“But then you think, OK, seen it. Who is going to bring the next level to it, the way we all felt at the start of the ’90s when we went to Europerve? We’ve been at some great parties thinking: shall we get the last bus home?”

Stig: “But I still think it’s possible to create a magical situation with the traditional recipe for a fetish party. It still has something to it — it’s still a subculture that’s very important and very giving.

Stephen: “Sometimes you’re not totally aware of what you’ve done to create the right vibe. We had this great party last year, at a venue here in the city.

“The theme to this party was hedonism, and it’s just like everything kinda fell together and there was a feeling in the room that something magical happened. We’re not sure what we did right, but we did something right!”

Stig: “All the work you’ve done melded together with the venue in a very nice way, so the venue and all the things you put into the venue made a perfect combination. That was what happened, in my view.”

MEMBERSHIP PROS AND CONS

Given the three associates’ apparent determination to take things to the next level, I confess that I’m slightly bemused to see that in 2018, ManiFest parties still operate on a members-only business model.

Paid membership is something rarely encountered at fetish events these days — and definitely not at events with international ambitions. So why still do it?

“It was a choice we made [at the start] mainly because we wanted two things,” Stig explains.

“The first was to tell venues this is not a public thing, this is a closed circuit. You cannot walk up off the street and buy a ticket at the door — you have to be a member and then you can pay the entrance fee if you are a member.

“Because in the ’90s it was not so smooth with the authorities as it is today. So we wanted to prepare for any trouble with the authorities, making sure we could tell them this is a closed circuit, not a public event.”

Stig reckons that, while ManiFest is still described today as a fetish party, over the years it has successfully “opened up the terms a little bit”.

“If we were to make a party just with hardcore fetishists it would be a very small party, because Copenhagen is a small capital city. So my idea was to attract people with a different sexual orientation.

“So you see people who have their roots in the S&M scene, who are exhibitionists, and maybe a few swingers. You don’t see just hardcore fetishists.

“But everybody buys into the concept and says, ‘OK its a fetish party, so we are gonna dress up. Even though we might not be hardcore fetishists, we will comply with the dresscode and follow that rule’.

“In my view that makes the party vibrant and interesting because you get different ideas of how to express yourself and how to behave at a party. And you also get people who want to play or express themselves in a hardcore way.”

Stig adds that the second of his two reasons for instigating paid membership was “to create a family, a community; to say you become part of something when you join this”.

This was, I agree, an admirable aim back in the day. But since the advent of social media, people don’t need to create communities that way any more.

So if ManiFest really is committed to modernising, shouldn’t dropping the paid membership now be on its agenda, at least for international attendees who might find the requirement too burdensome?

Stig reveals that for some time, people interested from abroad have been invited on FetLife to make contact by e-mail so that “we can figure something out for them”, while foreign guests invited to ManiFest have often had the membership requirement waived.

But doesn’t this still create a bureaucratic hurdle that shouldn’t be there in this day and age? To compete with other events that already attract an international crowd, wouldn’t it be better to make your events at least as easy to attend as your competitors’ are?

THE FETISH FASHION PARTY

I should make it clear at this point that in contrast to the regular ManiFest events, the annual Fetish Fashion Party already acknowledges this and does not operate a membership policy. You just buy a ticket, observe the dresscode, and you’re good to go.

Another difference is that while the regular ManiFest parties have stage performances but rarely feature fashion shows, the Fetish Fashion Party — as you would hope from its name — always does.

Typically drawing a crowd of around 750 people, this event has been held for the last couple of years at a beautiful historic venue called Søpavillonen (Lake Pavilion) next to the lakes in Copenhagen, where it will next be staged on September 15.

“It’s very central,” says Stig, “with two floors and many small rooms so you can separate the party into different sections for different tastes. We will have the dancefloor and shows on the ground floor and other spaces on the upper floor.”

The venue, with its late-19^th century pavilion architecture, offers a lake-view balcony, outdoor garden, changing room and smoking areas plus chill-out and lounge space.