Sleep Inside the Machine: Kraftwerk Berlin Opens Its Doors and Its Beds for 30 Hours

Sleep Inside the Machine: Kraftwerk Berlin Opens Its Doors and Its Beds for 30 Hours

Berlin Atonal and Unsound unite for their most ambitious collaboration yet. A continuous, immersive event where the line between audience, participant and dreamer combine into one unique experience. 

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that belongs only to Berlin. For most festival-goers, this is the moment you start to feel that cave in moment, stumbling back to a hotel room after hours of dancing and screaming and then setting an alarm you know you will likely not hear. Berlin Atonal and Unsound have a different proposal, don't leave, lie down, take a rest then let it continue.

Their first formal collaboration, The Infinite Now, runs for 30 unbroken hours at Kraftwerk Berlin beginning May 16th. More than 20 different artists will perform across the full stretch of the event, day and night again. And for those who want to experience it without interruption, a bed is available for purchase camp-style, reserved, located in the upper hall, yours to claim on arrival. Pillow included.

"Sleeping is part of the experience," say the organisers, a statement that manages to be both perfectly logical and quietly obscure”

The venue itself has been able to make the proposition feel less abstract than it sounds. Kraftwerk Berlin is not just a nightclub, it is a monument. Built between 1960 and 1964 to supply electricity to East Berlin, the former Soviet-era power station sat dormant for decades before Tresor founder Dimitri Hegemann brought it back to life first housing his relocated techno institution in 2007, and gradually establishing it as one of Europe's most significant spaces for sound art, electronic music, and large-scale experimentation. Its cavernous turbine halls, cathedral ceilings and raw concrete surfaces have made it a site of genuine sonic experiences. Berlin Atonal has called it home since its own revival in 2013.

The concept of sleeping at a festival is not entirely new. Campsite culture has always included it but the intentionality here is different. Organisers describe the event as "a large-scale collective experiment," one that operates explicitly outside conventional festival structures. There are no headline slots, no peak-hour logic, no assumption that you will arrive fresh and leave spent. Instead, the 30 hour format asks something more unusual of its audience, sustained presence, willingness to drift, and an openness to whatever state the music might induce at 4am, or noon, or the following dusk.

Tickets are structured to suit different levels of commitment. The full 30 Hour Pass at €129 is the intended way to experience the event, it covers the entire programme from Saturday evening through to Sunday night, includes re-entry rights throughout the full duration, and grants access to the beds, hammocks and rest areas installed across the building. Those who want to dip in rather than commit fully can opt for a Sunday Day Pass at $56, valid for entry after midday on Sunday May 17th, though this does not include sleeping provisions. 

For those who want to build up to the main event, three standalone Prelude Concerts take place at Kraftwerk across the preceding week. Oneohtrix Point Never on May 10th, Hania Rani on May 12th and Sinfonietta Cracovia performing Gavin Bryars on May 14th each priced at €43. Notably, full 30 hour passholders receive €10 off each of the three preludes, making the complete five night experience a more attractive proposition than the individual prices suggest. 

It is, in essence, an invitation to live inside a sound installation for a day and a half to eat, rest, wake, and re-engage within the same vast industrial space, surrounded by the same ever shifting programme. It is the kind of event that will mean something entirely different to everyone who attends it, and will be almost impossible to describe afterwards.