Even before Covid-19, nightclubs were struggling | Hacker News Reader

Even before Covid-19, nightclubs were struggling

economist.com

119 pointslxm139 comments

I feel like there are at least two very distinct notions of "nightclub" (not counting gay clubs), and in online discussions people generally talk past each other without realising they're referring to very different things. I see this happening already in this comment section - the clubs some of you are talking about have nothing to do with the ones being discussed in the article. Let me quickly list the attributes of the two main categories of club:

1) Dressing up in a button-down or a suit or a dress and high heels. Sitting down at tables around $300 bottles of Grey Goose. Pop music, hip-hop, electrohouse. Crowd is mostly straight, most attendees are there with the intention of meeting a sexual partner. You stay for 1-3 hours, mostly talk and get wasted and dance a bit.

2) Dressing in casual clothing or streetwear-oriented fashion with comfortable shoes for dancing. Few or no tables - the dancefloor is the primary attraction. More drugs than drinks. Crowd skews alternative with strong LGBT presence. People are there for the music, which is generally repetitive electronic music, house or techno or DnB etc. You stay for 3-8 hours, mostly dancing and talking to friends, drinking but probably not getting drunk.

This article is mostly discussing the second category, but I'm not sure how familiar American readers will be with this style of club - my understanding is that it's primarily a European phenomenon, with outshoots in some key non-European cities (NYC, Detroit, Sao Paulo, Tokyo to name a few). These clubs are closer in concept to American raves, except at dedicated club venues. These spaces have historically been incredibly important for minority communities (queer, black, latino) also for musicians. They foster the cutting-edge of underground electronic music, which eventually filters down to shape the next generation of radio pop. Berghain, the club mentioned at the start of the article, is the prototypical example of such a venue.

I don't care for the first category of clubs and I don't attend them, but it would be a huge loss to culture if the second style of club disappears. It was already struggling pre-Covid, with many clubs in London doubling as event spaces or art spaces during the day in order to raise more money.

The fundamental issue with the second type of club is that they’re usually not making money on the drugs. This was true for the Hacienda and its true for most of the clubs now.

I strongly suspect that it’s not the case for the mega-clubs in Ibiza, and that they get their cut somehow

Either the dealers eat the club or the club eats the dealers.

The dealers ate the Hacienda. It's over as soon as the club has to hire enforcers to keep the dealers in line - because the enforcers are also hired by the same dealers. And that gets... complicated.

It's a fair bet it's the other way around for the headline clubs in Europe, and possibly a few US cities (NY, etc).

This may suggest interesting things about who ultimately owns/manages those clubs.

Ibiza is the 17Euro waters. 17 euro tiny beers.

Eastern European here. I remember going to Mallorca and see clubs advertise 20 EUR entry for an all-you-can-drink night. We went there just to see with our own eyes and indeed it was. Vodka + tonic or beer and not even cheap crappy one on tap in plastic cups but bottled beer in small bottles. No idea how it was profitable to them, we drank a lot but couldn't match the Brits there who got totally wasted :P

Rofl, classic Brits. They really go for it.

I guess Mallorca is younger and more alcohol centered. Ibiza is more drugs and a bit older average age. Costs more, etc. Solid techno DJs though.

Mega-clubs in Ibiza know that and charge much higher entry fees compared to clubs with similar lineup in Europe. On top performing nights of the week the entry fee is at least 40-50€. Then you pay 15€ for a bottle of water. On top of that most mega-clubs have bottled service as well.

I hate to say that the scene #2 in Berlin is completely nuked (big ones are relatively okay like the one you mentioned)but the small beloved venues are almost all gone which is bread and butter for the scene. If they aren't, don't think they'll survive till the end of 2022 it seems like, unfortunately.

There gotta be something to survive but I don't see any yet.. It'll be very interesting to see how scene changed after this era.

Do you have a source for this? To me it always seemed the people running the best parties weren't making a lot of money anyway, just enough to rent some decrepit building and a few speakers. This gave me hope that they'd just start again, some time in the far future, when they can get a crowd in that pays the bills.

