UK nightclubs are ‘more concerned now than during the pandemic’
UK nightclubs are ‘more concerned now than during the pandemic’
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
UK nightclubs are ‘more concerned now than during the pandemic’
UK nightclubs are ‘more concerned now than during the pandemic’
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
46 Comments
A night out regularly is just becoming way too expensive for most people, and that’s without going to the club. It’s not just the club but everything around it. Like a taxi home.
How people are socialising is changing and evolving.
They need to diversify, and try opening on an afternoon, the demographic who used to go out on a night are now getting older and a late night isn’t feasible, whereas day time drinking is easier.
I think they do need to look at their offerings as well. Clubs near me have had a lot of success doing say a “Taylor swift night” or “fifa tunes night”, events like that would probably help draw in a crowd.
75/100 before Covid , now 200/300£ a night in London
I hardly know a representative example of young people but the ones I know just aren’t that interested in clubbing.
Personally i’ve always enjoyed club nights out but it’s not for everyone.
Nightlife changes, in my time i’ve seen a big decline in live music venues, & both huge rises then falls again in numbers of bars/clubs.
Perhaps they’re going the way of the music hall.
10 years ago I could have a cheap night out at Yates for a tenner. £2 entry, £6 for a cheap bottle of wine and I’d still have enough for cheesy chips on the way home. What happened?!
A major change has been bars opening later. It used to be clubs were the only place to go after 1am but now we have bars regularly stay open to us till 3 am.
Not going to pay £5-£10 for a club with even more overpriced drinks too. I don’t see how clubs can be sustainable open a few nights a week with the rates increases, rent increases and cost of staff alongside products.
Reddit acts like young people don’t go out clubbing anymore or bars, but they absolutely do – our student staff members seem to be always doing this. However I’d agree there’s perhaps a generational shift in it’s not as common as the previous generation.
I also think during Covid – you had a 2-3 year period of closures & changes which meant there was also a period without people having that experience or trying it too and it’s probably passed them by.
Its not going to get better. Going out on the pull was key to the clubbing scene in the 80s, 90s and 00s and online dating has killed that completely.
The problem I see is that the 18-30 crowd in my life have more hobbies and interests these days than my generation seemed to.
Let’s face it- local clubs in small towns are just a bit shit too. Why is someone going to pay £100+ for a night out to stand on a sticky carpet, get leered at by random creepers and deal with grumpy arsehole bouncers when they can alternatively put the £150 towards travel, adventure, baking, jewellery making, rock climbing or board games or whatever. It’s not worth it. They seem to invest in themselves a little more, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing.
In my local town theres 2 clubs, the main nightclub plays the same music as most of the late bars that also stay open until 3am, only you pay on the door and the drinks cost more in the club.
The other place opens at midnight-6am lets anyone in, is dead until 2am, has frequent fights in and outside and has a reputation of drugs/spiking and SA and former employees have made comments about the lack of cleanliness behind the bars.
How either of them make any profit or remain open is beyond me. I worked in 2 nightclubs in the early/mid 2000s there was no late bars so you had to pay to go in a club if you wanted to stay out back then, but we had proper djs and drinks offers.
Massive hassle doing any of this these days, and the cost is insane. Easier, safer, and cheaper to visit a pals house or local pub.
I’m older than average clubbing age so not really informed enough to know, but from working in the industry a lot of clubs where I’m from are so focussed on rinsing clubbers for money that the experience feels so removed from what it originally was.
Airport security to get in, hugely expensive drinks, the same boring DJs that sell out venues but have not artistic merit, then as soon as the night ends the lights go straight on and you are yelled out of the building by security because you can’t be milked for any more money.
Boring clubs ran by money men, fuck that.
For many of my friends and me, the novelty of clubbing wore off after the fun of university. However, we carried on a lot longer than probably would have because it used to be the main way you’d meet people of the opposite sex.
Now there’s online dating combined with massive increases in the price of going out, it’s really not surprising that many people don’t bother.
Clubs need to up or change their game and become places that people actually want to go to if they are to survive.
I went out in London for a night out in Halloween. A restaurant, 2 bars and a club. £340. No tables, no vip. Just a meal, a nights worth of drinks and taxis.
I think the scene and people have changed and I’m only 36.
My local pub is rammed at 6pm by under 25s at the weelend and they all merrily stumble home at 11 or midnight. Only 10 years ago if that they’d be getting taxis into the town centre. They just go home now.
Unless you and your mates have hundreds a month in disposable income I don’t know anyone who goes clubbing anymore.
As someone who spent the entirety of his twenties in night clubs…
I’ve never, ever met a club owner I like. They employ minimal staff and for piss poor wages. The door staff are usually thugs.
You’ve all dined out on young social habits long enough. If that habit dies, then off you fuck too. Stop crying – you’ve had your easy ride long enough.
