Berlin, Germany is known for its electronic music scene and vibrant queer nightlife. So it’s no shock that you’ll find some pretty significant festivals positioned around the city. Among them is WHOLE festival, which takes place at Ferropolis, otherwise known as the “City of Iron”. In order to get there, you have to take a two hour coach outside of Berlin. And while the journey was stalled due to rainstorms, WHOLE still managed to become a site of unbridled queer joy, performance and creativity for one unforgettable weekend.
Of the many distinct features on the lineup, Uhaul Dyke Rescue marked the first official FLINTA takeover. For those who are unfamiliar with the German-originated acronym, it stands for Women, Lesbian, Intersex, Nonbinary, Trans and Agender people. This events series is focused on experiential creative programming and has swiftly become a fixture of London’s art and nightlife industries. The project aims to build standalone worlds within these settings that importantly assist the community’s ability to thrive.
Initially conceived by Lucy Nurnberg and now co-led alongside Ali Wagner, Uhaul has expanded beyond the merely social, into a form of participatory art. While fun is at the centre of their work, the duo also focus on intentionally platforming underrepresented talent across creative industries. Uhaul Dyke Rescue is cleverly named after an inter-community joke about lesbians and our affinity for what many colloquially call “uhauling” (e.g. 72-hour first date that turns into renting a moving truck, co-signed lease and all). The collaboration marked an incredible achievement for the London-basted project, as well as a pivotal moment in WHOLE’s history.
Lucy and Ali have been bringing their shared vision together for the sake of art and celebration of queer histories since 2023. Nurnberg initially conceptualised Uhaul through her background in illustration and interior design at the Royal College of Art, as an art installation. The hypothetical project would later become a tangible site of queer community and silliness, with demand on a global scale across the UK and Europe, just a few years on.
Meanwhile, Wagner works at the intersection of queer art, experiential programming, and nightlife, building ephemeral worlds which centre tactile experiences. This was immediately clear upon entering the pop-up installation… The energy at the dyke bar was palpable. I remember looking around as the audience was all smiles and laughter. In a world that is so dedicated to misunderstanding FLINTA and queer voices, the work that Ali dedicates her practice to is so clearly making a long-standing impact. These pathways, while often brandished by way of humor and lightheartedness, are deeply rooted in community development. That which is shifting the cultural landscape of London and beyond for the better. Her work is fundamentally focused on world building, creating space for marginalised voices to come together and feel seen.
At WHOLE, projects like Uhaul Dyke Rescue are only as impactful as the audience’s ability to engage with them. While the pop up bar & installation on its own was impressive, I remember crossing its path once opening hours had ended. The lights were dimly lit, illuminating the vacant space during the liminal hours as the evening extended into early morning. But when the installation was occupied, that’s when the true value of Uhaul’s impact shined through. As the stands started filling out, hundreds of festival participants gathered around a central focus, to celebrate FLINTA voices. It was in those exuberant moments of shared laughter and comradery, that Uhaul’s impact became undeniable.
FLINTA attendees experienced community and sexiness in equal parts at the Uhaul takeover. Whether it was arm wrestling or oil wrestling, the Uhaulers were ready to take care of the mid-summer sweat and bloodied knees with the Dyke Wash. As each of the oil wrestlers met their match, team members aided the aftermath by sudsing down participants. When guests weren’t wrestling, the Uhaulers were delivering letters to various festival attendees. This was nicknamed the ‘Dykes Handling Love Letters service’ (or DHL). This segment of Uhaul’s events became an interactive art performance that guests were both witness and participant to.
Not only is Uhaul Dyke Rescue shifting London’s queer spaces, it’s simultaneously becoming more recogniseable on an international level. It only makes sense that WHOLE, a globally acknowledged festival known for its queer framework, would pull the Uhaul team onto the lineup. By actively choosing to work with and highlight a FLINTA-focused event series, the festival signified a new pivotal chapter. Everyone is welcome at WHOLE, and everyone is celebrated.
Read below for an exclusive interview with Uhaul Dyke Rescue’s Lucy Nurnberg and Ali Wagner.
The Cold Magazine (CM): Tell me more about how Uhaul was conceptualized?
Lucy Nurnburg & Ali Wagner (LN & AW): Uhaul Dyke Rescue is an emergency rescue service sent from the future to make space for the dykes today – a time in which we’ve lost most of our gay bars, queer rights are rolling backwards and we need queer community, collective joy and a little silliness more than ever.
I (Lucy) came up with the idea when I was doing a Masters in Interior Design at the RCA. My final project was designing the Mobile Dyke Bar, a queer venue in a van that pops up wherever it’s needed. After graduating I decided to create it for real as a touring festival venue, and I put a callout for handydykes to help me build it for our first summer season in 2024. One of the many to come to the rescue was Ali Wagner, my right hand dyke who now runs Uhaul with me. We’ve since taken the Mobile Dyke Bar everywhere from Glastonbury and Field Maneuvers to the V&A.
In August 2024 we also threw our first ever club night, and we’ve been running the Uhaul Dyke Raves ever since. Now Uhaul Dyke Rescue exists across festival spaces/takeovers and a regular London club night.
