In recent years, Mince head honcho Peter Shopovski has secured coveted slots for a handful of Sydney DJs at Panorama Bar, the house floor of Berlin’s Berghain, as part of its Klubnacht marathons. Alongside Annabelle Gaspar and Simon Caldwell (who shared their experiences in this feature), Matt and Deepa also received the call-up to play the hallowed room - a recognition of the storytelling talents they’ve honed over countless hours in the booth.

Matt Vaughan came of age in Sydney’s halcyon ’90s club era before making his own mark with Loose Ends, the musically on-point queer party he launched in 2006 at Phoenix Bar on Oxford Street. Deepa found her feet during a more transitory phase of Sydney nightlife, as new collectives carved out scenes outside traditional club programming. As DJs and community-builders, both place a high value on inclusivity: Matt through Loose Ends, which continues today at Oxford Art Factory, and Deepa through Bypass, her itinerant party series “for the diaspora kids”. 

Their Panorama Bar bookings carried different significance. Having danced on both floors numerous times, Matt never envisaged playing there - until Peter Shopovski floated the possibility. For Deepa, her initial booking in June 2024 was not only her first time inside the club, but also her first-ever international gig. She returned in July 2025 for the coveted Sunday morning duties, followed by Matt’s Panorama Bar debut in the same slot the following weekend. 

As we dive in over Zoom, both DJs’ memories of those four hours in the booth are both crystal clear and somehow unreal.

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For both of you, what were your experiences of Berghain and Panorama Bar before playing there?

Matt: I’d been quite a number of times. I think I first went there in 2010 and this year was my fourth time to Berlin. I’d never really thought about playing there until this opportunity came up.

Deepa: I only started really leaving Australia two years ago, and so when I played Panorama Bar [in 2024] was my first ever time in Europe. I'd heard people talk about Berghain and Panorama Bar, and then I got asked to play. My best friend was like, “Oh my god, I remember seeing Maurice Fulton play the time slot that you're playing.” And I was like, shit. It made me so nervous.

Typically when I go to different cities, I like to attend the places before I play. And it was just my first time engaging with the place completely when I played. I got a little bit lost in there before my set; I was like, woah, this is a whole different thing. I teared up when the blinds came up for the first time.

Matt: It was nerve-wracking enough for me, having been there many times before. Maybe that actually compounded my nerves. 

Deepa: I can’t tell if it being my first time actually made it easier. 

Matt: Peter first asked me if I was interested in playing there a couple of years ago. I was planning to go to Berlin [in 2025], because some really dear friends who are German and had lived in Sydney for 30 years had relocated back to Berlin about five years ago. So I was going over to see them and I got back to Peter to see if the offer was still on the table. I sent through a mix and a bio, and they came back and agreed to the date that worked perfectly for me.

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How did you think about structuring your set to fit the four-hour slot and the particular energy of Panorama Bar?

Deepa: My first time [June 2024], I played the first weekend of summer from 4:30 to 8:30am, so I knew it was going to be the first sunrise. Typically, I lean towards playing a lot of percussion and drummy stuff, so I knew I was going to lean into that in some way. 

In Sydney, you don’t often get opportunities - other than at 77 - to do big, long four-hour sets. Playing at 77 is almost like training for that, but often you’ll go from having no dancefloor to a full dancefloor [by the end of the set]. At Panorama Bar,  you have people ready to receive you from the beginning. I knew I had to catch some energy straight away. My sets kind of feel like alchemy anyway. So I try to be really present.

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‍And Matt, what about your first time in July of this year?

Matt: I played from 8am till midday on Sunday. I feel like I was planning that set for ages. I also wanted to pull moments from sets that I’ve done over the years that I thought worked really well and resonated with people. Four hours is such a treat, because you can really stretch out and do so much with that. As a DJ, I play across such a wide range of styles of music, I just wanted to stay true to myself and play how I play. 

Simon Caldwell, who had played [Panorama Bar] before, was playing at a Loose Ends party earlier this year [2025]. He stuck around during my set afterwards. And then towards the end of my set, he came to say goodbye, and he was like, “You are going to be so fine. Just do what you do, and they're going to love you.” And it was the nicest thing he could have said, because it really just put me at ease. 

I was really nervous before playing, but honestly, once I started, the nerves disappeared really quickly. Like Deepa was saying, the room is alive from the moment you start. I just felt I wanted to be in the moment and enjoy it, because it might not happen again.

Deepa: With DJing for me, when you get into that flow state, you're like, OK, I'm here, I'm me, and this what's coming out.

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How conscious were you of representing Sydney in any way? 

Deepa: I remember trying to make sure I played a lot of my friends’ music, like Moktar and DJ Plead. I've been basing myself out of Brisbane for the past year and I made a track with a Brissie mate to play that was kind of referencing the previous year's set. I try to play a lot of Australian stuff, mixed with whatever I’m feeling at the time.

Matt: I had quite a lot of friends there from Sydney and Berlin, because my dream date to play was one week before WHOLE Festival, which is a huge queer festival near Berlin. I had a really nice crew, so felt quite safe in that regard as well. All through the rest of the day [at Berghain], I was stopped by people from Australia who I don't know just saying they were really proud to have someone from home playing in that room.

Deepa: I feel like the Sydney sound and the Panorama sound are very adjacent to each other. It's got that, like, silly, sexy, funny, stupid but serious-when-it-wants-to-be range. 

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What other memories have stuck with you? 

Matt: I sort of had two ‘last’ songs. I played my last song and got a nice round of applause, which was really lovely, and then had time to play one more. So my kind of last song was a Danny Tenaglia take on Gypsy Woman by Crystal Waters [called ‘The Brooklyn Gypsy’]. I could listen to any version of that song forever, but I learned this version through Bill Cotsis, who’s one of the Bad Dog DJs. It had a connection to a really amazing experience that I'd had at a Bad Dog party. Everyone knows that riff and it has a beautiful piano solo all the way through it. 

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And then my very, very last song was an Italo disco, new wave-y thing called Dancing Shoes. It has a big, deep vocal intro and it’s really camp; kind of like the antithesis of what's going on downstairs at Berghain. Panorama Bar is such a different experience. It feels very connected. Like, there's light in the room. You can look into other people's eyes. 

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Deepa: This year, I played from eight to midday. I had a call time for my friends for 5am. Right then, my mum called me; she’s a little Pakistani lady who has never set foot in a club, nor will she ever. She's like, “What are you doing?” I'm like, “I’m getting ready for a potential set of my life, ma.” And there was also a rumour that Lorde was [going to be there], and Lorde was my favourite pop star. I was like, “It’s a big deal, ma. Trust me, it’s a big deal.” And she’s like, “OK, well, make sure you get proper sleep.”