About 030 Magazin

030 Magazin

[030] Magazin Berlin is a free city magazine published in the German capital, named after Berlin's telephone area code, 030. Founded in 1994, it has spent more than three decades chronicling the city's nightlife, club culture, music, film and urban lifestyle, distributed free of charge in bars, clubs, restaurants and other public venues. After a long history as an ad-supported print magazine published every two weeks, it reinvented itself in 2016 as a free and independent online magazine that deliberately forgoes advertising, and continues today under publisher and editor-in-chief Tim Schäfer from offices in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district.

Overview

[030] is best understood as a scene magazine in the classic Berlin sense: a publication made by and for people who live the city's cultural life rather than merely observing it. Its reporting focuses on movies, concerts, parties, sport and new media, with club culture and the night-time economy at its heart. The magazine publishes interviews with musicians, filmmakers and actors, concert and event previews, venue profiles and commentary on city life, all with the insiders' tone of a team embedded in Berlin's creative scene.

The title's history reflects the ups and downs of free print media in Germany. Launched in the mid-1990s, it became a fixture of Berlin nightlife distribution, handed out in the venues its readers frequented. For a period between 2008 and 2015 the magazine belonged to Zitty Verlag GmbH, the publisher behind one of Berlin's best-known city magazines. In January 2016 the website was relaunched, and the publication repositioned itself: an independent online magazine, free of charge and deliberately without advertising, supported by editorial commitment rather than ad revenue. Print distribution in gastronomy and nightlife venues remains part of its heritage, with a historically reported circulation of around 52,000 copies per fortnightly issue.

Today [030] operates primarily as a digital outlet at berlin030.de, publishing fresh articles on music, film, exhibitions and city life. Its editorial voice is distinctly subcultural: it describes itself as a magazine of the 1990s for whom the club scene defines Berlin to this day, and it is unsparing in its criticism of the startup-driven transformation of neighborhoods like the area around Rosenthaler Platz. That positioning gives it a loyal readership among Berliners who see themselves as part of the city's creative and nightlife communities rather than its gentrified image.

History

The magazine was founded in the autumn of 1994, a period when Berlin's reunited cultural landscape was exploding with clubs, galleries and free publications. The name [030] — written with the area code in brackets — signaled local identity from the start: this was a magazine for people with a Berlin phone number. From the beginning it provided information about movies, concerts, parties, sports and new media, distributed free in bars, pubs and restaurants, a model that matched the economics and the ethos of the scene it covered.

Over the following decade and a half, [030] established itself as a staple of the capital's free press landscape. Its biweekly rhythm and its presence in the venues it wrote about made it part of the furniture of Berlin nightlife. In 2008 the title was acquired by Zitty Verlag GmbH, placing it under the same roof as one of the city's established listings magazines. That ownership lasted until 2015, a period during which the wider market for free print magazines was under growing pressure from digital competition and shifting advertising budgets.

The turning point came in January 2016, when the [030] website was comprehensively relaunched and the magazine charted a new course: no longer an ad-dependent print product but a free, independent online magazine that consciously renounces advertising. The publisher and editorial team, based in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, framed this as an act of independence. In editorial statements published during the COVID-19 pandemic, the team explained that while many cultural institutions and fellow media outlets depended on money from clubs and event organizers, [030]'s deliberate independence from such revenue had, paradoxically, made it more resilient in the crisis — even as it asked readers for solidarity and support.

Tim Schäfer, who has worked in Berlin media since 1998 and joined the [030] editorial team in 2006, became publisher and editor-in-chief in 2016 and has steered the magazine through its digital transformation ever since. Under his leadership the site has continued to publish steadily, with current coverage extending into 2026 — reporting on events such as the Formula E race on Tempelhofer Feld, exhibitions and the city's ongoing housing debates — demonstrating that the title remains an active editorial operation more than thirty years after its founding.

Coverage and Content

The magazine's content universe is Berlin as a cultural experience. Music is the backbone: interviews with German and international artists, concert previews, festival coverage and recurring formats such as the "10 Platten" series, in which musicians discuss ten records that matter to them. Film coverage includes interviews with directors and actors — from German cinema figures to international stars — alongside reviews and festival reporting.

Beyond music and film, [030] covers exhibitions, theater, city life and the politics of urban space. A distinctive feature is its venues database: detailed profiles of Berlin clubs, concert halls and cultural locations, complete with addresses and event information, reflecting the magazine's historical role as a guide to going out. The editorial line is opinionated and scene-loyal. During the pandemic, the magazine ran solidarity campaigns for clubs, bars and subcultural spaces, explicitly positioning itself as part of the cultural and creative scene and urging readers to support threatened venues.

The site organizes content by categories including Musik, Freizeit, Stadtleben, Ausstellung and Interviews, with a recognizably personal writing style — first-person reportage from concerts and festivals, direct address to readers, and a wry, Berlin-inflected humor. While the historic print edition served as a biweekly listings and features magazine, the online edition functions more as a rolling cultural magazine: new articles appear continuously, and the archive stretches back years, documenting the evolution of Berlin's nightlife and creative life in real time.

Organization and Ownership

[030] Magazin Berlin is published by elroq entertainment, with Tim Schäfer serving as both publisher (Herausgeber) and editor-in-chief (Chefredakteur) since 2016. Schäfer has been part of the capital's media landscape since 1998 and worked for the [030] magazine from 2006, giving the current leadership deep continuity with the title's history. The publisher and editorial offices are located in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg.

Earlier in its history, the magazine was owned by Zitty Verlag GmbH from 2008 to 2015, before returning to independent ownership. The current model is unusual in German city publishing: a free magazine that explicitly renounces advertising revenue, relying instead on editorial dedication and reader solidarity. The team openly discusses this in its "In eigener Sache" editorials, acknowledging that the model brings financial precariousness but valuing the independence it buys. The magazine regularly recruits new authors — particularly in music, art, culture, fashion and nightlife — and offers paid three-month internships, signaling an ongoing, working newsroom rather than a dormant archive.

Digital Presence

The magazine's digital home is berlin030.de, relaunched in January 2016 and continuously updated since. The site is a full editorial platform: articles, interviews, event previews, venue profiles and video content, organized by topic tags and categories. It maintains author pages for its editorial team and contributors, and a jobs page advertising open positions for writers and interns — a public sign of active operations.

On social media, [030] maintains presences on the major platforms, with share buttons for Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and email integrated into every article. The site also embeds video content, including interviews and on-location reports published to its YouTube channel. A newsletter and podcast formats have been part of its internship recruitment interests, indicating ambitions beyond text. The combination of a long-running domain, regularly refreshed content and active social channels makes berlin030.de the living center of a magazine that began as newsprint in the 1990s and successfully carried its identity into the digital era.