Obviously many of the more institutionalized, mid-sized venues will be heavily affected - on the other hand, there is less need for office space right now, so I don't think everything will be rented out soon.

The real estate scene in Berlin is very different now than it used to be. It was possible to rent a cheap place or just squat an unoccupied building, which is not possible anymore. Real estate prices have gone through the roof in the last 10 years.

I'm not sure how the new nightclub scene will look like, but I'm sure entry will cost money.

When I used to go clubbing in Munich entry was anywhere between 5€ and 20€ (with 10€ usually being the sweet spot cost-quality wise). Dress-code in most venues. This was around 2006-2008. Berlin at the time was considered cheap/left/alternative. Hamburg has always been dominated by no dress code, much fewer entry fees (with exceptions).

I wonder how Reeperbahn will do after Corona. It's already changed from mostly local private establishments to more and more corporate fuckery. If there is one thing people in St. Pauli hate it's corporate fuckery.

Capitalism is incompatible with counter culture. We need to get back to realising that if we try and work with the system it will destroy us, we have to work in the shadows, break laws, and create an underground again.

Some will die and others will replace them, perhaps with a lull in time in between.

Unless something fundamentally changes in the way we “celebrate” culture. Which might be the case.

I think those clubs and new music genre’s are driven by youngsters. If new generations of youth don’t feel the need to get together and celebrate certain musical quirks together, then perhaps the nightclub/rave format will become a relic. Maybe they’ll find other ways to find each other (online, vr, I’m not a prophet).

I had fun organizing (deep) house parties in a European city in small venues while growing up :) We didn’t earn money, but damn it was fun!

Even with the advent of internet technology, nothing compares to the feeling of actually being at one of these parties. I suspect as soon as the laws become a bit more lax, there will be a HUGE resurgence, especially by the youth (like myself) who are sick of being stuck indoors

I'm going to miss ://about blank and the beloved queer parties there so much. I spent my 20's in these and got so many friends and partners. Great music, free people and superb location. The party never ended.

When the pandemic is over, we have Berghain left and what else?

I'm not completely sure if blank will actually close but if they do it's pretty likely they'll find another spot as Griessmuhle did.

I hope so as well. In the beginning of the pandemic I donated to GG, blank and a bunch of collectives organizing parties (like bordel des arts). But i doubt that this made a lot of difference.

They're planning to extend the A100 on top of Wilde Renate and ://about blank. Not sure if that's going to happen though...

Funny... I don't think I've ever been to a #1 venue in Melbourne that didn't have a stage for a live performer, whereas #2 there are a few venues per block downtown. And I would say although places close down, they are usually replaced with new management and opened back up as a new club within weeks.

Melbourne club scene has pretty much been open for the past few months as well with no sign of a decline. The only difference now is that COVID inspectors with bright fluro jackets are walking around now, telling people to wear masks.

They’re just gonna die and then new capital (obv there’s a lot right now) is gonna come in and buy a ready to go venue for under prior market rates. Then prob hire some of the same people and start it again under a different name and or vibe.

> Then prob hire some of the same people and start it again under a different name and or vibe.

Unfortunately it's much more likely the new capital will close it and turn it into flats.

more likely a bank

Prob not, for most of the good spots in Brooklyn. Too far out of the way to matter.

Jup, and most important, after that is no noise at night. I now from a bar owner I know, the fight because of the noise outside is so hard and depressing. Even the bar is there since over 20 years (and is much less noisy than years ago) there are more and more complaints.

The first one is what we've always referred to as a Vegas club, primarily focused around bottle service. Literally over half and sometimes even more, like 90%, is dedicated to tables. I really wouldn't say that's the norm for most people in America. You really won't find clubs like that outside of a few major cities like NYC, LA, Miami and of course Vegas.

But every city has nightclubs that are more of a mix of the two. The dance floor being the main attraction for most people, but they will still have a VIP area with tables and bottle service that takes up maybe 10% max of the floor space and wearing a suit would make most people assume you are coming from a wedding.

