It seems like the wider world is waking up to the fact that clubbing is indeed a cultural activity. This week, it was revealed that techno institution Berghain is now recognized as “high culture” in the eyes of German law, and it’s been followed swiftly with the news of the Austrian capital of Vienna similarly moving to categorize all of its city’s nightclubs as spaces of culture.
Again, it’s the country’s taxation laws that have been the catalyst for the change. Austrian newspaper Der Standard reports that the city’s government has moved to exempt nightclubs from its “entertainment tax” levied against dancefloors, which required venues that host publikumstanz (public dancing) to pay a 15 percent tax on their admission fees.
Other concert spaces where punters stood still to listen to music, suh as classical music and live rock music, had been except from this “entertainment” tax. However, nightclubs are now classified alongside them under taxation law.
While the focus on taxation law might seem somewhat removed from any idea of culture, it does represent a shift in how the dancefloor is viewed by the establishment. Mark this one off as another small win for global dance culture.
