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Berghain
A former power plant with the best sound and the hardest door in Europe. The room does not care whether you get in, which is exactly why everyone wants to.
fabric
Room One’s bodysonic floor still does something no other club in Britain does: you feel the bass through your feet before you hear it.
Amnesia
Two rooms, a terrace that fogs itself into whiteout, and fifty years of being the reason people book the flight.
Tresor
The vault corridor under a decommissioned power station, still the loudest argument for why Berlin sounds the way it does.
Club Space
The Terrace at sunrise is one of the few genuinely singular experiences left in club culture. Everything else in Miami is scheduled around it.
Pacha Ibiza
The cherries. Older than most of the island’s clubbers’ parents and still the best-dressed room in Ibiza Town.
D-Edge
Muti Randolph’s LED architecture plus a sound system maintained like a religion. The room that put Brazilian techno on the international map and still the best night in São Paulo.
Rex Club
The room where French techno was argued into existence, with a sound system maintained like an instrument rather than an amenity.
Lux Frágil
Three floors on a river warehouse with a roof terrace that catches sunrise over the Tejo. The room that put Lisbon on the map and still the hardest door in the city.
Sub Club
A low arched basement on Jamaica Street with a Sunday-night residency older than most of its dancefloor. The best small room in the country.
WOMB
Four floors around a mirror-ball atrium in Maruyamachō. The room that most visitors mean when they say they went clubbing in Tokyo, and still a good answer.
The Warehouse Project
A seasonal takeover rather than a venue, and for three months a year the biggest room in British clubbing.
Paradiso
A converted church that has hosted almost everyone worth hosting since 1968. The balcony is the best seat in Dutch live music.
Ministry of Sound
The Box still has the best purpose-built sound in the country. The rest of the building is a brand; that room is not.
Patrick Miller
High-energy Italo since 1985, with a dance-off circle in the middle of the floor. Friday only. Nothing else in the world is quite like it.
Melkweg
Barrowland Ballroom
A sprung dancefloor and a ceiling of stars. Bands talk about playing here for the rest of their careers.
Salón Los Ángeles
"Quien no conoce Los Ángeles, no conoce México." A 1937 ballroom still running danzón and salsa on the original floor.
Liquidroom
Revolver Upstairs
Opens Friday and closes Monday. The continuous weekend is not a marketing line here, it is the licence.
Heaven
Under the arches at Charing Cross since 1979, and still the front door of queer London for anyone arriving in the city.
Pikes
A hotel with a tennis court, a folkloric guest list and the best small parties on the island. Freddie Mercury’s birthday happened here; the room still behaves accordingly.
Plastic
Forty-plus years of Milan’s most opinionated door. Half the reason to go is who else got in.
Café Mambo
The sunset strip’s anchor. Come at seven, stand on the rocks, leave before the crowd does.
Kitcheners Carvery Bar
A 1902 pub that became the room where Johannesburg’s modern scene grew up. Cheap, loud and completely unbothered by fashion.
Café del Mar
Licorería Limantour
SchwuZ
Berlin’s longest-running queer club, still the warmest room in the city and the one least interested in your trainers.
Jazz Cafe
DJ Station
Three floors on Silom Soi 2 and the front door of queer Bangkok since 1994.
Cine Joia
KOKO
Cakeshop
La Bellevilloise
Las Dalias
Riviera Bar
Band on the Wall
Sky Bar at Lebua
Es Paradis
La Java
Trincas
Live bands on Park Street since 1959, through every phase of the city’s history. The last of its generation still doing it properly.
Toto’s Garage
A car-repair-shop theme, a jukebox of rock, and the least fashionable good time in Bandra. Unchanged since 1993 and all the better for it.
Chez Moune
Les Bains
Night Cat
Someplace Else
The Park Hotel’s pub, and the room that kept Indian rock alive when nowhere else would book it.
Olypub
Fluorescent lights, wooden tables, and a rum-and-kabab ritual that has not changed in seventy years. Not a club. Absolutely a night institution.