Music is normally an infusion of electronic and hiphop. In a lot of places they will have a different dance floor that's more focused on a particular genre for the night be it deep house or 80s hair bands. IMO that's 95% of the clubs people are attending in the US.

to elaborate on the second, since it's a scene I identify with. For me, these clubs are culture. You listen to the music, follow the djs and select the venues for the artists that are playing. You come for the experience, not (just) to seek a sexual partner. I am in a healthy, non-open relationship and I am just as drawn to those nightclubs as I would have been without. You dance, dance and dance and get lost in the music, the abstract space the artist is creating. It's very unfortunate that those places are not recognised in germany for their cultural focus and therefore don't get the protection other cultural places do. These clubs can't really go commercial, it kills everything they stand for. The clubs and the scene usually has ties to the local art-scene, that's why many double as art-spaces by day. It's the only thing they can do without loosing their identity, but unfortunately art-spaces are also not big money-makers.

They also have strong ties to the LGBTQ-community are important for them as spaces where they can freely express themselves.

I don't think many politicians can really understand the idea that a nightclub can be culture, just like concerts, museums and art-spaces. A focus on something other than profitability.

My favorite dive is in that category, a goth industrial club in a former hole in the wall burger joint. The front is retro diner, the dance hall is cramped, filled with psychedelic art, and sports three giant paper maché tentacles emerging from an octopus mural from an undersea theme night five years back. The alley where everyone smokes is covered in graffiti. The sound system has gremlins and the speakers distort, arguably improving the harsh industrial tracks. It's the most welcoming place in the whole city (except for that one time a volatile neo-nazi showed up - he got literally thrown out the door, we don't tolerate intolerance). Ultra LGBTQ friendly.

I have no idea how they stayed afloat during the best of times and I'm not sure it's going to open up once covid is gone. But the community itself has been around since the 70s, hopping from one seedy joint to the next as they got shuttered, demolished, turned into swanky gastropubs and hospital parking lots. Something will arise from the ashes.

That place sounds like my personal definition of heaven.

If you find yourself in London, head to Slimelight at the Electrowerkz.

It's (supposedly) the longest-running dark/alternative night in the world, starting in 1987. The venue was built as a two-level horse stables in the 19th century, so there's a strange, sloping ramp to the first floor. It was an electroplating works for much of the 20th century, before being squatted in the 1980s by the punks and goths. The back of the building is now a specialist scrap metal merchant, which is a source of some of the decoration -- there's an old tank outside, bits of ex-military aircraft, the seats in the "quiet" area are rocket launcher ammo cases, the industrial signs saying "Sellafield Nuclear Authority — Restricted Zone" and the like are real.

Bits of the building have been used to raise money at times; e.g. a restaurant, film shoots, weddings, other club nights, but the main goth/industrial party is on Saturdays, 23h-07:30h. They at least used to sell cake and jerk chicken. When I first went, you had to be signed in by an existing member, but you could also bring your own drinks if you didn't want to use the cheap bar. That's no longer the case, and the bar is OK-for-London prices.

I'm rarely in London on Saturday night nowadays, so I haven't been for a while, and I don't know how many people go to the club. (In the past, there have been periods where it's been a bit quiet.)

It looks like they just received a £78,000 grant from the UK Arts Council, which is excellent news [1].

[1] http://islingtonnow.co.uk/electrowerkz-grant/

https://www.facebook.com/SlimelightOfficial

Slimelight is truly special. There was a period of a few months where I'd go almost every Saturday night. That dancefloor is really something special at 5 or 6am, like being on another planet.

Sadly it's still mostly quiet these days (well now it's completely quiet, but pre-Covid it was also quiet). But I went to one of their birthdays two or three years back and it was packed. London's whole goth scene descended on it.

I came here to mention how stunned I am to know where you are describing; been around the US and never found a club as unique for layout or people

Although for a dance scene it was a lot more booze driven than drugs when I was local to it, and they had old vinyl booths around the walls of the dance floor but no bottle service

Didn't berlin treat berghain as 'cultural place' when they moved it to another spot?

At least in the UK/London, #1 would be considered a "bar" (distinct from a "pub"), but as far as my experience goes (probably not been on a proper night out in London in 5+ years now) paying for a table is pretty much unheard of, unless it is a deposit/minimum-drink-spend for a pre-reserved table that then comes out of the bill at the end. To me paying for a table just seems like a ripoff.

