This year, I had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion at the ‘South by Southwest Conference and Festival – SXSW’ titled “The Transformation of Nightlife for a Sustainable Tomorrow” – how exciting!¹

But besides this exciting opportunity, besides the fact of being able to travel to Austin, to meeting interesting people and to talking on a panel; over the past years the topic grew closely to my heart.

I genuinely believe, that linking the environmental transition a lot of cities worldwide pursue, with culture and nightlife could benefit both worlds drastically. And guess what – I’m not alone!²

Good panel, good Conference, good mood – let’s go :)!

But let’s go step by step – how did this all start?

Back in the days in 2022, when I started working at Fraunhofer IAO, I took over a project called the Nighttime Innovation Network from my predecessor Jennifer: A series of workshops aimed at resolving conflicts between different interest groups in urban nights. Participants included artists, representatives of nighttime advocacy groups, public authorities (public order office), police, firefighters, security personnel, club and bar owners, and city officials, including Stuttgart’s first Night Mayor.

Due to former engagements as waiter, bartender and kitchen helper several local venues, and due to some of my volunteering activities, I had hands-on experience on how nightculture can look like from both ends. And the issues that may come with it. Now in this workshop, even my city’s first Night Mayor participated. All was pretty exciting for me!

The workshops (all online due to Covid-aftermath) followed a consistent structure: Intro done by Hendrik Meier from Vibelab³ and me, then breakout sessions in different groups, then discussion in big group. Then Hendrik and me synthesising the findings on paper.

Over time and over multiple workshop sessions together we went through identifying overarching themes and subtopics. To then be able to identify related challenges and possible solutions⁴. This process yielded a long list of possible ways forward, from which we compiled a more general and concise version in the form of policy recommendations. I could present the findings at the about pop conference on night-culture and we received a positive feedback⁵.

However, one thing stayed with me — during the discussions, also the one during the conference, it was challenging to keep myself and everyone else ‘on track’. We were constantly tempted to switch between different layers of the problem — switching seamlessly talking about individual and specific examples to the ‘bigger picture’ and general implications – back and forth. Localised and individual best-practice examples and overall policy implications were being discussed at the same time. Nevertheless, we managed it and the outcome was useful and well-received! In hindsight this experience proved to be very insightful for me.

The project finished, and sadly, no follow-up funding was secured, so in my working days the Nighttime Innovation Network was naturally replaced with other projects. But I still thought about the topic. I began reading mostly on nocturnal insects and their relationship to light ⁶ and I could get hold of the newly published book Managing Cities at Night: A Practitioner Guide (see p. 110 for explicit mention and call for action sustainability-nighttime; throughout the book only minor role)⁷.

At NOEK conference – talking about how the night is hiding in plain sight

A nocturnal Aha-Moment

It wasn’t until 2023 that I was invited to speak on a panel titled ‘The Night – The Forgotten Time in City Development’ at the NOEK Conference in Mannheim⁸. Just by reading the title, it clicked. I saw what I did not see before: All the projects I was involved with at Fraunhofer dealt with cities, and all the frameworks and initiatives within them dealt with cities, yet none of them touched on the topic of the night.

My thinking went like this:

• “Aha… day and night are roughly equal in duration, yet our projects primarily focus on daytime…”⁹
• “Hmmm, but we had the Innovation Network that happened for the night…. Wait a second… funding ran out and everybody went their way. Inside my other projects I am not asked about the topic…
• It came to me that during the Nighttime Innovation Lab, there was the exclusive participation of socioeconomic actors, without the ecological or environmental view present. The topics are covered only in parallel – either the ecological/sustainable city’s perspective or the nocturnal-socioeconomics side..¹⁰”
• All the discussions I had with colleagues and friends on the topic came back to me, wow!
• And attending NOEK reinforced my understanding, how common this theme is

Morgenstadt Twilight Innovations – Moving forward and trying to find a way

Happy times at SXSW, Photo shot by Andrea Escobar

In the aftermath of this conference I intensified my reading with the texts by Kevin J. Gaston, Vibelab and Jordi Nofre.

And then – it was all magic – I reached out to Lutz and to Jordi, I enthusiastically travelled to SXSW, met many like-minded people, and experienced many new ‘click’ moments. One statement from the panel by Lutz resonated with me: That due to rising temperatures, urban life will likely shift towards the evening and night, making the topic ever more crucial to address.¹¹

I thought to myself: “Well – how more important can it all get?!”

