Wasteland: Amsterdam’s Fetish Party, Berlin, and Summerfest

Wasteland, often called the Wasteland Party, is one of the largest and longest-running fetish parties in the world. It started in Amsterdam in 1994 and set out to pull fetish culture out of a closed underground and put it in front of a wider adult crowd that was still there by consent. It is not a quiet meetup and not a late dungeon night. Latex, leather, and an open room are the tone. Openness and tolerance are the values the organizers name. Kink is the dress code and the entertainment at the same time.

A big Wasteland holds on the order of 6,000 to 8,000 people, with more than five stages and more than forty acts. The night stacks scene demos and fetish performance with club culture: DJs, live music, international acts, visuals, cinema, and fashion shows by designers working in couture latex and leather. In recent years the Amsterdam event has been tied to the Northseavenue venue. The point of the mix is a full sensory party, rather than a dungeon station with nothing else on the bill.

The origin story is also how the party advertised itself. Early on, the organizers built a gangway on Amsterdam’s Reguliersdwarsstraat between Club Richter and Café Blitz. Guests in full gear walked between the two rooms while people on the street watched. Photos of that kink bridge traveled internationally and became the picture of fetish made visible. A 1996 Amsterdam court reference, and later Dutch lifestyle coverage including pieces on Playboy.nl, show how fast the party became a local institution and a press subject. Showing fetish as a spectacle was the aim. Nobody was pretending this was an ordinary costume party.

The brand then left the Netherlands on a schedule. In 2011 Wasteland played its first night outside the country, at Berlin’s KitKatClub. Wasteland Berlin settled into an October date there, Amsterdam’s name on Berlin’s sex-positive club floor. In 2017 Wasteland Summerfest started in July. Early summer editions used the creative spot Thuishaven. Amsterdam, Berlin, and the summer party are now a calendar, so fetish travelers have more than one pilgrimage a year. Fetishistas and Dutch columns on the latex fashion at the event keep the name in the European kink-nightlife conversation.