#2 is as described, apart from there is probably entirely mainstream and not particularly LGBTQ (although there are dedicated places that specialise in that sort of thing)

Both #1 and #2 are usually over-priced and mostly filled with tourists or hen/stagg parties, and as such "uncool".

Your comment falls for the same trap the parent describes. London has loads of #2 style dance focused club nights which aren't usually particulary touristy (unless they're famous - eg ministry of sound, maybe fabric) and basically have no stag dos. Tickets tend to sell out weeks in advance, which limits the "get drunk and decide to go out" crowd. People tend to be there for the music - a specific genre or DJ usually. The pull is the organisers rather than the venue, so they sometimes move around.

As another commenter mentioned, your description of type #2 clubs in London misses the mark completely, and I suspect you aren't actually aware that type #2 clubs as described actually exist (which is fine - many people outside the scene won't know about them).

A hen or stag party would not be allowed in. The few tourists who are there are generally there becaus they know the scene and came specifically for the night. These aren't venues that you'd stumble into on a drunken night out. They're often holes in the wall in quiet-ish streets in Tottenham or Hackney or Elephant & Castle, and you generally have to buy a ticket for 15-25GBP in advance.

Denver was going pretty strong with your Type2 club the last few years, as someone whos done the Euroclub experience a(from Zurich to Barcelona, to Paris and London) the house and techno scene was working its way towards building a really awesome nightlife (lounge hangs on weekdays to clubs at night and warehouses for the after on weekends). Covid crushed it, but I think the internationalization of underground EDM is really pushing hard with the millennials and am excited to see what the next decade can bring as governments loosen their ties and find ways to allow even formerly "alt" attractions.

what about the mandatory closing hours in denver? I was very surprised that the US has so early closing hours (isn't it all about freedom over there?).

2 am the bars let out, however, the afters are private events and tend to be in the warehouse or events space district. These afters are like 100 people at most and have a pretty intimate vibe, you can find them on facebook groups, asking around at the club or less often through Resident Advisor.

Remember the bedrock of american social and legal culture is uptight religious british emigrants.

That’s state by state, and can vary.

For instance, in Alabama of all places, private members only clubs can serve as late as they want.

I knew of one dive bar/rock club where membership we $5/yr. they stayed open until 3am most nights, and would stay open 24hrs from Thiraday down to around noon on Monday

> This article is mostly discussing the second category, but I'm not sure how familiar American readers will be with this style of club [...] closer in concept to American raves, except at dedicated club venues.

You're not wrong, especially since electronic music has always been more underground/niche in the US, relative to Europe.

But despite that, this type of club was not uncommon in US cities, especially from the late '90s to mid '00s. For underground dance music (house, techno, dnb, etc) there was a nice mix of dedicated dance music venues, weekly/monthly nights at other venues, and a bunch of unlicensed/warehouse spaces as well.

This wasn't just in the largest cities either. Growing up in the mid Atlantic, in addition to the venues in all the larger cities (NYC, Philly, DC, Baltimore) there were also dedicated electronic dance music venues in much smaller cities -- Allentown PA, Atlantic City NJ, and Ithaca NY are a few examples. Often these venues were either all-ages or 18+.

These clubs all started to disappear around 2003-2005. The media had portrayed the rave scene exclusively as a teen sex/drug thing, which then brought in a lot of kids who weren't there for the music at all, and that led to government intervention both at the local and Federal level.

Over the past decade, there's been a small resurgence of dedicated electronic dance music venues, at least here in NYC -- mostly Brooklyn, always 21+, more serious crowd. It's certainly waxed and waned over the years. The closure of Output a couple years back was a major blow, but other venues like Elsewhere helped filled the gap. The club owners and promoters always had to strike a delicate balance of trying to be popular enough to stay afloat, but not so popular that the crowd sucked. I don't know if any of these places will survive the pandemic, sadly.

Curious, what spaces did you know about in Ithaca? I can think of only one or two establishments from around that time that loosely fit the description (The Haunt being one) but interested in comparing notes.

