What is Tresor actually teaching?
Tresor's educational arm, the Academy of Subcultural Understanding, treats running a club as a craft that can be taught, not a knack you either have or you don't. The free three-week course is hosted at Kraftwerk Berlin and the connected club OHM from September 14 to October 4, with intensive practical training, workshops and seminars led by Tresor and OHM staff. The syllabus is the real work: door policy, financial sustainability, advocacy. It started in 2024 with six participants who needed German and English.
Why open it to the world now?
The 2026 edition drops the German-language gate and explicitly courts applicants working in cities where subcultural spaces are lacking, outside Berlin and the other obvious hubs. That framing matters. Clubs are closing everywhere for reasons that have nothing to do with the music: rent, licensing, energy bills, neighbours. Tresor is betting that the know-how it built over thirty years travels, and that a room in Lagos or Lisbon can borrow the operating manual of one in Berlin.
Who can apply, and how?
The programme is for people aged 21 to 35 who are about to open, or have recently opened, their own subcultural venue. Applying means a 60-second video and a one-page text setting out a vision, submitted by June 29. There is no fee.