As 2024 goes on, with the help of my supervisors we could set-up a consortium on green soundproofing and start with the development of the ‘Industry Network -Smart City @ Night-‘. Several other ideas are in the pipeline and I’d be so happy to share and possibly get -you, reading this text- on board :).

I will continue with the concepts we came up with in my next blog post – Thanks for reading; btw – this is my first blogpost, yay!

1. Thanks to my sponsors allowing me to participate at SXSW – Lutz and Vibelab for the invitation and the ongoing inspiring discussions. And to The German Center for Research and Innovation New York for the financial support. See also description of our panel. ↩
2. First and foremost Lutz from Vibelab. As well Jordi Nofre who replied my mails and took time talking to me. Jordi’s research helped me a lot in understanding the topic better. E.g.: “The Urban Ecological Transition and the Future of Europe’s Nightlife Industry” (2023),doi: 10.1080/16078055.2022.2162112; Side note: I couldn’t find Jordi’s Article on Sci-hub.That’s why I reached out to him and that’s why we are in touch until today. Sometimes barriers can create connections :)…. Also Kevin J. Gaston’s work helped me very much, e.g.: “The Nocturnal Problem Revisited” (2019), doi: 10.1086/702250 and “Anthropogenic Changes to the Nighttime Environment” (2023), doi: 10.1093/biosci/biad017; ↩
3. Hendrik was Germany’s first publicly elected night-mayor. He was working in the city of Mannheim. A nice place. At the time of the workshop he was affiliated with Vibelab. ↩
4. See the slides. ↩
5. about pop conference and festival Stuttgart. A special thank-you to Stuttgart’s first night mayor Nils Runge for saving us a spot in the agenda for our discussions. ↩
6. See this recent paper: Fabian, S.T., Sondhi, Y., Allen, P.E. et al. Why flying insects gather at artificial light. Nat Commun 15, 689 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44785-3. ↩
7. Book, released just in the right time for me: Acuto, Michele, et al. Managing Cities at Night: A Practitioner Guide to the Urban Governance of the Night-Time Economy. 1st ed., Bristol University Press, 2022. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv22jnkcq. (see p. 110 for explicit mention and call for action sustainability-nighttime; throughout the book only minor role) ↩
8. By happy coincidence – initially my supervisor was invited to go but hat a conflicting event. Link to NOEK Conference Mannheim. ↩
9. Writing this makes me feel kinda silly – this is all so obvious, right?! ↩
10. please note: This is simplified and reflecting my personal journey. I am trying to target the bigger picture with my argument and I do not want to discredit initiatives that already move in this and in bridging both worlds. What I personally observed is that in this context, topics related to sustainability are often approached from the cultural/societal sphere’s vision and concept, not as someone from the ecological or city-development sphere might frame them. This goes vice-versa. I vividly remember a discussion between an lighting-experienced ecologist and a cultural/societal night-time advocate, where finding common ground was extremely difficult. ↩
11. You can already see this happening in the real world. See an article from September 9, 2023 in the Washington Post – “Extreme heat is forcing America’s farmers to go nocturnal”(paywall). ↩

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Eli Goldstein, one-half of the DJ duo Soul Clap, requests you to participate in a research study on Climate Action in the Electronic Music Industry. Eli Goldstein is conducting this study at Bard Center for Environmental Policy for a master’s thesis that will be available at Bard College Stevenson Library upon completion in May 2023. The Faculty Advisor for this study is Gautam Sethi, Bard Center for Environmental Policy.

What the study is about?

This is a research study about climate action in the electronic music industry. The purpose of this research is to determine the potential for a voluntary climate agreement in the industry and identify key elements that could be included in an industry-wide voluntary climate agreement. The information gathered from this research will support the development of a framework and roadmap for a voluntary climate agreement in the electronic music industry.

Why you are invited to participate?

You have been invited to participate in this research because you work in or work closely with the electronic music industry.

What does it involve?

You will be asked to read this consent form and acknowledge your consent which takes about 5 minutes. Then you will be asked to complete a survey using Google Forms that will take about 10 minutes. The survey begins with questions about your place in the electronic music industry, feelings about climate change, and participation in climate action. The survey also includes an explanation of voluntary climate agreements and a series of questions that explore your ideas about the potential for a voluntary climate agreement in the electronic music industry.

Any further questions can be emailed to Eli Goldstein at eg7212@bard.edu.

