Party lovers, nocturnal animals, knowledgeable audiophiles, enthusiastic event-goers, festival freaks, and everybody in between – welcome home.
This new series under the name “The Story After” is where we’re going to be coming together and sharing the stories of the events that changed our lives.
Who is Elena Sergova?
Elena Sergova is a copywriter and journalist with over a decade of experience in print and online lifestyle media outlets. After living “la vida loca” in her early 20s in Berlin, she returned to her roots in a small town at the foot of the mountains in Bulgaria.
Now she works in content marketing for chosen brands and on her own storytelling one-woman media brand Fragmeant.
Elena describes herself as a magazine junkie with writing so honest you may want to take it with a pinch of salt and a shot of tequila.
Which brand from the events & entertainment space has the best story? Why?
Try to search how to get into Berghain and you will know the answer to this question. It’s a legendary place with legendary door rules and a total pain in the arse… but it’s worth it.
You have a special relationship with electronic music. What keeps the fire burning?
The love for music and its manifestation through dance. As an ex Berliner who would leave home on Saturday to come back on Monday, I miss the freedom to enjoy a good dance at any given moment. Back in the small town where I live now, I am nurturing this need for musical experience at home with some badass sound.
When music is part of you, there is no reason to neglect this love when you can just dance! Sometimes, with my eyes closed, my emotional body experiences music the same way at home as if it’s again on the dancefloor. It’s brilliant!
Do storytelling and raves have anything in common?
Have you been to an after-party, chain-smoking, talking about Nietzsche and the meaning of life?
Tell us about an event that changed your life.
I have a special collection of memories, I call them the “end of tunnel” album. They are very vivid memories of monkey business at rave parties and festivals. I am sure to have them ready to project for the last moments of life. They will make me smile and sigh with awe at my youth and the unbearable lightness of Being. Most of those moments come from Meadows in the Mountains, Panorama Bar, and Studio Elegantly Wasted.
Another event I won’t forget was Jeff Mills playing live for the screening of “Metropolis.” It felt epic, and such an exclusive interdisciplinary collaboration I get goosebumps just mentioning it. It transported the whole techno genre to a completely different surrounding – in the backyard of the Stadt Museum in Museum island, with people dressed up for the occasion. I miss these opportunities sometimes.
Content creation can be tricky and challenging. Can you give our audience one must-know tip that is actually not so known?
There are no hidden tricks, you just have to keep doing it while creating with the constant question, “Would my core audience like this?”. As long as you answer with, “Damn, they will”, you are on the right path, no matter the size of your followers.
You have lived in Berlin for 5 years. Everyone says that the club culture there is on another level. However, what would you change about it?
It’s sometimes snobbish, stagnated, and could feel boring if you end up at the same parties with the same promoters and the same DJs. I will put it in other words, as I recently read what Jeff Mills said about techno – it’s becoming too “middle class”. It means that everything has become too easy to access, too convenient, and not so challenging.
Back in the days in Berlin, you would get an SMS (and not only in Berlin, one of my favorite movies of the early techno music scene in the UK is “The Groove”, and it shows how things were done in the same respect), hustle to find the place, and then get completely swept off by the music. You wouldn’t nag that someone didn’t play well because you didn’t have much of a choice than to enjoy it. In today’s Berlin, with too many options around, you may feel lost in your own criteria of fun and miss other amazing music opportunities just because you think you belong to this scene. It’s a complicated topic you should ask real Berliners to tell you more about.
How would you name Berlin if it was a blog rubric?
Lost & No Translation. Well, the whole experience feels like a film by Sofia Coppola – quirky, weird, yet deep on an emotional level. It’s not “Lost in Translation” because everyone speaks English there, but you don’t need translation for many things anyway. Even if you don’t know how to say something it doesn’t matter as happenings there are felt on a different level.
I’ve been to a Hungarian after-party where almost no one spoke English, yet I felt quite close to some of the people there, the smell of blooming trees in Alt Treptow, the wind of changes… Berlin is (or was, I’ve heard it has changed a lot in the last 2 years) a place of possibilities – you don’t know where the next turn will take you. I loved it for that, but it’s not a place where I would like to spend my more mature years.
Follow Elena here and check out her blog Fragmeant here.
The list of people we’ve been eyeing for an interview is getting longer and longer, and you can also be a part of it! This is a space for anyone who’s ever attended an event (whether that’s a digital conference, a yoga retreat, a techno festival, or… you name it!) and has something to say about it.
How did it change your life? What did you learn? Who did you meet? What did you feel? We can talk about the connections we’ve made while we continue building new ones. Let’s co-create a memory book full of recollections we’d like to keep forever.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Linkedin and send us a DM with a story about an event that changed your life. Don’t miss out on the rest of the series, read the previous interview here: The Story After with Lukea.
