Die Hebebühne

Die Hebebühne is a 199-capacity music club in Hamburg’s Ottensen district, built in a former auto workshop. Its distinction is structural as much as musical: the rear-courtyard building combines a ground-floor performance space with rehearsal rooms and coworking upstairs. That setup puts musicians’ working lives close to the room where audiences hear the finished set, while the interior retains raw brick, rugs, second-hand seating and a piano.

A workshop remade, 2015–17

In 2015, musician Max Reckleben and rehearsal-room operator Kai Schulz found a rundown former Kfz workshop in an Ottensen courtyard. They chose it for an artist presentation space, then undertook an 18-month gut renovation with friends: five ten-foot containers of rubble went out; a bar, professional stage, coworking floor and seven permanently rented rehearsal rooms went in. Hamburg’s parliamentary records and the German Music Information Centre list the club’s opening in 2017; a 2019 club portrait dates the public venue launch to 2018, a difference that likely reflects the long conversion and rollout. The decisive history is the reuse itself: a building that faced potential demolition for flats became a small-scale live-music base designed by its two operators.

The room and its range

Expect an eclectic popular-music program led by indie, pop, rock and singer-songwriter shows, alongside theater, pub quizzes and art projects. The operation hosts about 150 popular-music concerts annually, according to MIZ’s August 2024 update. Its stated approach keeps space open for projects at several stages: rehearsal, production and presentation sit under one roof, backed by a professionally equipped stage, high-quality sound system and lighting. The concert room’s brick-and-rug finish, pallet-built bar areas and borrowed furniture create a close, informal setting for a 199-person crowd.