Берлинская вечеринка Cuddles бросает вызов элитарной клубной культуре, предлагая инклюзивное пространство для ЛГБТК+ сообщества

Cathartic chaos: Cuddles is countering Berlin’s status-driven scene one queer party at a time With an aim to “protect, uplift, and celebrate” its queer community, Cuddles has become Berlin’s answer to non-exclusive, anything-goes clubbing where ticket prices are accessible and chaos is encouraged. We find out more about the community-driven club night Functions is our interview series profiling parties from across the world. This time we meet: Cuddles Berlin has a reputation for its illustrious and exclusive clubbing scene where bouncers can shun hopeful attendees at the door with no questions asked. It’s a common and sometimes frustrating practice across the club scene, which contributes €1.5 billion to Germany’s economy annually, waving in tourists from all over the world who hope to chance their way in to a famed institution. “We don't think the exclusivity is always intentional, but somehow it became part of the culture around here,” muse Aaron Blau and puppy, the co-founders of Berlin queer party Cuddles. “There's so much status, social capital, being seen in the 'right' spaces with the 'right' people.” Read this next: Here’s what Berlin clubbers look like after 24 hours at Berghain Cuddles was founded in 2024 as an intimate gathering of friends, but has soon become Berlin’s answer to non-exclusive, anything-goes clubbing where ticket prices are accessible and chaos is encouraged. Often hosted at ÆDEN, with exception to a few international showcases and a debut festival slot earlier this year at WHOLE, Cuddles has gathered a crowd of familiar faces who create that “genuine community feeling”. Two years on from its launch, Cuddles has hosted a steady supply of artists from the likes of Angel D’lite, Kim Petras, Bitter Babe, CCL and Jennifer Loveless, though it doesn’t have a particular tie to any sound, its founders say. “We want to focus on queer voices, so our line-ups reflect that spectrum,” they explain. We chat with Aaron and puppy to find out more about Cuddles, as they talk us through their favourite nights so far, the party’s hedonistic and sex-positive ethos, and how they’re aiming to “protect, uplift and celebrate” Berlin’s queer community one event at a time. Check it out below. Tell us the story of Cuddles’ origins… Cuddles started very small, a friends-only gathering at a slightly illegal venue. It quickly became clear that we needed something bigger. It was definitely a struggle at the start, since we suddenly had to be promoters, bookers, accountants, graphic designers, creative directors, copywriters and social media experts all at once, and we're both too stubborn to delegate much of it since we treat this project like our strange little child. We're very different from each other, which came in handy: puppy has a tech background and took over the graphic design, and Aaron, with a fashion background, does the research and direction. We wanted to build a space we felt was missing in Berlin, something softer and community-driven, without losing the intensity of Berlin nightlife. We're both DJs, so music was obviously at the forefront. We wanted a space where incredible bookings go hand-in-hand with a genuine community feeling: meeting new people, hanging out with strangers, finding new crushes, all with a hedonistic, sex-positive Berlin vibe. Spaces here had become exclusive, transactional, and status-driven, and because of that, events became less about the community and more about who's on the guestlist, networking, cliques - the solo experience. You’ve said that Cuddles is a space to “protect, uplift, and celebrate” Berlin’s queer community – how do you achieve those goals? It's less about just saying these words, and more about the actual decisions that reflect them. That means booking line-ups that really represent the diversity of queer culture, not just booking representation as a box to tick. It means trying to make tickets accessible, creating community ticketing schemes, working with local legends from the scene and giving opportunities to artists who deserve better platforms. We want to promote a more conscious way of partying where it's not only about attending passively, but also actively engaging, being part of the space and the people around you. We partner with local awareness and harm reduction teams, and we talk openly about safer consumption and safer sex in the community. That idea of community also applies to everyone who works with us. We try to keep our roster of door selectors, artist care and cashiers local and diverse. We want to give space and opportunities to people who've been part of the scene for a long time, marginalised communities, and people struggling financially. Ultimately, all of that is what we consider 'queer': this very diverse community of people with different backgrounds, different upbringings and different paths in life, all coming together. Queer chaos in a nutshell. How would you describe Cuddles to someone who hasn’t attended one of your events? Cuddles really is a playful, cute function, equal parts rave, family reunion, speed dating event and queer orgy. It's wild, chaotic, warm and friendly, sexy, hedonistic, and artsy all at once. It's about music, but it's just as much about visual art, graphics and community - the whole world around the event matters as much as the line-up. You get cathartic, introspective dancefloor moments to some hypnotic tunes by night, and euphoric raving during the daytime. Especially at our 24-hour events, you can go through the full range of emotions in one stretch. People dance really hard, they flirt hard, they cuddle (hard). You can actually make friends and spend real time with each other. You might end up talking to a load of strangers over the course of a party, but you'll always feel safe and welcome, and you can completely let yourself go. No shame, no etiquette, no rules on how to dress or how to be, whether you want to dance to great music or mingle in the garden (or in the darkroom). Is there a particular sound attached to Cuddles parties? How do you curate your line-ups? No, we don't believe in sticking to one 'sound'. Berlin is so specific when it comes to sound, so we want to offer the opposite. We want to stay in between genres, between binaries. We want to focus on queer voices, so our line-ups reflect that spectrum: queers, chosen family and allies, full of both well-established legends and newcomers. We've noticed that younger artists who maybe aren't so well known yet often have this fire and passion, and they play some of the best sets. We mostly run two rooms, one vaguely 'housier' and the other vaguely more ‘techno', as it reflects our own musical