Genuine question, why should we care? If the public is no longer interested in nightclubs then they should change their business model. It’s not like they’re libraries or hospitals providing essential services and they do not contribute much to British arts or culture unlike our galleries or museums.
It’s an outdated business model in a world where prices are high and entertainment can be enjoyed from the comfort of your own home. For a night out, I can buy a used PS4 and get far more enjoyment with my money.
The thing about clubs I’ve always found is that it’s not very social.
The music is too loud, it’s too dark to have a proper conversation.
Then the drinks are overpriced and a bit shit.
I’m a dad now, so no fun allowed, but when I do go out it’s much nicer to go to a bar and sit and have a chat around a table, maybe a pool table or dart board. Music is usually alot better, too.
People don’t go out anymore – it’s shit, we’re skint and we don’t like other people.
Clubbing was never that great IMO as someone who used to go out a lot and still goes out occassionally. Its not a hard decision to give it up when money gets a bit tighter.
Drinking in general is too pricey these days. Clubs that charge an entry fee on top of the cost of drinks means it can easily end up being a substantial cost. When you’re charging £6+ for a vodka that tastes like it was distilled in a toilet and a coke that’s pale and flat, why bother.
Being near Cambridge, a night out (pre son being born mid last year) was easily between £50 – £150, depending on needing a taxi.
No, thanks.
Because it’s too expensive and frankly not safe. The last time I went out, I got groped, a guy got glassed in the smoking area and someone overdosed in the toilet.
I’d much rather get pissed at my mums while playing cards against humanity like I did New Year’s Eve.
It’s a mix of many factors. The obvious one is that the demographic that would typically go clubbing do not earn enough to pay the prices. But then there are other things thrown into the mix:
* There’s a general trend towards healthier lifestyles amongst young people. Less alcohol involved in favour of going to the gym, or taking classes etc.
* Dating has changed dramatically over the past 10-20 years. Even though I personally think meeting others is better, naturally, in person, people are opting for dating apps which seems like the default these days. There isn’t as much incentive to go to nightclubs when there are those alternatives to meeting people.
* There has also been a big shift in mens behaviour around women. I’m not sure if, as a man, I’d be comfortable meeting women in a nightclub, and the reverse might be true too. It presents a risk to both sexes.
* Many in their 20s right now grew up in the covid period when we were all staying indoors. My observation is that post-lockdown, parties at home have continued on. The young people I know in London tend to meet up at bars, gigs, events, then head to a flat for the rest of the night. That might not be representative of what’s happening as a whole, so just anecdotal.
* Maybe there’s less of an urge to go out to clubs in general because we have so much stimulation elsewhere. Unlimited music, tv, films, YouTube, social media, online gaming. The list goes on. When I was younger I could watch a few channels of television, listen to some CDs, or go out for 90p vodka shots and £1.50 pints.
* Might be wrong about this, but there seems to be more late night pub/bar licences. It used to be that the pub closed and the only option was a nightclub. I feel like there are a lot of options for bars with say, live music or a DJ, that open until 1 or 2. Generally those places seem to have a better atmosphere IMO.
* The people who do enjoy nightclubbing are favouring more underground, makeshift venues that aren’t really advertised and run by a community of musicians, DJs etc.
Nightclubs are shit. They’re stupidly expensive and fights are everywhere thanks to the UKs cocaine problem.
My coworkers don’t go out that much, but they do book a few days at Butlins.
Butlins run adult-only events, it’s cheap, there’s plenty of drinks and drugs, you get a room so you don’t have to think about travelling home or to a hotel, there’s DJs and special guests (they saw Scouting for Girls, Kevin and Perry, a bunch of other acts).
Cost of living crisis, massive inflation (governments ignore housing but house price inflation is insane) and high unemployment of under 30s…
Wonder why clubs are suffering. Duh
They’ve forgotten what price elasticity of demand is.
People who go to clubs are young with finite money. They keep increasing prices for something everyone considers an extra.
You can’t quadruple prices when salaries have gone no where. They will die, such is capitalism.
As their numbers reduce the remaining population who can afford it will keep a smaller system afloat.
Most clubs can’t even convince their bouncers to not be cunts to their customers. So I just have no sympathy at all.
I’m not spending £6-10 a drink when I can just invite a few friends over for much much cheaper and quite frankly, none of the bullshit.
I want to take this moment to shame the fuck out of a bar in Leeds called Mean Eyed Cat who charge £9.90 for a single rum & coke.
Your floor is sticky, your entire bar smells like piss, never going back.
If I’d just got an Uber to and from that bar my night would have cost £40. Piss take.
> Huh? I don’t understand? We charge exorbitant prices for entry and for drinks and exclusively employee barbarians as bouncers and somehow we are getting less business?