CM: What do you think it takes to make an effective programme or event?
LN: I think a good event is about having a strong reason for existing. For Uhaul, that reason is making spaces that celebrate and centre dyke culture. As our tees say: the world is in flames, you need a dyke! In everything we do, from the programming, activities and spaces themselves, we’re building worlds that reflect our community.
I always think of a Uhaul Dyke Rescue party as being equal parts sexy and silly. Yes the music is going to be on point with our lineups of incredible FLINTA DJs, but we’re also going to give you hosted entertainment like our legendary arm wrestling tournaments and build dream dyke spaces: whether that’s the Mobile Dyke Bar or a jungle gym on the dance floor.
CM: What do you want guests at your events to feel? What is the best response or feedback you’ve gotten about Uhaul programming in the past?
LN & AW: We want people to feel confident, sexy and free to be themselves, more than anything like they are welcome and have a home with us. Often we’re rocking up at festivals where our community is in the minority, so it’s a place for all the dykes, trans, enbies and queers to take up space.
We love hearing about all the many friends and lovers who met at our parties, and we can’t wait for the first Uhaul wedding. So we invite any dykes who found love at Uhaul and the Mobile Dyke Bar to DM us with your love stories / triangles / disasters. 1st verified Uhaul Dyke wedding gets the Mobile Dyke Bar for free!
Also gonna send some feedback we got especially from WHOLE by some people who said we were their highlight, as well as this reel:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DbAjnp0sdRX
CM: It’s clear the Uhaul team is a group of dedicated, goal-oriented folks. How did you work to develop the team you have now?
LN & AW: Our Uhaul Dyke Rescue squad is made up of multitalented dykes across different roles: we’ve got the HandyDykes who build the Mobile Dyke Bar and our festival spaces, we’ve got hosts, DJs, wrestling referees, gogo dancers, dyke drama counsellers, you name it! Our recruitment process is as DIY as we are but we’re always on the lookout for funny, practical, big-hearted, loud-mouth dykes who share our mission of spreading dyke joy to the masses. Our current squad evolved from friends, friends of friends and callouts, and has become a true family <3
CM: WHOLE is a queer festival, but its also had a gay-male heavy reputation. What does it mean for the first major takeover to be with Uhaul?
LN & AW: We were super keen to bring Uhaul to WHOLE not only because we’d heard amazing things about the festival but also because we had heard the dykes could need a space of their own. Last year we came for the first time to do an afternoon takeover on the Lemonaid pickup truck, which was lots of fun and confirmed how important it was to carve out a little corner for the dykes.
So this year we asked the WHOLE team if we could build a dedicated hangout space for the community. It wasn’t possible to drive the Mobile Dyke Bar all the way to Ferropolis, so instead we built a new space for the festival. The Uhaul Dyke Beach Bar was a little home base for the dyke/FLINTA population that you could visit anytime and was ‘activated’ at different times in the weekend with our scheduled entertainment of Uhaul-hosted arm wrestling and oil wrestling tournaments.
It was amazing seeing how much the community showed up and found their home with us, the feedback was incredible. We very much hope to be back bigger and even better next year.
CM: What is it like to work together on this project as it expands?
LN: As I said we’ve become a family, so being able to take this project all over the UK and Europe with our best friends is the dream. Our builds and takeovers are a lot of work (often for little or no pay) but we have a great time causing chaos on the festival circuit together and seeing the impact of our dyke takeovers. Being part of Uhaul also means you’re always laughing because everyone in this squad is hilarious and most days you’ll wake up to 100 unread messages in the GC of memes, bits and nonsense riffing. We wouldn’t change it for the world.
CM: What was it like working/ hosting at WHOLE?
LN & AW: WHOLE was a biggg one for Uhaul. Logistically it took a lot to do something new at this scale in a different country, but it was incredible to bring Uhaul to a new audience and feel the importance of what we were doing. Build week was hardcore: we arrived to a heatwave, news of a norovorius outbreak and loads of technical challenges, but it was so special being part of the queerest crew team we’ve ever worked with, and getting to jump into the lake whenever we needed to cool off. The support from the wider WHOLE team and other crews/collectives was amazing, and the response from the crowd is not something we’re going to forget.
CM: What were some of your favourite sets you saw at WHOLE?
LN: Bambi at TRINA stage, Julie Desire (a regular champion on the arm wrestling table) always delivers and the Gaze takeover into Octo Octa at the Beach stage on Sunday night was heaven.
CM: What is uniquely WHOLE about this festival (something that is standalone, that you’ve never seen before at other similar festivals/ events)?
LN & AW: It’s sexy, feral, queer chaos in the most beautiful setting. It feels totally liberating to be surrounded by so many different kinds of queers in a little world of our own.
CM: What advice would you give your younger selves if you could sit down with them now?
LN: Keep on dyking, the world needs it!
CM: Anything else you’d like COLD’s readership to know?
LN & AW: Follow us on Instagram for updates of our next parties, takeovers and pop ups: @uhauldykerescue. And we’re on a path of world domination right now, so if anyone needs a Uhaul party in their area and has ideas to make it happen – give us the call!
