Comment by derN3rd
1 year ago
Some clubs in Berlin (Germany) already do this for quite some time and the people there are all fine with it. The vibe is just different, because the people focus more on each other or themself instead of generating content for some online profiles.
The cultural and legal expectations around photographing people are very different in Germany than in most English-speaking countries, and especially the USA. In Germany, taking photos of people without permission is socially unacceptable, and sharing such photos is usually illegal.
In the USA, photographing people from somewhere the photographer has the right to be is protected as freedom of speech with few exceptions, and is less likely to be seen as rude. Of course a business can still impose its own rules of conduct inside.
Various clubs and parties in the NYC scene, too, going back well over a decade. I'm genuinely surprised to read there is some (perhaps exaggerated) controversy over this in the news. The places that have strict no photo / no video policies like this pretty explicitly _don't want_ a patron who became interested in attending primarily because they saw a video of the dance floor on Instagram, they cater to scenes and communities where word of mouth and reputation are more than enough to fill the room.
I don't recall getting stickers at any clubs NYC, although it's been a few years since I lived there. It was always on the honor system at places like Output and events like Black Market.
Maybe it varied depending on the night, but I remember Output being stricter about it the first few years they were open – staff would regularly confront people who took photos. But that seemed to fall off entirely over their final couple years.
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Also, Berlin has many clubs where clubbing culture and kinky/fetish/sexpositive cultures come together. Like KitKat or Berghain.
In those clubs it's more necessary to prevent photos obviously, and that habit makes it more acceptable in regular clubs.