Less than ecstatic

AT HALF past two in the morning a dozen people queue in the freezing cold to get in to Tresor, a night club in a former power station in Berlin. In the sweaty, dimly lit interior, about 100 people are dancing to repetitive beats. Others sprawl on seats near the bar, clutching drinks or other people. The club, one of the first places in Germany to play techno music, seems as popular as when it was launched in 1991. But clubbing itself is on the wane.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall night clubs sprang up in that city in a moment of “cultural anarchy”, says Dimitri Hegemann, one of Tresor’s founders. They took over disused banks, warehouses and power plants. In the rest of Europe several “superclubs” had already opened in the 1980s, and more followed. In London, Fabric opened in 1999 in a former cold store; in Amsterdam, one started in a former print works. Smaller venues proliferated, too.