Afraid I don't recall the name. Of the cities I mentioned, I must confess that Ithaca is the only one whose electronic music scene I didn't get to personally experience. I just remember picking up some party/club fliers while visiting the town one day circa 2000, and I was extremely impressed by the quality of the headlining DJs, considering Ithaca's small size and somewhat remote location :)

> ... it would be a huge loss to culture if the second style of club disappears

The 'second type' never disappears, it'll always keep going, because you can't make starving artist types disappear - they are already willing to be marginalized by the rest of society.

The particular groups and venues you are familiar with will disappear, but they always get replaced by a younger generation's thirst for self expression and community, willing to eat the shit sandwich of the starving artist lifestyle.

Don't worry, some people live to eat and breed, some people live to do their quirky thing and one of the quirky things some people just can't get enough of is music.

Starving artists also have to pay rent and are usually not the ones running those clubs.

Yup. They always seem to find somebody who appreciates their artistic expression and is willing to fund it, which's why they're starving artists, not starved to death artists ;)

I live next to a park. Who ever thought to spend money on parks. How do they not get their funding cut? I don't know, these things don't follow cold logic - some people just really want to have parks and find a way.

Music venues are like parks, nobody makes money but they just seem to get willed into existence - some things are beyond micro economics.

Good run-down of the two types of clubs. To add an European additional view on this (mine), I'd say that in my city (Bucharest) the second type of clubs was still ahead of the first type of clubs pre-pandemic, even though both were on their way down. Bucharest is (semi-)famous in the Electronic Dance music scene for its minimal style [1], but the club scene had become less and less important compared to dedicated festivals like Sunwaves[2], for example.

[1] https://www.beatportal.com/features/minimal-techno-romanian-...

[2] https://sunwaves-fest.ro/

This doesn't reflect my experience from the UK. In the UK a club to people I know is thought of roughly as:

- Late (22:00 - 03:00 probably been core hours)

- Music/dancing being the primary activity

- A small amount of seating, either VIP tables, or some small area or bit near the dance floor

- Alcohol (and perhaps drugs) being consumed quite liberally

- A lot of the clientele looking for a short term partner

The dress side of it just varies, there are places with little to no dress code, places that require shirt and shoes and others inbetween, but I wouldn't specifically say the dress code leads to fundamentally different places, except, the more relaxed dress code typically means more relaxed, diverse people, where as fancy dress code can be a bit more mainstream/think-they-are-something-special.

Places you sit down at tables and drink are typically pubs or bars. These days the two are pretty similar, at a push the more traditional feeling places are more likely to being pubs.

When I was younger I went to the above type establishments not just in the UK but in pretty much every country in the EU and something I found in lots of the EU is something I call "europop" nightclubs, which is a bit harder to explain, but it is venues which are really laid back, everyone just wants to have fun (no aggressive behaviour, male dominance/competition) and plays a whole host of music that has never come to the UK, but everyone over there knows. All of my best club experiences have been these type of places - it's where a 30 year old rock influenced person can be dancing away next to a mainstream 18 year old student and they can chat without barriers.

I do see an increasing amount of younger people that don't really drink and fuel their social interactions from Tinder and other social media, so I have wondered a few times if clubs will fade further out over the years.

I would guess that UK clubs have suffered ever since pubs were allowed to open later, when last orders in the pub was at 10:30 a club was the obvious place to go afterwards.

One difference between the UK and Europe is that the clubs get started even later in Europe like 00:00 - 06:00. They seem to get later as you go further south so maybe it's something to do with waiting for the heat of the day to fade (?). As I get older, this makes going out to a club less enticing (oh, maybe that's the point!)

Brits have incredibly early eating and drinking habits, even for people living at the same latitude.

You can't even generalise England on this measure, let alone the rest of Europe at similar latitude.

Those of us from southern England are allowed by the northerners having "tea" (dinner) at half past five.

s/allowed/amused/

There’s plenty of clubs in the U.K. that do these hours. I’ve come out of clubs in London at 7, 8 even 9 in the morning.

There’s clubs in London that don’t even start till 1am.

