Best raves in Europe: Warsaw labelled ‘electrifying’ rave scene as party-goers flock to Polish capital

The clock strikes midnight at the nightclub in Warsaw, Poland, on a breezy Friday evening, but the party has barely begun.

Cool kids in oversized jackets and sensible trainers are trickling into K-Bar, an unassuming club in the towers of a bridge. Inside, DJs play atmospheric, eclectic underground electronic music on foggy dance floors for a party that goes past 5am.

I head across the city to another rave in full swing around 1am. Thousands of people pack a cavernous convention hall, dancing to intense, heart-racing hard-techno beats. Clara Cuve, a Berlin-based DJ, drops a bracing remix of Papa Roach’s Last Resort. The crowd explodes, furiously fist-pumping the air and dancing so wildly that the DJ platform shakes.

Read the latest edition of ROAM here.

This party, hosted by the event series Exist, attracts a crowd that’s clearly come to be seen. Most attendees, wearing sunglasses and fetish-inspired clothing made of latex and leather, seem prepared to dance past sunrise. Revellers are still bounding in as I climb into a cab at 3.30am. Later that morning, I wake up with the music echoing in my ears and wonder: is the party still going?

My first night out in Warsaw is electrifying, and the weekend is still young. I come to the city, famed for its history and resilience, to cover a different kind of cultural moment — not to explore its impressive Museum of Modern Art or to trace composer Frederic Chopin’s footsteps, but to hit the dance floor.

House and techno music, created in the 1980s by artists in Black and queer communities as a form of resistance and escapism, have freedom and energy at their core. Both qualities are big draws for me, a regular New York City clubgoer.

In Warsaw, I find a scrappy, dynamic club culture fuelled by local talent and experimental underground music collectives. Elaborately produced raves are proliferating in the city, world-famous DJs are taking notice and homegrown artists are going global.

Warsaw receives far more domestic tourists than international visitors, but a growing number of people from Western Europe, the United States and Israel have come over the past two years, according to the city’s tourism organisation. In 2024, a record of more than 3.6 million international tourists visited, a nearly 60 per cent increase from the previous year. By comparison, Berlin received 4.7 million international tourists in 2024, according to that city’s marketing agency.

“Warsaw seems to be the new Berlin in techno tourism,” says Artur Wojtczak, a 50-year-old electronic music journalist based in the Polish city. “We have something absolutely fresh; we have lots of young energy.”

Julia Kaczmarczyk, a 26-year-old DJ who performs as Hekato, says it feels like a “sign we are doing something right”.

The city is also cementing its spot on the global dance music circuit, as it entices major roving parties like CircoLoco, Boiler Room and HOR. Notable foreign DJs, including Stephan Bodzin and Mathame, perform or plan to perform in Warsaw this year.

And these kinds of large-scale parties could soon be happening in Warsaw more regularly through a new mega-event series called Sektor 6D.

“In all capital cities, it’s kind of normal to have big-scale events almost every weekend,” says Sept (real name: Michel Morales), a 33-year-old Polish DJ who lives in Berlin and is also the main booker for Exist and Sektor 6D. “This is what is kind of missing in Warsaw.”

Mateusz Cyryl Prus, a 40-year-old DJ who runs the music collective Move Mozg with his partner, DJ Ola Teks, says visitors are often surprised by what they find in Warsaw.

“It’s changed a lot in 20 years,” says Prus, adding, “We are a super modern city and there are a lot of cool people here.”

A night out in Warsaw can start on Friday and last until Monday.

I spend Saturday night at Jasna 1, a moody, subterranean club in a former bank that is considered by many local DJs to be the city’s premier dance music destination.

Saturday night’s event is a 10th anniversary celebration for Eerste Communie, an Amsterdam-based event series.

I arrive at 1am as the club is starting to fill up. The basslines reverberate across the foggy, red-lit dance floor. The warren-like space holds surprises like a smoking den, a crowded gay bar called Metropolis and, downstairs, a bank vault that occasionally doubles as a dance floor.

I find Wojtczak, and we settle into a lounge area with muted lighting and billowing white textiles draped along the ceiling. He tells me that dance music is a kind of compass for him.

“I feel from the first time I hear it that this is going to change my life,” he says, noting that he goes clubbing at least twice a week, often travelling across Poland for events.

I’m apprehensive about clubbing solo as a woman in an unfamiliar city. But the night unspools easily. People are eager to connect. Several others join our conversation.

I head alone to the dance floor and lose track of time. Fuelled by many caffeinated beverages, I dance for hours to rolling, hypnotic basslines. The percussive music is a physical sensation, too; the bass vibrates in my body. The DJs perform in a cube of metal scaffolding surrounded by the crowd. From inches away, I can see them cue up the next song.

It feels like existing in another dimension. It doesn’t matter that I’m alone.

I reflect on how Max Mehraliyev, 28, a brand manager for the Exist parties I met the previous night, describes clubbing’s allure.

“You kind of lose yourself in the music and then you find yourself,” he says. “Everyone needs to let go.”

Jedrzej Kowalczyk, Jasna 1’s artistic director and one of the club’s resident DJs, says that cultivating an open and accepting community is one of his biggest priorities. Jasna 1 has a strict no-discrimination policy and staffers regularly make safety checks throughout events. As at many other clubs, photography is prohibited.

“I’m super proud that finally we have this safe space and we have a real community around the club,” says Kowalczyk, 34, noting that a recent influx of refugees from Ukraine and Belarus has infused a new energy into the city’s nightlife.

By 6am, as Amoral, a Dutch DJ who tours clubs worldwide, shreds the decks, my trance is broken. Tiredness and hunger have won out.

Exiting the vespertine club and being greeted by the sunlight feels both transgressive and disorienting. I hop into a cab, bound for the Puro Stare Miasto, a Scandinavian-design-inspired hotel. I stumble zombie-like into the lobby, as a spandex-clad fellow guest concludes his morning run. We both make a beeline for the breakfast buffet.

Even though my reporting dictates that I experience Warsaw mostly by night, I make an effort to see as much of the daytime city as I can.

The immaculate parks and gardens teem with locals of all ages, many with their dogs, enjoying the intoxicating sunshine of early spring in Eastern Europe. Lazienki Park, a sprawling complex that serves as a royal summer retreat, features a neoclassical palace on an artificial island, miles of tree-lined walking paths and ponds filled with mandarin ducks.

I also seek out great meals. I eat the best pierogi of my life at Przegryz, a cosy bistro on the boutique-filled Mokotowska Street. Steamed, filled with melt-in-your-mouth tender duck and beef, and topped with herbs, the dish isn’t out of place at a fine-dining restaurant, except for the price — less than $20.

The Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site, charms me with stately townhouses that seem centuries old. But a majority of the neighbourhood was painstakingly rebuilt after World War II. At the Warsaw Rising Museum, I learn more about the Polish underground movement’s courageous but doomed attempt to fight the nazis.

On Sunday, my last full day in Warsaw, I make an afternoon visit to Smolna, a club in a multistorey neoclassical townhouse. The party has been going since Friday afternoon. Inside, bleary-eyed people are splayed out on couches. Kendal, a French DJ, plays upbeat Italo-disco tracks while several dozen people sway on a dance floor padded with heavy carpets. Sunlight streams in through a skylight.

Wojtczak is there. This time, he is beaming and dancing on a riser at his favourite spot — right by the speakers.

As I end my exhilarating weekend in Warsaw, I pause outside the townhouse to take in the setting, blocks away from the city’s newly revitalised central square. A family with a young child in tow meanders by, peering curiously at the entrance.

Electronic music thumps from the townhouse, but what lies inside? I’m in on the secret.