The venue, the WesterUnie nightclub, is notable for actually being in Amsterdam. This is no small achievement in a city that is closing down coffee shops, red light windows, domination studios and any kind of sexually-orientated events as fast as it can.

The WesterUnie club is interesting also for being one of a group of industrial conversions in the grounds of an old gasworks, situated to the immediate north-west of the city centre, just off the main route to Haarlem.

The whole site is now a sizable green space, with its original industrial structures including the big gasometer repurposed as shops, restaurants and bars. This gives the place an atmosphere reminiscent of the kind of groovy conversions found in Berlin and other German cities.

On a mild October evening, the walk from the site’s taxi drop-off point to the club’s doors was a voyage of discovery, made all the more of an adventure by the fact that no one in the group I was with seemed to know where they were going.

The same walk back to the taxis at freezing-o’clock in the morning, performed in sweat-soaked latex with only an inappropriately lightweight jacket for cover, was closer to torture than anything else I experienced during the entire weekend.

And I was sleeping in a dominatrix’s dungeon!

I kid you not. My hosts for the Europerve Resurrection 2015 weekend were Amsterdam’s famous Mistress Madieanne and her partner, photographer and web designer Erik Paulsen.

This couple are fetish royalty in Holland and beyond, and Madieanne’s studio is one of only three of the city’s original domination establishments to have survived the zealots’ purge.

What a place it is too. Within the dedicated studio area, every square inch (sorry, centimetre) of wall space is hung with ‘items for the use of’. Even in the loo, you can hardly turn around for cuffs, spreader bars, tubing and chains — and that’s true even when you’re not wearing any of the stuff!

All this kit represents a lifetime of enthusiastic collecting for Madieanne, a woman who clearly loves her job. I felt very privileged to be given the freedom of this hallowed space during my stay. Though of course I realise that freedom is the last thing on the minds of most of her visitors.

Madieanne and Erik are close friends of Anton and Louva, the couple who took over DeMask from founder Steve English a few years ago. They relaunched DeMask’s legendary party brand as EuroPerve Resurrection in late 2012, in collaboration with Vault Productions’ Rene Meeuwessen, organiser of the Wasteland parties.

Tonight at EuroPerve Resurrection 2015, Madieanne was undertaking wardrobe mistress duties for the DeMask fashion show, in which Louva would be debuting her brand new latex collection for the label.

That’s why our group were all arriving at the venue a couple of hours at least before the doors officially opened.

Once inside, therefore, there was time to kill. And thanks to the magnificent Tido — best known perhaps as aide-de-camp/driver at Dominatrix — there was beer to kill it with.

Soon other familiar faces began to arrive for their jobs tonight, among them Karin ‘QT’ West, warming up for her gig as the evening’s MC, and Domina Productions head honcho Ayden Dark, preparing for his DJ-ing stint.

From a little further back in my Amsterdam partying past, I was also delighted to see the unforgettable Suzy Pasyon on doorbitch duties.

As the Europerve Resurrection 2015 venue began to fill with paying partygoers, I spotted more people I knew or recognised from earlier times in the city.

Some were folk I would be just as likely to see at Dominatrix events. Others, I have learnt, prefer EuroPerve to Dominatrix on the grounds that for them, the latter event has become too fashion-centric and model fixated.

The very strictly-enforced rubber and leather dresscode of EuroPerve, like the strict latex code at London’s Rubber Cult nights, certainly helps ensure that all those who come through its doors are proper pervs.

‘I always look forward to it because it’s one of the few parties where love of fetish defies the rules of aesthetics’ – QT, EuroPerve 2015 MC

Mistress of Ceremonies QT summed up the appeal of Europerve Resurrection 2015 and its predecessors thus:

“What’s brilliant about EuroPerve is seeing a bunch of people in extreme rubber sitting together, being completely relaxed and gorgeous.

“Not all of them are talking — due to masks, hoses and snouts — but they’re all interacting on a very special level.

“I always look forward to it because it’s one of the few parties where the love of fetish defies the rules of aesthetics.

“You want to combine a latex burka with waders? Go ahead. You want to wear stockings with your chemsuit? Why not? You’re not taking off your gas mask? Lovely.

“Not only are extreme outfits allowed, they’re encouraged. And that’s fucking awesome.”