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Sustainable and innovative approaches to addressing noise complaints and other neighbourhood conflicts. Nightlife greatly enriches the urban environment and is essential to the urban culture, social development and the economy. Unfortunately, nightlife is not always considered an asset but a nuisance. 

Just this week, another venue, this time in Brussels, Belgium, has been forced to close after 29 years of existence. Fuse, Belgium’s longest-running techno club, has received an order from Brussels Regional Administration  (Brussel Leefmilieu/ Bruxelles Environnement), the immediate demand to play music at a maximum of 95 dB and to close its doors at 2:00 am. It is impossible to open a club under these restrictions. Therefore the club will remain closed from today.

Despite substantial work to prevent a closing, a complaint from a neighbour who bought an adjacent house some years ago is the leading cause of this cessation of activity. Employing ten people during the week and 80 employees during the weekend, all these jobs are now under immediate threat.

“The closure of Fuse is one of the biggest cultural losses Brussels has seen in years… With nearly 30 years of existence, Fuse Club is Belgium’s longest-running techno club and one of the most prestigious nightclubs in Europe. Bringing international DJs, musicians, and thousands of people from all over the world together every weekend, Fuse has always kept raising Brussels’ profile as a European nightlife and cultural hub. Doing so, throughout the years, it has become a vital contributor to Brussels’ influence in Belgium and abroad. 

Besides, not only is it a terrible loss for the reasons mentioned above, but if this comes through, it could create a precedent that could have dangerous repercussions on the rest of the nightlife sector in Brussels. All clubs are involved in neighbour struggles, and without proper « Agents of Change » measures, this won’t ever stop. I fear this decision will open the door to endangering situations with more clubs”

Romain Baudson from Brussels By Night Federation  

Issues commonly arise between nightlife establishments and their neighbours over noise and curfews. As residential areas and nightlife districts continue to overlap spatially, venues come under threat of repeated noise complaints, fines and closure. Different levels of intervention by the government and varied policy landscapes at the local level influence the potential for nightlife and local residents to cohabitate in urban space. 

This article, written by Maarten Van Brederode explores the relationships between nightlife spaces and urban residents, highlighting challenges and some of the collaborative and direct engagements implemented in different cities worldwide. One such solution is the agent of change principle. Many venues, local policymakers, nightlife organisations, artists and patrons are successfully implementing this and other strategies to ensure better neighbourhood cohesion and mutually reinforced sustainability. By referencing this current state of affairs, in terms of conflicts and solutions, nightlife businesses and other actors can follow the examples presented here and innovate further within local contexts.

Read the full feature on nighttime.org here

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Nightlife scenes and local communities have all the potential to coexist peacefully and productively in the urban environment. Each enriches the other, leading to neighbourhood cohesion, mutual support and social and economic vitality. A city where people, businesses and culture can live, entertain, work and socialise together is a measure of urban economic and social sustainability.

Thriving nightlife districts are those which accommodate and consider residents, as well as invite and attract tourists. Compelling scenes provide platforms for new and innovative artists and maintain ties to neighbourhood traditions. These areas should be safe, functional and fun for all. Urban fabric thrives when urban planning and policy frameworks, zoning regulations and development rules consider residents’ quality of life equal to the commercial and cultural value of nightlife.

Conflicts over the use of urban space:

Unfortunately, conflicts between nightlife spaces, local communities and municipalities do occur. Recurrent quality of life concerns of residents include noise, nuisance and safety. Often, nightlife spaces are attacked by residents and municipalities both for simply providing the entertainment and cultural functions they are meant for. Restrictive curfews, inundation with noise complaints and fines, and unsupervised residential development threaten nightlife spaces and increase tension. Gentrification processes can push out long-standing communities, making way for entertainment districts only accessible to newer, more affluent incoming residents. These same processes can threaten long-standing venues, bars and other nightlife and cultural spaces when new residents do not accept preexisting neighbourhood functions and use. Municipal negligence to these dynamics and runaway real estate development has strained these actors.

When cities do not actively engage with these urban processes, unintended competition and animosity between local residents and businesses can, in the worst cases, lead to venues being forced to shut down under financial burdens. If this trend continues, more and more venues will close, and nightlife districts will lose historic character and vitality. Fortunately, local and international dialogue occurs between nightlife actors and policymakers. Mediation and compromise can be found via both official and unofficial channels. The push for later curfews, and other framework changes, can lead to robust and sustainable nightlife at the same time as livable neighbourhoods.

