The Rave The Planet Parade shuts down at 22:00 on Saturday, 15 August. Eight hours on the Straße des 17. Juni, 34 trucks, 382 artists, and then the sound systems go quiet and roughly a hundred thousand people need somewhere to be.

Berlin has an answer, as Berlin does. We list 18 afterparties in our parade guide — from the official one at Columbiahalle to small club nights that will still be going when the U-Bahn starts again.

We read every one of those listings properly. Doors, line-ups, room policies, door policies, the small print at the bottom that most people scroll past. And one thing stood out, so we're writing it down:

Seventeen of them are club nights. One is a kinky party.

Why that's stranger than it sounds

This is Berlin. The city runs on fetish nights. On any given Saturday you can find a dozen sex-positive parties, several of them internationally famous, some of them booked out weeks ahead.

And yet on the one night of the year when a hundred thousand ravers pour off a parade in full costume — glitter, harnesses, latex, body paint, people who spent three weeks building an outfit for a Saturday afternoon in the Tiergarten — the afterparty calendar goes almost entirely straight techno.

Good techno, to be clear. There is nothing wrong with the other seventeen and several of them are excellent. But it's a genuinely odd gap. The parade crowd arrives dressed for exactly one kind of room, and almost nobody opened one.

The exception: Trance Baby Trance at INSOMNIA

The one party in our list built as a kinky night is Trance Baby Trance by UNDR, at INSOMNIA Berlinin Tempelhof. Doors 22:00, running to 06:00.

The handover is almost comic in its neatness: the parade ends at 22:00, this opens at 22:00, and Alt-Tempelhof is a direct U6 ride from the Tiergarten.

What actually makes it a kinky party rather than a club night with a costume theme:

  • An enforced dress code. Latex, harnesses, sheer bodysuits, lingerie, mesh, glitter, creative fetishwear. Effort is checked at the door and a ticket is explicitly not a guaranteed entry. 
  • Play areas, plus a couples area overlooking the main floor, open to couples or couples +1.
  • A trained awareness team and a written consent policy. No means no, maybe means no, only a clear yes means yes, and you can withdraw it at any point.
  • Phone-free from the door. Phones go to the cloakroom. 

The line-up

Main floor: CLAESSENS headlines. Dutch, two decades deep, a Tomorrowland / Ultra / Mysteryland / Dance Valley CV, and until recently he was touring as Tony Junior — he dropped the alias to work under his own name with a harder and more personal sound. Alongside him: subga b2b jeanska and DJ Sweedee.

DUNGEON: Miss Unleashed, Bi Män and Boris Blocksberg.

What it costs

  • Advance: €28 · Door: €30
  • €20 if you're 28 or under, in advance or at the door, with photo ID
  • €20 at the door with a student ID or BVG social ticket
  • 18+, and entry for single men is limited — arrive early if you're coming alone

Door tickets will exist, but an advance ticket puts you in the priority queue, and the whole city is out that day.

One more thing

This is the last Trance Baby Trance. Not the last edition of the party but the last one under that name. It's being folded fully into UNDR and returns in October as BOUNCE by UNDR, same crew and same format.

Before you go

A few things worth knowing whichever afterparty you pick, and especially this one:

  • Bring a change of clothes. Parade fits are not dress-code fits, and eight hours outdoors leaves a mark. The free showers here are not a gimmick.
  • Eat something between the parade and the club. The 22:00-to-22:00 handover is elegant on paper and brutal in practice.
  • Check the door policy before you travel. Ours is a guide, not a guest list — venues change their minds and line-ups shift.

Full details, doors and line-ups for all 18 afterparties are in the guide. It works offline, which in the Tiergarten on a Saturday afternoon stops being a feature and starts being the point.