Travelling to Berlin for the German Fetish Ball has always been something to look forward to. So the announcement that the event is moving to Hamburg next year (see our separate news items) was bound to get a mixed reaction.

But Dave ‘Master Darcy’ Edmond and I weren’t thinking about that as we checked in for our BA Flight at a practically deserted Heathrow Terminal 5, which currently seems to have more staff than customers.

The superfast check-in at T5 allowed Darcy to spend some time there doing his day-job. It’s a little known fact, but he is employed as a mystery shopper testing the standards of Duty Free stores at our major airports.

If the staff not only understand the word ‘Mugler’ when uttered with a Birmingham accent, but can also produce the specific product he requests, their jobs will be safer for a while longer at least. Sadly, on this showing, I fear there may be redundancies soon at T5.

The SuiteHotel, near Berlin’s Potsdamerplatz, with its well-equipped rooms and free internet, is a great base for a Berlin stay. Assuming, that is, the front desk staff can find your reservation. Being informed that the computer says no — or more precisely, that your reservation number is for a room in a Milan Novotel — is not the best start to a visit.

But hey, it was all sorted out by the time Darcy and I headed over on Friday evening to the first official event of the weekend — Fetish Guerilla’s legendary Kinky Cocktails.

In the past, these relaxed warm-ups for the weekend have always been in some cool bar in one of Berlin’s groovier nightlife areas. This year, it was in the basement of Spannwerk, the converted industrial space hosting the German Fetish Fair on Saturday and Sunday.

The reason for this, we discovered, was that Spannwerk had demanded another event be staged there as part of the deal for hosting the Fair, and Kinky Cocktails drew the short straw.

But despite the venue’s apparent determination to provide the absolute minimum number of drinks that could technically qualify as cocktails, the evening was a big success. New friendships were forged, old friendships rekindled and old adversaries ignored. And all on a truly international scale.

Friday’s Kinky Cocktails party was a big success. New friendships were forged, old friendships rekindled and old adversaries ignored

A strong German presence included many familiar faces such as photographer Alexander Horn, model Feena Fetishfairy, and our current cover model/photographer team Eden and Pfauenberg.

Alongside them were Mr Kink in the Caribbean, Robert Fluty, from LA; Denmark’s legendary latex queen Miss FuzzyBunny; and an impressive group from Sweden including charming newbie Thistel, whose ponygirl antics were a memorable spectacle at events later in the weekend.

Also present were Brussels-based photographer Phoebus and his model girlfriend Marie-Kalista, the poster girl for next year’s GFB in Hamburg. Marie-K had just learned that her GFB gig had made her persona non grata at Fetish Evolution — another piece of collateral damage in the feud between the two organisations. This is a subject we may well return to.

For those looking for alternative — or additional — entertainment on the opening night, there was a choice of two other events: Friday’s Fetish Finest at Insomnia and play party Sweet Surrender at Equipage.

SpannWerk/HH Müller hosted the German Fetish Fair a few years back when there were just enough exibitors to fill it. The Fair has expanded a lot since then, but because Spannwerk was the only venue available this year, space was short and some companies, we hear, could not be accommodated at all.

Those that were found themselves packed tightly in, with the narrowest of aisles between the rows of stands, which certainly made it feel busy — and warm — during our visit on Saturday. Fortunately relief from the heat was at hand in the outside terrace bar and barbecue area — at least until one of the weekend’s sporadic thunderstorms drove everyone back indoors.

With the weakness of the pound against the euro, one might expect events like this fair to be extremely popular with British companies, given that their prices currently represent better value in the euro-zone. However, a weaker pound also means that the costs associated with exhibiting at an overseas fair are higher for Brits, so potentially the pros and cons cancel each other out.

Nevertheless this year’s Berlin fair did see a smattering of UK vendors, with first-timers Velda Lauder, Rubber55, Latex 101 and E-Stim Systems joining Berlin stalwarts Bondinage flying the British flag.

The vast majority of other exhibitors were German, with a few from neighbouring countries such as Holland. Many of these companies also exhibit at Fetish Evolution, but most are encountered in the UK only through their websites.

So for British visitors it’s a fantastic opportunity to see many of Germany’s high quality fetish companies and products in one place, and to meet the people behind them.

A selection of pictures from the first day of the Fair makes up the first of my galleries, above right. 

For British visitors the Fair was a fantastic opportunity to see many of Germany’s high quality fetish companies and products in one place

Saturday night, like Friday, offered a choice of official entertainment, with both Fetish Guerilla’s Revolution party at KitKat and the GFB play night at Residenz Avalon to tempt the temptable.

The “serious” nature of the Avalon event combined with its limited space and couples-only policy inevitably propelled the vast majority of kinksters in town for the weekend towards Martin and Anna’s Revolution party, which is with good reason considered the nearest thing Berlin has to offer to a Torture Garden-style experience.

People go to Revolution to socialise, to dance, and to get trashed, and there was plenty of all three going on at this year’s event, with over a thousand people attending. A sizable contingent of London scene stalwarts had been attracted by this one party’s reputation, and it turned out these folk were not much interested in attending any of the other events of the weekend.

Such were the opportunities for socialising at Revolution that I almost forgot I was there to take pictures. I’m usually very responsible about catching the shows but for some reason I was rather distracted this year and I managed to miss all the scheduled entertainment. Though not, by any means, all the unscheduled entertainment.

Anyway, my second gallery on the right is a selection of the peeps I managed to photograph at Revolution. I will be relying on esteemed colleagues with a greater sense of responsibility to provide an additional Revolution gallery or two soon.

People in the audience at the main event — Sunday’s German Fetish Ball at Matrix — are the subject of my third gallery, just posted. A report from Sunday night and galleries of pictures from the shows follow soon.