-old entrepreneur campaigns on behalf for Berlin’s Club Commission. When it started 20 years ago, the Commission was the first of its kind in the world. Now, it leads the way in developing Berlin’s club culture by lobbying the different branches of Berlin’s federal system of government, and advising cities across the world on the struggles that come with legitimising night time economies.

“There were five different programs of funding for club life during COVID-19: some federal, some state,” Lutz says. One of them, Starhilfe Kultur, released €80 million from the federal government to clubs. “This is very interesting for us because clubs are considered cultural producers.” Considering UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s recent suggestion that artists retrain due to the pandemic shutdown of the arts, the contrast between the German and British governments’ responses feel starker than ever.

How do these funding programs work in practise? A program from the German royalty collection society, GEMA, is designed to help make physical adjustments to venues. Lutz explains: “If you want to do some construction work in your club to make it COVID-19 adaptive — like if you want to build a roof outside to make it rain-safe, or make your bar a bit wider so that people are not standing too close to each other — this program could help.”

This all might sound like a dream in comparison to the UK, but as N points out, these funding programs are only available to venues operating legal, COVID-compliant parties in the eyes of the state — they don’t cater to events that offer the direct contact that defines many Berlin parties, such as those in the kink scene. Regularly booked at sex-themed parties, Annie O has found that things have gone even more underground.

“I know a lot of Kit Kat regulars have found other ways, they do lots of private parties,” she says. That these secret parties are being organised through WhatsApp and private Facebook groups gives her a sense of nostalgia.

“It feels how I imagine the ’90s to have been, with SMS codes of where the parties are. It’s brought a new sense of intimacy and exclusivity.” She has noticed that some parties are taking COVID-specific precautions — “One party I DJ-ed at had a temperature measurement above the door, and another party were actually testing every single guest” — but it’s arguably still an incredibly risky undertaking in the context of the pandemic.

“It has to be exclusive,” N says. “It has to be speakeasy style because, if it’s not, the cops show up and fine you €10,000. No clubs can risk this, which is why they have beer gardens now and they’re not [strictly operating as] clubs anymore. All the secret parties are further away from the city — in the countryside in Brandenburg or Kopenik, somewhere where the neighbours won’t complain and the police won’t hear of it.”

N and DJ Mag are nearing Kreuzberg when we bump into a friend of N’s, who we’ll call H. She tells us about the day the S-Bahn ring train led her to a disused factory near a lake, where she joined around 300 people for a rave. “It was kind of trespassing,” she admits. “It was amazing: the whole idea that you were doing something illegal, and the ecstasy of gathering with people; hearing music out loud and seeing the incredible effort that goes into organising something like it.”

Did H feel worried about her health? “It’s definitely something that weighed on me, how much we can enjoy [partying] in the current climate,” she says. “The party was in an abandoned building that doesn’t have any water supply, so hygiene? Scratch that. Also, masks were not really a thing. That’s something that I battled with afterwards, and made me reconsider [going to] other raves that came up later. I wouldn’t go to another one now.”

The mood in the city is mixed. October 3rd marked the city-wide Day of Club Culture, Launched by Berlin’s Senator for Culture, Klaus Lederer, the Day saw almost 40 clubs and event collectives awarded €10,000 each for their commitment to hosting legal parties. Yet as the temperature drops, escalating infection rates across the city have ushered in an 11pm curfew.

As a solution, The Club Commission is openly lobbying the government to implement rapid testing, which is already being explored in cities like Hamburg and Madrid. “It’s a maximum of one hour and you go to a certain certified place, which can be a pop-up,” Lutz says. “And this test should cost less than 10 euros, so it can be included in the cost of your ticket. And then you can go into any club.”

The biggest opposition here, Lutz says, is coming from the Health Senate: “Because they see night time as a threat, they were also pushing for the curfew. We feel rapid testing would be a much more helpful way of dealing with this problem than just shutting everything down, and thinking that people are going to stay at home. That’s not going to happen. Young people, especially in cities, depend on their friends as much as their families — and in the club scene, especially in the LGBTQ+ communities, friends and clubs can even replace family structures.”

LCavaliero Mann is the Artistic Director at SchwuZ. The venue, founded in 1977, is Berlin’s oldest queer club. It’s been closed since March. “The psychological effects are really bad for the queer community,” Mann says. “Queer people don’t feel appreciated all the time in the mainstream community because they get discriminated against — they are missing their venues, and the freedom that comes with them. I’m afraid that, with things shut, people will go to private parties where there’s no [health] regulations and get COVID-19.”

Despite making it very clear that he wouldn’t attend a private party, LCavaliero empathises with young people’s choices. “I know that if I was 18- or 20-years-old, out of school and wanting to party, and everyone was telling me not to — well, it’s super hard. The queer club community is so important for these young people because they may not have another community in their lives.”

As winter approaches, Berlin’s most beloved cultural asset is reaching its most vulnerable moment. If clubbing can find a legitimate, safe way through the pandemic anywhere, it’s going to be here. Yet to do this — to save communities, careers, businesses, mental health and a clubbing heritage — the federal government and the club scene need to work together better. As Lutz puts it, “you can only succeed in this crisis if the whole society collaborates.”