Between women getting their drinks spiked and now getting injected with shit, and drink prices being through the roof, they should be.
Hey at least the benzos might make you forget how much the drink cost 🤷♂️
As a student, living in London, we went out several times a week. Ticketed events, drinks out before, drinks in the club, drunken chicken and chips and a taxi home at 5am. We could afford to do it multiple times a week. Now as someone with a full time job living in a fairly small university city, I don’t think I could afford to do it once a month! The cost of tickets, drinks, transport etc just makes it entirely unaffordable.
Luckily I can’t hack the hangovers these days so it doesn’t feel like a great loss but I do feel for the younger people who must be struggling? Night life was such a big part of my uni experience. I barely see any students out on a Friday night now.
Clubbing is great fun if it’s safe and affordable. If you want more money and footfall, provide a better product – that’s economics.
So if I want to spend an evening with friends, I can either:
Go to a club where I can’t even talk to my friends because of the music, get shoved around because they have crammed as many people as possible into a small building, and shell out £5-£8 per drink.
or
Invite some friends over, get a bottle of spirit for £15-£20 or a 10 pack of cider for like a tenner. Be able to talk to my friends, choose whatever music we want, play some videogames or boardgames if we fancy.
Tough choice, it’s a mystery why clubs aren’t doing well.
I don’t think people are less interested in clubbing in general, I think they’re less interested in clubbing for so long. They’ll do the scene for a few years, usually at uni, graduate, then move on with their lives. Suddenly they’re more interested in their career, saving for a house, travelling and different hobbies rather than staying up until 5am in a club somewhere.
Clubbing into your late 20s or even early 30s used to be fairly common, now there’s been a cultural shift and it’s seen as something slightly tragic.
Back in the day I could go to the Krazyhouse in Liverpool and come out utterly shit faced at 2 in the morning having spent only 20 quid. Absolutely impossible in this day and age.
RIP to the Kray, it was a truly wonderful place. Dank, dirty and you’d come home covered in a think black sludge, but we loved it there!
People just don’t have the disposable income to be pissing away 100+ quid on a night out any more. If you’re needing to ration the pennies, it’s an easy thing to cut out.
I went to Popworld in Aberdeen last Friday night
Literally empty at 11pm, refused to pay the 5 entry and left
Clubbing isn’t it anymore. When my parents talk about clubbing in the 90’s the venues, prices and turnout was way better. Everyone in my town was out every weekend because it wasn’t too expensive.
I’m 23 now. When I turned 18 I was excited to go clubbing but realised it wasn’t that much fun soon after. Way too many guys are looking for a fight. Drink prices are ridiculous. Most people are in a single sex group just looking around rather than dancing or at least having any fun.
I think most people in my age group prefer a night at the pub or at home together.
In around 1997 I used to go out with a tenner and come back marvellously drunk with chips and cigarettes left over. I’ve just checked, and £10 in 1997 is [£23.26 today](https://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/1997?amount=10). What sort of night out could you have for £23.26 now? Even if we double it (because I didn’t live in the most expensive and exciting of places)… Would you be able to have a proper good night out for £46.52?
For me I just don’t get anything out of it. If the music is so loud it’s literally rattling the windows in their frames I can’t talk to anyone, so I’m just awkwardly making eye contact with my mate while paying the better part of £10 for a drink. There is genuinely nothing I enjoy about the experience and nothing I can’t get elsewhere. Seriously, why do people go?
It’s just too expensive now.
When I was 18-20 I’d go out with £50. Pre-drinks, entry, drinks, chips & taxi home. Now it would cost £150-£200.
Also, I started stacking the costs up against other things like travel. I started flying to European cities for long weekends for the same cost as 1 night out & a hotel in the UK. No brainer, really…
Clubs are just not good value for money. If you’re looking for a romantic partner, there’s Tinder & Grinder…so charging 30quid, when there’s less interest in clubbing is counter productive. 5quid & cheaper drinks might help but I think socializing has changed forever…in a decade, there’ll only be a few left and talking about clubbing will kind of identify your age!
Nightclubs at least for folk my age (30+) that I hang out with have always been worthlessour entire time being of legal age for drinking. They’re disgusting dtug-ridden smelly places and normally full of overpriced, watered down crap.
Why go to one of them when we could either drink at home and play games/talk/chill or go to a local pub with a nice chill atmosphere?
Also, nightclubs being such a major fact of British drinking is just sad. The death of them will only be good for the uk and it’ll continue coming.
I feel another factor is that music isn’t particularly danceable nowadays. I’m not too into pop music so It might have been just me but they’re more singalongs than ‘dance to’ songs. Also, I might be clutching at straws but the music experience for younger people feels entirely personal with people exclusively playing music through headphones rather than speakers. That might affect people’s relationship with music and therefore their relationship with clubs. But live music still does well so hay ho.