Around the famous street Reeperbahn in the district St. Pauli, bars, livemusic clubs, cocktailbars, theatre and comedy stages, dives, discos and underground clubs as well as burlesque bars follow one another. Yet also the districts Schanzenviertel, the Karolinenviertel, Ottensen, Eimsbüttel or Eppendorf have their very own spaces for night owls. During the summer many music and culture festivals, beach clubs and outdoor events at numerous public spaces can be added.

The Reeperbahn - a Red Light District in Transition

The Reeperbahn is a living legend: in the old days it was a seedy red light quarter for seafarers and strollers. During the 1960s and 1970s, it was a stepping stone for the Beatles and pop culture, while at the same time serving as an essentially German destination for stolen moments of fleeting, uninhibited sex tourism. Since the 1990s, the red-light district has been gradually transformed into a unique entertainment district with bars and clubs, art galleries, cabarets and theatres, musical palaces and top-class restaurants.

The backbone of this entertainment district is 930 metres long, lined with nightclubs, bars, pubs and clubs. “Musts” on the tourist route include Grosse Freiheit, Hans-Albers-Platz, the Davidwache police station, as well as the Spielbudenplatz with its Panoptikum waxworks and Operettenhaus. Parallel to the Reeperbahn is Herbertstrasse, a street of brothels that is off-limits for juveniles and female visitors. Yet today the masses stream past the red-light haunts into the clubs, restaurants, theatres and stage musicals. With two mobile stages, the Spielbudenplatz adjacent to the Reeperbahn offers ample space for openair concerts.

Music clubs in Hamburg

Whether it is live bands or international DJs, Hamburg’s music clubs offer the perfect ambience for every taste. Legendary hotspots include the Golden Pudel Club and Mojo Club, the new Molotow, Hafenklang, Kaiserkeller, as well as Grosse Freiheit 36, Prinzenbar and Moondoo. Yet the best approach is to enter the night free of preconceptions, fall in with the rhythm of the night, and make your own discoveries in corner pubs, backstreet shrines and hidden bars. The agile breeze propelling music fads and trends blows where it will and moves far too fast to allow for guided tours.The Clubkombinat, an association of music clubs mostly centred around Reeperbahn, offers an overview about the club's program here.

The Reeperbahn Festival Hamburg

If you have experienced the unique atmosphere of the Reeperbahn Festival once, you will want to do so again and again! Concerts, art and a conference are all part of the unparalleled atmosphere of the Reeperbahn Festival and form a close-knit unit, which makes this event unique in Europe. The Reeperbahn Festival’s Music, Conference and Arts components offer 800 events from all disciplines for more than 35,000 experts and festival guests from all over the world. There are inexhaustible possibilities to discover and network in the more than 70 atmospheric small and large venues. The Reeperbahn Festival has found its way into music and live entertainment listings as a cross-discipline event and is now an integral part of the international music industry. Every year the Reeperbahn Festival offers a comprehensive programme that is sure to amaze, make curious, provoke and bring the people together. The festival takes place annually on the third weekend in September.

Festivals

From well known music and lifestyle festivals like the MS Dockville or the Reeperbahnfestival over classical music festivals like the Schleswig-Holstein-Musikfestival to unusual culture festivals like the International Summer Festival Kampnagel - Hamburgs festival landscape offers a broad and diverse range of cultural festival experiences of all kind. Both in summer and in winter many interesting recurring series of events take place, that make Hamburgs nightlife even more Special and exiting.

Foto: www.mediaserver.hamburg.de / Christian Spahrbier