La Machine du Moulin Rouge

For about forty years this was La Locomotive, a Pigalle disco where The Who and The Kinks played in the 1960s and which took part in the techno wave of the 1990s. It went into judicial liquidation and shut in November 2009. Its next-door neighbour, the Moulin Rouge, bought the business for 1.2 million euros, and after two months of renovation it reopened in January 2010 under the new name. There are four spaces. The Central holds more than 1,000 for club nights and 800 for concerts. The Chaufferie, a basement room in the cabaret's old boiler house, takes almost 400, and it is the one to look for if you like your house close and low-ceilinged. Then there is the Bar à Bulles round the back at 4bis Cité Véron and a rooftop, Le Toit. The programme is deliberately mixed and changes by promoter. It has become one of the main places in Paris where a mid-sized night can happen, and tourists on the boulevard rarely know it is there.