preferences. But it's more about the energy and what the artists want to bring. We give a lot of trust to our acts, full freedom in their range. Generally, we try to stay away from trends, and at the end of the day we want to curate line-ups that we'd love to dance to ourselves. Musically, you can expect everything from bass and techno to the classiest house you've ever heard, prog, tribal, Latin, experimental, uplifting and happy or intense and thoughtful. For us, it really isn't about genre, it's more about the vibe. The music, in our eyes, should reflect the diversity of the community. Programming is a bit about chemistry for us. We realised some people are just 'Cuddles' people, 'Cuddles' DJs. We want to build the space around kindness, fun and chaos, and tend to book people who reflect those values. We run a lot of 24-hour events, so you also need people who'll vibe with each other over that time. And it doesn't stop at the parties. We run our bi-weekly mix series, Cuddles with…, alongside the events, collabs, and little pop-ups and takeovers, so the curation is really about building a whole world, not just filling a line-up. You’ve said before that Berlin’s nightlife scene often feels exclusive and status-driven, how does Cuddles counter that? We don't think the exclusivity is always intentional, but somehow it became part of the culture around here. There's so much status, social capital, and being seen in the 'right' spaces with the 'right' people. Part of countering that is really finding the right audience. We post a lot online, long texts, stories, preachy posts, and it's not about telling people what to do, more about finding the right ones, the people who believe in the same values. The name itself, Cuddles, already helps curate a certain kind of crowd. We don't have a dress code, so it’s not about dressing cool to get in. We also work with amazing, experienced selectors who we trust, people who really understand our philosophy and know how to read a crowd. We're not cool, we're quirky. That's kind of the whole point. Can you tell us some of your favourite memories from Cuddles parties? Aaron: Just at the last party, someone brought a big pink veil to the club, probably inspired by Madonna's new album. At some point during my set, people started spreading it out over the dancefloor and performing and dancing underneath it. Iconic. Another amazing moment was the closing set from our resident Jessica Nightlive. We wanted to close the floor, and four hours later, we realised she was still going strong with a packed crowd. puppy: Kim Petras and Margo XS performing at Cuddles was an absolute vibe, that's for sure. We had so many newcomers joining us for that one, people flying into Berlin, the sweatiest dancefloor so far. I still hear people talking about DJ AYA's first closing two years ago at our very first event at OXI. The ‘I'm Outta Love’ remix at the end really stuck with people for YEARS. She became a resident straight after that night! Aaron & puppy: People at Cuddles are wild, dancing half-naked on a podium, fully letting themselves go. Honestly, it’s all the queerness and stupidity, the insane outfits, the impromptu 'performances', the chaos all around. You just made your debut at WHOLE Festival, what was that experience like? How does Cuddles change shape on a festival stage? Playing WHOLE was truly special. It's one of those festivals that became really important to a lot of queers, including us. We've been through so many insanely emotional moments there, so playing it was really touching. We had a little spot at 11:PM on Saturday in the Forest, so we went for a full-tilt move: a b2b2b with DJ AYA and us two. And honestly, we’ve never had so much fun. The energy between us and the energy we got from the crowd, it was so intense and emotional at the same time. I think we captured that weird, chosen-family energy, the queer chaos we've been talking about. Also, ‘I'm a Homosexual’ by Julie Desire truly became an anthem of that set. It reminded us that Cuddles isn't tied to one venue. It's energy, a vibe, it's people and what they carry with them. We can't stress this enough: the set wouldn't have been half as iconic if all of our friends and all of the Cuddles crowd hadn't been there. So lots of love to everyone who came to support. What do you hope to achieve with Cuddles? What’s the mission statement? We hope we can bring some warmth and something genuinely unique to the scene in Berlin. If people look back in a few years, we want them to say: Okay, those were the iconic Cuddles parties, the ones that brought amazing curation and art to the scene and really brought something new to Berlin's nightlife. A big part of that is the visual world we build around the parties. We want it to inspire people and bring something a bit more innovative than the standard club flyer. There's a form of storytelling in it. Our posters and graphics have this childlike, whimsical quality, and if you look closely, there's always some strange little storyline running through them. It's part of the world you're stepping into, a queer fantasy. Ultimately, we want Cuddles to show people that nightlife can be artistically ambitious, fun and caring, all at once. We want people to come together in a space that has both incredible music and acts as a hangout for everyone who doesn't really 'click' with societal norms. If someone leaves feeling more connected, whether to themselves, to the community, or to someone they met, then we've succeeded. What’s next for Cuddles? Expansion, but in a thoughtful way. We want to take the concept around the globe and build more bridges with other queer collectives in Europe and beyond, but do it in a way that doesn't cost us our sense of self and what makes Cuddles, Cuddles. Growth isn't really the goal for growth's sake, for us, it's about expanding with our values intact, staying underground, keeping it real. The goal is to keep building spaces where people feel free enough to dance, experiment, connect and take care of each other. Also, we want to start a label, we're working on some amazing merch and want to collaborate a lot more over the next year. There’s three more events lined up in Berlin this year, including one collab, and the label, merch and further collaborations are all in the works for next year. But underneath all of it, the mission stays the same: to spread love and empower our community. That will never not be important! Especially now, with how things are unfolding politically around the world. Spaces where dolls, queers, dykes, gays, twinks, POC and everyone in between can come together, be themselves, connect and exchange are more important than ever. Find out more about Cuddles here Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Associate Digital Editor