But to me, the way all the various elements combined this year, whether by chance or design, felt uniquely successful in the German weekend’s history.

Since 2018’s five-day programme underwent some late changes following the closure of DarkSide club, there was understandably some uncertainty about how the alternative arrangements would work out.

How would people react to having both Thursday’s VIP Reception/Opening Party (now rechristened Sonic Boom) and Friday’s Sweet Surrender play night relocated to the part of Matrix used for last year’s ‘one-off’ party on Sunday?

If anecdotal reports of people increasingly tending to regard Friday’s FetishGuerilla Revolution party at KitKat as the weekend’s ‘main event’ were reliable, would Saturday’s Ball suffer a drop in attendance?

And how would opener Kinky Cocktails — which relocated to new venue Baderhaus only last year — fare after moving forward to Wednesday to avoid clashing with the newly configured official meet ’n’ greet?

But as it turned out, not only was there nothing to worry about, but these changes seemed to bring positive benefit to all the individual party nights.

There was an atmosphere of palpable excitement in the air from day one, pumped-up in no small part by the presence of many first-timers who’d clearly taken the GFB Weekend’s reputation as the world’s premier international fetish weekend seriously.

Among this year’s many international newbies (though an old hand in his homeland), John C from Australia almost certainly travelled the longest distance to join the celebrations. But, he assured me, when you consider the fetish options available in Melbourne, it was a journey well worth taking. 

Closer to home, the increase in new faces from London and beyond seemed auspicious. Since we Brits are notoriously spoilt for choice on the fetish partying front, when you get a British invasion of the size enjoyed by Berlin this year, you must be doing something right.

Saddled with Brexit we may be — but there’s little sign of anyone wanting to do a Fexit. Quite the reverse.

Thursday’s VIP Reception/Sonic Boom night at Matrix provided the first opportunity for The Fetishistas’ video crew (just Nikdesign and Peter Monochrome this year, with a little help from me) to attempt some interviews.

The noise levels weren’t ideal, but it certainly felt to me like we got some good stuff in the can. People we talked to at Sonic Boom included DutchDame, Sinteque, Iris Thespider and the inimitable Eric Masters, all the way from the States but a familiar figure to many European partygoers.

The video interview clips we released this year in the two-week run-up to GFB 2018 seemed to go down very well, but the plan this year is to release the material much, much sooner, and spread over a longer period.

And for those who noticed that in our previous interviews, the microphone sometimes appeared to be thrust downwards at our subjects by the hand of God, that’s because interviewer Peter Monochrome is very, very, very tall. 

But we fixed that this year: whenever possible, we made him crouch or sit down to talk to everyone. We felt it was either that or have them stand on a box.

Friday’s FetishGuerilla Revolution night benefited once again from the opening up of KitKat’s large basement with its play area, bar and dancefloor. This takes pressure off the main floor and quite a few people remarked that the venue was not as hot, smoky or loud as they had feared.

The pool room (as in water, not bastardised snooker) is KitKat’s prime chilling space, both literally and metaphorically. However, some brave souls in the model/photography fraternity decided this year to take cooling-off to new heights/lows.

They decided to break the unwritten rule of KitKat and enter the actual water. 

Normally this is regarded as a fairly serious health risk. But after cavorting in the pool with her pals, Dutch model Lotte LaVey pronounced the experience most refreshing, and swore that the water didn’t taste of anything, er, untoward…

To many Berlin visitors, the Revolution night has, for some years now, offered peak partying potential within the GFB Weekend. It certainly tends to attract the most ‘party people’ — those most heavily into the clubbing side of fetish clubbing.

But this year, a wondrous thing occurred the next night. Rather than the Ball crowd being dominated by smartly-dressed but conservative German fetish couples, this year much more colour and general outfit whackiness was in evidence.

The predominant audience ‘look’ this time was more than ever about dressing up to have fun. It was almost as if the clubbable vibe of the KitKat party had simply transferred itself to the banks of the River Spree for a second night.

And it wasn’t just the audience that looked more playful — the Ball’s fashion shows had evidently tapped into the same spirit too.

The shows were relatively short and mostly bristling with energy, with the designers (who choose their own