Berlin’s famed nightclubs have been silenced by COVID-19. Can they bounce back?
“The signals we get from the experts are that the club culture is not possible until there is a vaccine,” said Lutz Leichsenring.
While some parts of the country’s economy are starting to emerge from the lockdown, Berlin’s vibrant club scene is facing perhaps the biggest challenge in its history, with no clear answers on when it might resume.
“The signals we get from the experts are that the club culture is not possible until there is a vaccine,” Lutz Leichsenring, spokesman for a commission representing 300 clubs in Berlin, said.
He said the situation is “devastating” for the industry, which was already struggling with gentrification and rising real estate prices.
Many of the 9,000 people employed in the city’s clubs have been left without work. And for the owners, costs are still accumulating even as the revenue has completely dried up.