A list of must-see places in Berlin has always included the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, Museum Island, and parts of the former Berlin Wall.

However, now that over half the tourists coming to Berlin are under 40 - around a third even younger than 30 - Berlin's nightclubs are becoming just as popular as the city's tourist attractions.

In clubs like Berghain, Watergate, Bar 25, WMF, or Weekend, music from the world's most famous - and expensive - DJs provides the soundtrack for the 15,000 tourists that come to party in the German capital every weekend.

These nightclub tourists come to Berlin to experience a unique nightlife subculture. They arrive with low budget airlines and, having passed safely through customs, head straight to the famous clubs.

Take the Berghain for instance. What was a power plant 20 years ago is now a place where you can party till you drop. More than two thirds of the guests are from outside Germany.

Illegal was in

According to a British music magazine, ten of the best 100 clubs worldwide are in Berlin. And over the last years Berlin has grown increasingly international - especially in its club scene.

"That's what is driving this city forward and what has changed the city," said Tobias Rapp, author and journalist for Germany's Spiegel news magazine. He has been following Berlin's rise to its status as a nightclub capital.

After the fall of the Wall, young people discovered the eastern part of the city, which at that time was run down and neglected. People used old basements and abandoned houses for parties. There was plenty of space just waiting to be discovered, recalls Thomas Andrezak - also known as DJ Tanith. He moved to Berlin in 1987 and was among those who founded the legendary Tresor club in the underground vaults of a former department store.

"It really was a place of adventure and you never knew what you'd discover," he said. "When we found these underground rooms for the Tresor, the place was full of old stuff, there were old Russian posters from the 1960s. It looked as if had been abandoned for decades."

The key slogan at that time was: illegal. No one cared about regulations, laws or property rights. But illegal didn't necessarily mean that something was actually forbidden - it was a term used to describe a certain aesthetic approach.

New ideas emerged from those new found spaces. Art, music, fashion and design were blended together - and the underground avant-garde of the 1990s began. It was a time for experiments.

"'Illegal' was the term we used to describe taking over spaces that no else cared about," said DJ Tanith. "Techno was the soundtrack to the fall of the Wall - it was the music played in illegal clubs till the early hours of the morning."

Free and wild now a thing of the past

But the club scene has changed. The days of illegal parties in rundown buildings are over. Investors have moved in and clubbing has become big business. By now, the sector is generating huge profits and the revenues are significant to the city - and so are the jobs provided. Currently around 10,000 people are employed in the sector, and it is estimated this number will increase threefold in the coming years.

For years, the clubs had to struggle with the city's authorities to survive. But now Berlin has realized that its famous nightlife is a major asset for the city and a unique opportunity. Today, it's actively promoted in the city's image campaigns.

Things might have been toned down since the wild days of illegal parties 20 years ago, but Berlin remains one of Europe's places to be when it comes to nightlife and clubbing.

Tourism - Berlin style

"Many of those ravers who come to Berlin know more about the subculture than the people who live in this city," says Rapp. "They have a specific image in their head. And by partying they themselves turn that image into reality - they are 'Berlin' even if they aren't Germans."

Berlin has become an international metropolis. The city is no longer merely the place where the Wall came down, or the former capital of Hitler's regime. It also is the destination for countless people who want to party in one of the hundreds of clubs.

This kind of tourism is different from regular mass tourism. It's about the individual's quest to find something unique and special. And it seems that Berlin is at the forefront of this new trend.

Author: Christoph Richter (ai)
Editor: Rob Turner