Agent of change principle:

In many cities, nightlife districts have historically taken root where residential land use is far less common than commercial. Examples include former industrial quarters, river or waterside land and urban core areas that have lost population density due to suburbanisation. This separation of land uses leads to relative peace for nightlife businesses, patrons and local communities. Neither disturbs nor encroaches on the other.

However, as neighbourhoods become increasingly more mixed-use, conflicts arise when existing businesses are burdened with the consequences of incoming residents or vice versa. Noise-generating activities from nightlife, including music and outdoor crowds, may disturb new residents to the degree that official noise complaints are made. Frustrated nightlife businesses are left to contend with resulting fines and a lack of municipal support. One strategy to manage this increasing trend is the agent of change principle. 

Essentially, the incoming entity is responsible for mitigating any changes that may occur due to its introduction into a neighbourhood. For example, if a residential apartment block were to be proposed in a nightlife district, the developer must manage the soundproofing of units and other mitigating measures. This would benefit businesses and residents, as neither is forced to deal with a disturbance.

Best practices and priority-setting:

Several nighttime business associations, tourism authorities, different levels of urban to national governments and other nightlife advocacy groups are currently engaging with the topic of “agent of change” and the potential of such measures to mitigate increasing conflicts over noise and nuisance in changing nightlife districts. In this way, best practices and lessons can be shared, leading ideally to the repetition of successes.

In December 2022, representatives from 24 Hour London of the Greater London Authority met with Cansel Kiziltepe, the German Secretary of State, to discuss sustainable 24-hour neighbourhoods where the city centre’s affordable housing construction can coexist with nightlife culture. 

“​

The agent of change concept is equally relevant for the construction of affordable housing as for the construction of middle and high-income housing and the conversion of commercial spaces (lofts, etc.) into high-end housing. Led by Night Mayor Robert-Jan Wille, the City of Alkmaar, Netherlands, is conducting location profiling of nightlife businesses, including the quality of soundproofing in nearby residential buildings.

In November 2022, the City of Pittsburgh met with nightlife venues to discuss the agent of change idea and how it can be applied. Also, in the United States, the Nighttime Economy Culture and Policy Alliance (NITE CAP) recently facilitated a gathering of minds on the topic.

In the UK, the Nighttime Industries Association (NTIA) has identified current priorities, including better frameworks for managing noise conflicts, soundproofing and the application of agent of change concepts in the nighttime economy. Nightlife actors understand how essential mitigation is for sustainable nightlife and livable centre city neighbourhoods.

Noise dispute case studies:

More and more venues and nightlife districts come under threat of debilitating fines and

in the worst-case scenario, closure. Complainants are primarily concerned with the noise disturbance from nighttime activities near their residences. Examining a selection of past and present venue case studies illustrates the current state of affairs regarding the agent of change and other creative solutions.

In November 2021, the Manchester Night & Day independent music venue was served with a noise abatement notice from the city council. The venue could be taken to court and closed due to ‘noise nuisance’. The noise complaint originated from a neighbour who had moved in during a pandemic lockdown after the venue reopened. Night & Day opened its stage for emerging artists more than 30 years ago, well before the city council approved the construction of surrounding flats. The venue has already made sound mitigation improvements and meets noise level regulations. They blame the city for not considering existing businesses during housing development and failing to coordinate between municipal departments. Court proceedings will begin in early 2023.

Elsewhere in the UK, Birmingham’s The Nightingale has reached a so-called ‘section 106 agreement’ with developers and the city granting £1.5 million for sound mitigation renovations after a large residential development had been approved ‘in principle’ directly across from the 40-year-old LGBTQIA+ venue. In such agreements, the obligation to lessen community impacts is usually placed on developers. However, in this case, funding for these works has been provided to the venue. On the one hand, the 106 agreement concludes a step forward and an important precedent for defending nightlife districts from new, unregulated residential developments. However, the worry remains because noise complaints can still be filed. 

The expenditure by venues in time, legal fees and changes to neighbourhood character still threaten the vitality and survival of nightlife districts. Further examples are seen in the stories of several historical venues in Montreal, all long-standing platforms for emerging artists. Some years ago, Quai des Brumes began receiving noise complaints from a new neighbour who had received permission to convert a commercial space into a residence. The city awarded a subvention to construct sound insulation, which was impossible due to the ageing venue structure. Eventually, Quai des Brumes bought out the neighbour to move. More recently, La Tulipe has also been contending with noise complaints from a neighbour who converted a commercial space next door into a residence. The municipality granted this rezoning permit in error, and the borough government has taken the case to court.

