Each summer, the colossal excavators of Ferropolis, the monumental former mining site just outside Berlin, are transformed into something entirely different. From July 17 to 20, WHOLE Festival returns for its eighth edition, once again turning the so-called City of Iron into a three-day convergence of queer nightlife culture, music, performance, and community. The festival has finally unveiled the full lineup, offering the first glimpse of what this year’s edition will sound like, with names such as Bashkka, D.Dan, HAAi, Jasss, Juliana Huxtable, Kittin, Octo Octa (Live), Parfait, Sherelle, and Tama Sumo among the artists set to take over its dance floors.
More than a conventional music festival, WHOLE has built a reputation as a gathering where nightlife becomes a temporary social ecosystem. For one long weekend each summer, artists, collectives, performers, and audiences from across the global queer underground converge in Ferropolis to imagine new ways of being together. This year’s concept, Enter The Whole, frames the festival as a portal into a shared space built around presence, participation, and collective, queer freedom. As the festival organisers explain, the idea centres on connection: a reminder that nightlife can function as a space where bodies take up room without shrinking, where belonging doesn’t ask permission, and where joy becomes something experienced collectively.
Musically, the newly revealed lineup reflects the diversity of contemporary queer club culture. Across the weekend, audiences will encounter club veterans, emerging voices, live performers, and genre-bending artists moving between techno, house, bass music, and experimental electronics. Among the many artists confirmed are Amoral, Armana Khan, Balerands, Bambi, Beste Hira, Blvk B3rry, Cais Niara, Catarsis Absoluta, Cem, Chloé Caillet, Clarisa Kimskii, Cora, Cyberkills, D.Dan, Daniela Fuzz, Di Linh, DJ Fuckoff, Gabrielle Kwarteng, Gerd Janson, Hard Ton (Live), Hyperaktivist, Isa GT, Jacob Meehan, Julie Desire, Kabuolom, Katy da Voz e as Abusadas (Live), Khloe, Kim Ann Foxman, Lakuti, Lazy Rosario, Linapary, Lolsnake, Lovefoxy, Mars O10C, Massimiliano Pagliara, Mina Galán, Olivia Mendez, Omoloko, Parfait, Quelza, Rakans, Roza Terenzi, Stacey Hotwaxx Hale, Tama Sumo, and Vinvar, among many others. Performances will unfold across six stages (Arena, Beach, Crane, Forest, Ambient, and Trina) each offering its own atmosphere within the vast industrial site.
Equally central to the festival’s identity are the collectives that host many of these moments. Crews such as 999, Anti-Mass, Bung Lon, Cocktail d’Amore, Cuddles, Eau de Cologne, Gegen, Herrensauna, Kinky Sundays, Korgy, Latineo, Maricas, Not Your Techno, Pornceptual, Puticlub, Sextou, Sueya, Sweat, Tracey, With Us, and Zvuk will curate takeovers and gatherings throughout the weekend, mapping a global network of queer nightlife scenes.
Beyond the dance floors, WHOLE continues to expand its broader cultural programme. Talks, workshops, and community spaces will once again open conversations around queer care, intimacy, collective organising, embodiment, and pleasure. While the full schedule of panels and discussions will be revealed closer to the festival, these initiatives underline WHOLE’s ambition to create more than a music event, positioning it instead as a space where nightlife culture intersects with social reflection and community exchange.
One of the festival’s most distinctive environments, the Cruising Village, will also return in an expanded form. Designed as a constellation of spaces exploring intimacy and queer desire, the village will include both pansexual areas and FLINTA*-focused zones intended to centre different experiences of safety and desire. A new format of “hosted slots” will allow invited communities to curate their own encounters, from guided explorations of cruising culture to sober-curious gatherings and connection rituals.
Accessibility and inclusion remain central to WHOLE’s ethos, with initiatives such as its Community Tickets and Solidarity Program prioritising participation from people most affected by structural and economic barriers to nightlife culture, including refugees, Black and POC communities, trans and gender expansive people, and people with disabilities.
With the DJ lineup revealed, attention now turns to the final ticket release on March 30 at 15:00 CET. If previous editions are anything to go by, they won’t last long, so stay tuned if you don’t want to miss one of the most distinctive gatherings on the global festival map.
