Half time: Intangible Cultural Heritage
+++ Raising Awareness and Recognition of the Need for Protection +++ Politics Supports the Idea of Recognising Culture +++
The planning and approval process for techno clubs is complex, expensive and limited. Clubs are not allowed to be opened everywhere. Legally, they still count as places of entertainment and if you want to open such a classified dance location you are treated like a brothel or a gambling house. With serious consequences: In addition to the distance to other places of amusement, significantly higher requirements for safety and order, an amusement arena must pay ten times more contributions to professional associations. The Federal Building Utilisation Ordinance also does not permit clubs in every industrial and mixed-use area. So the hurdles are high.
Application in the Federal Council
That’s why Rave The Planet has already prepared a proposal for UNESCO in 2019 to have electronic music culture recognized as an Intangible Cultural Heritage. Clubs are not places of amusement in the legal sense, clubs make culture. Places where electronic music is played must not be inferior to other interests of neighbours, monument protection authorities, etc.
On 13.01.2020 the time had come: When our project was announced, the response was extremely high. With application 19/98832 the political party FDP then applied for support for our project in the German Federal Parliament. The Cottbus University of Applied Sciences supports our application with a team of scientists. One of our employees at Rave The Planet has been writing about the scientific basis of the protected property for over half a year.
Support from Science and Scene
Other authors like Hans Cousto support us and clubs like the Watergate in Berlin are available for further research and practical relevance. So we are currently working on the content of the application.
On 20.06.2020, further political parties, SPD, Die Grünen and Die Linke, finally supported our idea and applied to the House of Representatives in Berlin to recognize clubs as cultural sites and to adapt the building regulations accordingly. So the legal goals are making progress.
An important step: awareness and recognition of the need for protection has been achieved. Half time, so to speak. So it’s halftime, we’d say.
