Gretchen, the ultimate landmark of the berliner club scene
Lars Döring has been managing the famous GRETCHEN club in Berlin since 2011 with his colleague Pamela Schobess. How is the nightlife in the German capital?
Lars Döring gère le célèbre club GRETCHEN à Berlin depuis 2011 avec sa collègue Pamela Schobess. Comment va la vie nocturne dans la capitale allemande ?
Interview conducted by Angela Shihua Yu for Radio Quetsch, l’Alterpresse 68, WNE, and all interested media outlets on October 8, 2026, at the Goethe-Institut in Nancy as part of the NJP (Nancy Jazz Pulsations) industry day. Edited by Louis Bertrand.
Transcription d'une interview radio à écouter ici :
Transcript of a radio interview—listen here:
Autres interviews réalisées à Nancy le 8 octobre 2026 : Mathieu Lamblin, directeur du NJP • Patrick Perrin (Cité Musicale de Metz) • Alain Brohard (L'Autre Canal Nancy) • Vincent Bessières (Jazzdor) • Séverine Cappielo (Jazz à la petite France) • Odile Kanstinger (Goethe Institut) • Roxane Ledard (Cristeel) • Aïcha Chibatte & Christian Débat (Au Grès du Jazz)
[Angela]
Hello, we are here with Lars Döring. Who are you, Lars?
[Lars Döring]
I'm from Berlin and I'm running together with Pamela Gretchen in Berlin. It's a club. We have this month our 15th anniversary. In general, I run venues in Berlin since 1993. And yeah, we are really diverse. Club was a really open-minded booking. We booked from jazz to electronic to funk to experimental. And it's always important to give musicians and different kinds of societies and different kinds of communities the space to be as they want to be. And even in these days, it's really important. Option for a club to show the people democracy.
How did you end up running the club? What were you doing before this?
I started when I was 19 after school and I started studying. And I always wanted to play as a DJ because I started DJing when I was 18. And I played in a cultural house back in the days. called Akut and I was doing their one party and it was really successful and I asked all my friends to come and then they offered me the space if I want to run the space because it was a cultural house that means back in the days we had in Berlin maybe the famous cultural house was Tacheles and that means back in the days and you have to remind that it was after the wall came down it was anarchy in the city everything was possible with no money and this culture house was that we had a cinema a theater a gallery a cafe a concert hall and there was in the basement they did some parties and i had the chance then to make a club there and i also was running with other people the whole house when i was 19 and 20 and after that i started a second The venue was called Icon that I was running together with my business partner Pamela. I run Gretchen together and I always had this passion for music.
You've been in Berlin for quite some time. How do you feel like the city has changed and what do you think has not changed in the cultural music sector?
As I'm born and growing up in the city, I always had this feeling that our city was always really open-minded. and that you can be as you want to be and then you can get a chance to present yourself in a music way or in other ways to express yourself and for sure the city after the war came down we had this really privileged situation that so many things were happening and this spiritual thing that on every corner something has happened it's still in our city in our dna of the city but there are so many changes of gentrification of course but It's still a city where you can be as you want to be and you still got the chance to express yourself. And this is the vibe what the city still have. And our city was always living from this open-mindedness that people from all over the world come to our city, maybe spend one year or maybe stay forever. But our city gives you the option. You have to take the option if you want to be as you want to be. Because nowadays the big change is for sure that prices are getting up every year. And so it's much harder for people to do their life as they want to be. Because back in the days that was the biggest goal for the city for sure. Everything was so cheap that everyone wants to come to our city.
What does a workday in your life look like?
Oh, that's a really good question. It's so different. Even if you run a club or a venue, you still have your office life. And I arrive in the office maybe between 10 and 11, and then I work a lot in the office or have a lot of meetings with people, or I still like to telephone with people and speak with people. And you have a lot of mail stuff, and then you have the shows on the weekends. We have most of the time two shows. We have a concert and then a club night. And different to a lot of other venues, we are both always there. So from the beginning to the end of the show, we take care of the production of everything. We don't have people who run the nights. We do it by ourselves. Sometimes I also do the sound or the light for the club nights. And yeah, I love... What I'm doing because it's a really big gift to just do what you love and what you like to do.
And so if there are young people listening and they want to get into the industry, what would you recommend them to do? Also considering the fact that now there's AI, do you think that changes the industry?
The good thing is with live industry for music. AI can never catch that. That's the biggest goal, what I believe, because the fact that we bring people together in one room with this situation and this energy you feel in a room, at the moment I can't imagine that AI can give you that feeling when people together in one room are listening to music or to dance. And I think this is the bigger thing, and I always will say Have your go for your passion and try yourself and don't give up because then if you have a it's a really simple thing as a sentence if you have a dream go for it it for sure it's really complicated nowadays and not so easy at back in the days but if you feel something that you really really want to do try and there's always a way to work it out and even if you're not successful in the beginning please don't give up and try again because everything is so changing quickly but if you have if you have the love and the and the quality of what you're doing is good then you will be happy in the end if
You could choose like an alter ego it's like a parallel universe and you could choose another job would you no i'm still um
After doing this 33 years, I'm still really, really happy and I'm pleased that I can do what I'm doing because I think it's the biggest luxury I can have.
Last question. This has nothing to do with the question I asked before. Have you ever heard the word intersectionality?
Yes.
Can you explain it?
No.