Alternative solutions:

Venues do not stand nor operate alone in these noise and nuisance conflicts. In Manchester, calls for the city council to drop its legal action against Night & Day have come from the city’s music commission and the region’s night-time economy advisor. Close to 100,000 people have signed a petition to drop the abatement notice. City councillors in Birmingham have expressed concern about the impact of new residential development on the longevity of venues such as The Nightingale and the safety of its LGBTQIA+ patrons. Artists who began their careers at such venues, including Matt Healy from The 1975 and Guy Harvey from Elbow (both in the case of Night & Day), have raised their voices against closures.

Attempts are often made to engage directly with surrounding residents in an effort to solve noise conflicts outside of any penal system. Night & Day holds quarterly meetings with local residents to discuss issues of concern. Quai des Brumes and neighbouring venues, including L’Esco and Pow Pow, have called residents directly to discuss noise complaints before they are made to authorities. NTIA encourages members to engage in a ‘360 degree approach’ to communication whereby all businesses, residents and authorities contribute. There is obvious potential for addressing disturbance complaints when the “agent of change” principles are absent or do not apply.

Municipal mediation programs present another option wherein willing participants can problem-solve within their urban communities to avoid costly and unnecessary interference from authorities. The New York City Office of Nightlife has recently launched one such program. MEND (Mediation & Conflict Resolution Program) is a citywide initiative and non-punitive and voluntary mediation program offered to residents and nightlife businesses. MEND is available for disputes between residents and venues, neighbouring venues, and commercial landlords. The program has recently mediated approximately 80 cases with a roughly 80% success rate.

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Lance Jay Brown and Leni Schwendinger‘s latest article for New Cities looks at how countries and cities across climate regions choose to adopt lifestyle patterns to avoid the daytime heat.

“We should be getting ready to live more by night. The night is a natural antidote to daytime heat; it already exists and is free. The actuality of nighttime activities, now and in the future, is changing. Why? Because, as the world heats up, we will doubtlessly move in that direction, living more at night.”

 Lance Jay Brown and Leni Schwendinger 

Read more

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You might have seen cool kids hanging out at shabby bars or pubs lately – and you are not alone. Be it because of hype, part of what is usually described as gentrification, or a necessary alternative to expensive nights due to staggering inflation, are dive bars experiencing a revival?

The urban dictionary defines a dive bar as “a well-worn, unglamorous bar, often serving a cheap, simple selection of drinks to a regular clientele. The term can describe anything from a comfortable-but-basic neighbourhood pub to the nastiest swill-slinging hole.” The colloquial use of the word dive to describe a “drinking den” or “other disreputable place of the resort” comes from the fact that these types of establishments were originally housed in cellars or basements, into which “frequenters may ‘dive’ without observation”, according to a citation of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Let’s look at some concrete cases in three big urban areas across the globe.

New York

In February of this year, a local news outlet featured an interview with the owner of the Pearl River Hotel in New York State, which he does not consider a dive bar himself, although he appears to be thankful for the latest rising interest among visitors. This was not the first time a news outlet in New York reports about dive bars. In fact, this has been a recurring topic in The New York Times, at least until 2021. 

The common thread is apparently how puzzling it can be for both owners and journalists in the sense of why would younger people nowadays choose such places. However, the opposite also exists: visitors who do not understand the trend and have different expectations when told it is supposed to be a “cool” place – see this funny comment from a dive bar owner to a 1-star review on Yelp.

Berlin

The southeast district of Neukölln, known as a melting pot and home for many creative workers, is arguably the area where there is a higher concentration of such bars and pubs becoming popular. In Schillerkiez, the latest neighbourhood to undergo a similar transformation comparable to Prenzlauer Berg years before, places like the former Syndikat are swiftly being replaced by fine dining restaurants and bars serving natural wine or craft beer. 

The bar Bechereck, on the contrary, in its privileged corner with a big terrace caters to those who still seem to prefer the real deal – the so-called Berliner “Kneipe”, serving mainly different homemade liquors, cheap long drinks and local draft beer. Other comparable examples in the surroundings are Warthe-Eck (in Warthestraße) and Stammtisch (in Weserstraße). Usually, it is allowed to smoke inside and it is common to find a slot machine (or two), as well as pool tables. Random music is often part of the appeal, just like the unmatching furniture.

