As of Wednesday, December 8, Berliners will no longer be allowed to dance inside nightclubs. 

In a bid to minimise the transmission of COVID amid the spread of the Omicron variant, the Senate of Berlin is enforcing a ban on dancing inside nightclubs and imposing a strict maximum limits on large events – TBH, it’s hard to picture clubbers swaying gently to Marcel Dettmann banging out techno.

As well as making cutting shapes verboten, clubbers have also been advised to limit contact with other people.The “2G rule” also applies everywhere for nightlife in Berlin, referring to Germany’s large-scale events and nightlife guidelines which require patrons to hold one of two “Gs” (either 'geimpft', ie. vaccinated, or ‘genesen’, having had a positive test in the last six months).

The news comes after Germany's federal government said that all nightclubs in states with high infection rates must close. As the ban is only legally enforceable from next week, clubs are allowed to open this weekend at 50 per cent capacity.

“20 months of pandemic and no better idea than to ban dancing,” Clubcommission Berlin’s Lutz Leichsenring told RA. “It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out that you can’t enforce a dance ban in party basements and private homes. Without 2G and without tests.” He continued: “No word about PCR tests, no data on level of infections assigned to clubs that justifies such massive restrictions.”

With no proposed end date for the ban in sight, it looks like this weekend will be the Last Dance for Berlin residents.