Berlin (dpa) – ‘Not tonight, sorry’ – the decision on whether or not to let someone into a club is often made by bouncers within seconds. An international research team has analysed the mechanisms of the selection process and found out what processes lie behind it.
The researchers conducted 38 interviews with Berlin selectors, club owners, organisers, DJs, security staff and, in the case of one of the techno clubs, also with guests. The researchers refer to the bouncers as selectors, who choose who gets into the club and who does not. They also observed a selection process involving around 500 decisions at the door of a renowned club for one night. To this end, they scrutinised press and archive material and documentaries on the subject.
Self-selection in advance
The decision on admission begins even before the evening starts with how the clubs position themselves, says economist Michael Kleinaltenkamp from the Free University of Berlin in an interview with dpa. He researched the question of admission together with colleagues from King’s College London, the University of Bath and Karlstad University in Sweden. They say that a kind of self-selection takes place in advance.
This is based on how the clubs try to appeal to a certain clientele through their choice of music or political stance. ‘Every club has its own positioning and orientation.’ You can then assume that only those clubbers who are really interested and want to get involved will queue in the evening.
Of course, the ambience of the club, the music system, the bar and the premises are important. But the atmosphere is created by the guests. ‘If you want to create a certain atmosphere, you need to have the right people to create that atmosphere with.’
Making a positive contribution to the atmosphere
According to the researchers, guests must signal that they want to come in and at the same time contribute something to the atmosphere that evening. ‘Ultimately, the clubs always have the most important reason for letting people in: does the person coming in contribute to the atmosphere in a positive way? That’s the basic criterion.’
In the second step, it is important to bring social capital with you: ‘so that you know this scene, so to speak, that you know this music, that you know certain codes, how to behave’. Questions are also asked about this. They often ask which DJ is playing that night, but sometimes they also ask what they have done before or what they are planning to do. ‘It’s about proving you belong.’ It’s less about answering the questions correctly and more about seeing how the person reacts.
‘And then you always have to bring something special to the table,’ says Kleinaltenkamp. As a potential club guest, you have to fit in and stand out at the same time. And that depends a lot on the atmosphere on the night in question. ‘It’s different at the beginning than later on, of course, and people definitely notice that.’
The bouncers regularly walk through the club, see what the mood is like and change their decision criteria accordingly. It’s also about gender, i.e. more women or more men, but also sexual orientation, skin colour and sometimes energy, explains Kleinaltenkamp. ‘That’s also one reason why you don’t always get in.’
Exclusion an important component
Another criterion is the creation of safe spaces for marginalised groups. In many cases, the people who shape this scene see themselves as marginalised and are looking for a safe space where they can express themselves, says Kleinaltenkamp. ‘And you can only achieve that if you only have people in it who have the same attitude.’ Exclusion is therefore an important part of the selection process and often affects those who belong to non-marginalised groups.
In the event of rejection, the reasons given do not necessarily have anything to do with the real reasons. ‘‘You don’t have the right energy today’, for example, tends not to be said explicitly,’ says Kleinaltenkamp. Instead, rejected applicants are more likely to hear ‘You don’t fit in here today’ or ‘The other club over there might be a better fit today’ – if at all.
However, many clubs don’t allow themselves to be completely transparent, partly because the mystification serves the image of the clubs. The fact that it is often not allowed to take photos, for example, also contributes to this.
Source: dpa.com