It closes sometime after sunrise and the sweat and broken glass are mopped up before Saturday night when the massive main techno floor opens. On Fridays, only the house-centric Panorama Bar is open. Once inside, there are no mirrors in the bathrooms to possibly judge your decisions, and the club enforces a no-camera policy to preserve its mystique. But the sexually permissive atmosphere happens every weekend. It’s been in a former power plant since 2004, but the nightclub’s roots go back 20 years to a gay sex party called Snax, which still happens twice a year (at Easter and in November).

Even Hollywood celebrities talk about the world-famous nightclub on daytime talk shows! Homeland star Claire Danes called Berghain the “ best place on Earth” on The Ellen Show in September – which made lots of news in Berlin. You can’t talk about Berlin’s gay nightlife without mentioning techno mecca, Berghain. By Joey Hansom, musician and DJ, English language editor of Siegessäule (Berlin’s free monthly LGBT magazine )