​Baron Castle Guides Us Through Berlin's Open Air Parties

In collaboration with Jägermeister.

Whether you're still going from the night before, or you fancy a dance after breakfast, brunch or lunch, one obvious factor that separates partying in Berlin from other cities is the ability to find a party at all hours of the day, most days of the week. You can party at night in pretty much every city in the world, but it's the ability to party in the daytime that makes Berlin that extra bit special. Certainly the cream of the crop are found on the weekend and in winter time this is mostly inside clubs, but during summer it can extend to legal as well as not-exactly-authorised open air parties and clubs with great outdoor areas.

There are a variety of clubs that offer great outdoor dance floors and chill-out areas. IPSE is a fine outdoor club, Chalet's garden is well decorated and has a great atmosphere, and Berghain's**** garden has an industrial aesthetic and gives you a chance to check out the crowd in a new light. Personally, my favourite clubs for dancing on a weekend afternoon are *ELSE* and ://about.blank.

ELSE is the summer sister of Salon Zur Wilde Renate and has only been open for the past couple of summers. It is big, open and with all the dressings that have made Renate famous. Situated on the bridge by Renate, overlooking the Spree River and next to the railway line, there are not many better places to be dancing on a summer's afternoon at sunset. A highlight for me was seeing Todd Terje a few years back on a particularly hot Sunday afternoon.

://about.blank has become one of the leading clubs in Berlin, gaining notoriety in part through the infamous Homopatik parties, founded by cult icon Mr Ties. Many of the parties here run from Friday night till Sunday night, and it's usually during the day that these parties are at their best. The garden is leafy with a great dance floor, good sound and lots of little nooks to explore and hang out. You'll often find some of the top DJs in the world playing, announced or unannounced, in the garden. If you want to escape the sunshine and are looking for something other than the house and disco sounds that are mostly played outside, they'll often have a techno floor open inside during the day. Oh, and it has tischtennis (table tennis, for those not fluent in German).

Aside from the club-based events, there are some great pop up and one-off outdoor parties happening frequently during the summer. Rummelsburg hosts the annual Watergate open air, along with some other large scale events. Heidegluhen pops up a few weekends each summer and is notorious for having fantastic line ups and you can find a multitude of other parties if you follow certain Facebook groups or happen to be stumbling though a park on a summers afternoon. Perhaps the most respected popup open-air party is Wax Treatment, organised by the people behind the Hard Wax record store. With a Killasan sound system and a mix of reggae, dub and techno, it's the open-air embodiment of Berlin's most famous record store.

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ELSE feature image via Facebook