Sydney

In order to confront the recent news on Time Out listing the best dive bars in Sydney and to compare the situation there with Berlin, we conducted a short interview with Nicolas Tsirimokos** who is Australian and lived several years in Sydney before relocating to Berlin 10 years ago. When referring to notable examples of dive pubs like The Marrickville Hotel and the Unicorn Hotel, he tells us that:

“The traditional Aussie pub has forever been a part of our culture, for people of all ages. It’s the place you meet your friends for lunch or your colleagues for a beer after work. For nearly as long as I can remember there has been a trend of rich men in the restaurant and entertainment business buying run-down or historical pubs and transforming them into more glamorous, hip establishments with prices to match. 

Similarly, many traditional pubs have retained their classic look and feel but added on fancy food options or specialise in things like Korean chicken or dumplings for example. Whilst the food is obviously delicious – it’s often at a particularly lavish price point. You have to ask yourself, is this what pub and bar culture are all about? Shouldn’t a local pub serve the whole community? 

Obviously, some pubs still operate like this, but I have been to a few in areas like Newtown, where actually I lived for a long time when some were still relatively hidden gems and meanwhile have changed completely.”

The concluding remarks are, therefore: 

• Can this influx of younger and wealthier generations (often referred to as yuppies or young urban professionals) help these bars and pubs survive? 

• Or are these instead losing their authentic character, by adapting their offer to what their new demand expects versus the initial customers?

For more detailed information about the nightlife vibrancy of these cities, read the Creative Footprint reports on Berlin and New York, as well as Sydney’s “Future Proofing” Report by VibeLab Asia Pacific.

**Nicolas Tsirimokos (a.k.a. artist Nicolas Sàvva) has over 10 years of experience in music strategy, curation and artist relations at companies like SoundCloud and Beatport. He enjoys educating the creator community on how to build and grow their careers. He also works as a composer and sound artist and has scored works for the Stuttgart Ballet and The Czech National Ballet. Moreover, he has presented Face The Music with Nicky Böhm every month on Refuge Worldwide: showcasing, amplifying and celebrating intersectional stories from voices across the music industry.

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The London Night Time Commission has called on the Mayor to establish a Night Time Enterprise Zone.

The Night Time Commission has stated that the increased use of the high street after 6 pm would make London more liveable, relieve pressure on London’s infrastructure and boost local businesses. Following a successful pilot in 2019, the Mayor is expanding his Night Time Enterprise Zones programme across the capital.

“In extending the active hours of the capital’s high streets, there is also an opportunity to ensure that night work is good work.”

These first steps in the city will:

• 📈 Boost recovery
• 🧑‍⚕️ Support night workers
• ✅ Ensure better access to high streets for all Londoners

Read the London Night Time Commission’s ‘Think Night‘ report.

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Yale psychologists have wondered if modern-day secular gatherings that emphasise creativity and community can serve a broader purpose.

The research team, led by M.J. Crockett, an associate professor of psychology at Yale, conducted field studies of more than 1,200 people attending multi-day mass gatherings in the United States and the United Kingdom: Burning Man, Burning Nest, Lightning in a Bottle, Dirty Bird, and Latitude, all events that feature art, music, and self-expression.

They found that people who reported transformative experiences at the gatherings felt more connected with all of humanity and were more willing to help distant strangers.

“We’ve long known that festivals, pilgrimages, and ceremonies make people feel more bonded with their own group,” said Daniel Yudkin, a postdoctoral researcher and first author of the paper. “Here we show that experiences at secular mass gatherings also have the potential to expand the boundaries of moral concern beyond one’s own group.”

Read the full report writen by the researchers in the journal Nature Communications.

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Desterro, the street name of a venue known for late opening hours established in 2014, was the first spot of this kind Lisbon partygoers would tell you about. Years later, in 2019, a former soccer club bar was converted into what is now referred to as Cosmos, operating from evening to early morning. More recently, the crew behind the queer-feminist Mina Suspension parties opened their new fixed location at Planeta Manas, which since 2021 has been competing with the most prominent nightclubs in the city in terms of bookings, audience, and working hours.

