Why is Renate throwing a 66-hour party?
Renate turns 19 this month and it's celebrating the only way it knows how: too much, for too long. The party runs 66 hours straight, from Friday, September 11 through Monday, September 14, spread across all seven of the club's rooms. The booking mixes Daniel Avery with Angel D'lite, Mary Lake, Handmade, Camilla Rae and a run of Berlin regulars including Organza, Madalba, Schatz, Das Beat, Fritz Ernst and Dornika, plus live bands. Around the DJ booths there's a full programme of workshops, drag and burlesque sets, games and walking acts, the kind of maximalist, everyone-welcome sprawl Renate has built its name on since it first opened.
“In true Renate fashion, we will [be] celebrating what has made this venue so special: a commitment to keeping things playful, weird and community-driven. We have always been a place where artists, creatives and nightlife lovers can come together to enjoy the music and spirit of the Berlin we love.”
How close did Renate come to closing for good?
This 19th birthday almost didn't happen. In August 2025, Renate announced it would close permanently at the end of the year, after 18 years running out of a squatted, once-abandoned apartment block on Alt-Stralau in Friedrichshain-Ostkreuz. By November, the club had laid out plans for what it called its final ever party: an 86-hour send-off starting New Year's Eve and running into January 4, 2026. Then, in December 2025, Renate secured a lease extension that kept it open through 2026 instead, turning what was billed as a funeral into an encore. The club also weathered a fire earlier in 2025 that damaged its garden entrance without touching the main building.
What does Renate's survival say about Berlin's club scene?
Renate's reprieve lands against a run of closures that has hit Berlin's techno scene hard. Watergate shut for good in 2024 after nearly two decades on the Spree, and rising rents, noise disputes and redevelopment pressure have pushed several other rooms out over the past few years. A club that grew out of a squat, made it to 19, and got a second life right after announcing its own end is exactly the kind of story a scene under pressure holds onto.