Besides their unusual locations in then-yet-to-be-gentrified areas of the city, these spaces all share the premise that they are only accessible to members of the cultural associations that are running them. Attendees must, therefore, agree to fill in a registration form and pay a yearly membership fee (usually symbolic, 3 euros). This does not include the entrance fee, which depends on the event, and drinks at the bar which are also paid separately. The atmosphere inside resembles more of an intimate gathering at a private event instead of the typical bars or clubs, under the tight control of visually intimidating security staff.

Who may qualify as a cultural association and why start one? The main distinctive requirement is a community organized horizontally rather than the divide between owners and the audience. According to the website of the Lisbon City Hall, “a group of people who have common interests in the area of culture can constitute a cultural association as a way to develop an activity within the scope of those interests and to be publicly represented”. They summarize associações as follows:

• legal entities (with legal personality)
• must be non-profit (that is, they must reinvest all income in the association’s activities and cannot distribute it to members)
• may enjoy tax advantages

Even if they manage to stay active (and taking into consideration that the last two associations emerged during the pandemic), bypassing strict regulations imposed on other venues officially registered as nightclubs, the protection from law enforcement’s action attained by these exclusive member associations is very limited.

Planeta Manas reported on their socials that, earlier this year, more than 20 heavily-armed police forces suddenly raided their newly opened venue during an event. Despite acknowledging it was a mistake, they deliberately invaded their privacy further and randomly searched members for illegal substances.

Far from perfect or a universal solution, associations (cultural or not) are important fringe spaces for social experimentation, catering to niche communities elsewhere in Portugal (like Círculo Católico de Operários do Porto and Sonoscopia in Porto) and the rest of the world (for instance, cannabis associations or “clubs” in Spain, Malta, and South Africa). 

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Beginning of April a new collective in Istanbul was founded, Sirän. Founded by Berlin-based DJ Nene H and Istanbul-based DJ Y.UNAN, Sirän wants to expand the conversation on nightlife, provide safe spaces for marginalized members and create a genre bending rave experience. They also want to strengthen the cultural exchange and networking between artists from Istanbul and Berlin. VibeLab conducted a short interview with the founders to get their vision for Sirän.

“We want to create a humane, open and real space that people can come together and discuss,” says the founders. A safe place in which marginalized members can come together to celebrate, explore and express themselves freely. No discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, skin color, size or clothing has place here. 

The first of their events Sirän Rendezvous #1 will take place between 5th and 6th of May in Suma Han, Istanbul. It will have a day of workshops followed by a day of artist talks and a party to wrap it all up.

The founders say that they have been separately interested in creating a space like this in Istanbul for some years. They wanted to expand their scope from only conducting music events to highlight the culture more. They also underline that it is very important that the collective does not have a top down structure but it provides a space for everyone to come together and do something together, without competition.

Crushed by harsh economic conditions, the nighttime of Istanbul took a big toll in the last couple of years. As a consequence the scene is changing, people who participate in it are changing and the cultural aspect of it stays in the background. There are also prevalent feelings of stuckness in the scene, highlight the founders. It is exactly here that Sirän is centring its focus because they believe everyone deserves to have fun and parties provide these little breathers to increase joy of life. 

“Big name bookings are already happening in Istanbul that’s why we found it important to help bring the cultural aspect to the forefront. This is a cumulative subject, when it only exists as an event you buy a ticket and go to, the embracement of it, the collectiveness of it doesn’t happen, it stays too cold.”

For their first event Sirän will host talks revolving around subjects such as techno culture, creating awareness in clubs and meaning of safe spaces, key parts of career development, differences between underground and mainstream, creating a community and individuality and the philosophical implications of clubbing. In addition to talks there will also be DJ workshops limited to 10 participants, women and LGBTQIA+ applicants given priority. The founders say that this is very important for them because they want Sirän to be a space to gain confidence and agency for marginalized communities. 

The collective also aims to link Istanbul with a wider network of global cities and create collaborations between them. They are aiming to organize at least 4 events yearly, the next one planned around September with Berghain’s newest resident DJ Sedef Adasï. To know more about the works of the collective check out their Instagram.

Stay tuned for updates on the Global Nighttime Manifesto that shares the ideas and voices of global pioneering collective and organizers and communities. The Manifesto represents our dedication to imagining and fostering a safer, more equitable and sustainable nighttime. The Manifesto also marks the rise of a new wave of global partnerships and advocacy, research and community-based initiatives that aim to improve the nighttime sector.

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