Larger venues in the UK often open at 22:00, I think traditionally this was to overlap with the pub licensing, which forced pubs to close at 23:00, but I could be wrong. They typically close at 04:00 or 06:00.

However, there have always been after hours parties, usually in smaller, more niche venues. The first license enabling a legal after hours night was granted in 1990 [1] and originally used to run two promotions in a single night - kicking everyone out at 03:00ish and starting again.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnmills

From the UK, I'd agree. Drinks before you go out, either at home with friends or at a pub, head to the club 21:00-22:00 ish

Drink and dance, there's a few tables about, but it's mostly standing space and a dance floor. Kicking out is like 01:00ish

Maybe I'm oblivious, but I'm fairly sure our clubs are way more alcohol than drugs.

Where in the UK are you? In London the type 2 clubs (Fabric, Village Underground, Oval Space, Pickle Factory, Corsica Studios, The Cause, Egg, E1, etc.) only open their doors around 23:00, and it'd be weird to show up before midnight - the place would be deserted. Peak time is 1:30-3:30am. At some of these places, almost everyone is on drugs.

In the dancing clubs here, the actual dancing floor fills at like 1:00. But, I stopped going there years ago precisely for that reason - I would much prefer the British way you describe. Dancing from 21:00-22:00 ish makes so much more sense then having to wait till it is super late.

It sounds like you are going to shite clubs!

This is probably because you aren’t going to the type 2 clubs that OP refers to.

Go to any of the following and see if you enjoy it:

London * egg, village underground, fabric, ministry of sound, union, e1, studio 338, Bristol * motion Birmingham * rainbow venues Manchester * hidden, warehouse project Newcastle * digital

That just seems like a shitty meat market club that idiots and teenagers go to.

There are indeed a lot of them, but the second type in parent comment do indeed exist and are gems. Places like Corsica Studios, Printworks (though this is a huge venue), Chip Shop, Fabric, E1 (to some extent). Volks in Brighton. A LOT of them have closed down for bullshit reasons though (licensing, police being dicks, property developers squeezing rent, dickheads moving in next door and complaining about noise). A real shame. People absolutely do get drunk though.

The first type do exist too, especially in the west end, Chelsea etc.

There is a kind of club I have only seen in American movies, but which I assume have a real-world basis: People mostly sit at tables, but there is an orchestra and an emcee, a glamorous singer and perhaps choreographed dancers with elaborate costumes. Does this still exist?

Dinner/supper clubs in the upper Midwest but without the orchestra (see: Fargo)

I would call this a jazz club (in the UK; even if it doesn't play jazz specifically).

Those are called big bands. These were popular in the 20s and up to the maybe 60s. It became cost prohibitive for a club to pay an entire 10-20 person band. Plus improving speaker & playback technology made it possible for smaller bands & DJs to provide the music.

The Backroom in NYC can feel like that at times, but it's not as large as the movie scene style that you are talking about:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Back+Room/@40.718804,-...

They'd have a jazz band playing and often people (I assume guests) dancing but really dressed up.

It sounds like you're describing a vaudeville theatre or musical revue. These were way, way more common before movies and television came to dominate American entertainment (and before the electric guitar and synthesizer allowed for "big sound" from a small band or single performer). They are enshrined in our movies because many of the biggest early American movie stars, like the Marx Brothers, crossed over from vaudeville. It's much less common today, but I'm sure some venues of this type exist somewhere. Similar forms can be found with more frequency:

1) Comedy clubs, where there is an emcee who introduces various comedians to perform their routines

2) Dinner theater, which typically features tables arranged around a central stage. Full meals are served, and a play (typically a musical) is performed while you eat and drink.

I love the nightclubs one sees in movies from the 1930's. Too bad I've never seen one in real life.

I always thought 'nightclub' vs 'club' was that the nightclub had VIP rooms, and nearly naked ladies dancing around, and £10 lap dances.

I've never heard that described as a nightclub; that would be a gentlemen's club (once again, multiple meanings) or a strip club.

In the Philippines, a "club" is a strip club. What I would call a club is known as a "disco" there

I don't see this strong dichotomy exists. At least not here, in Budapest/Hungary. Even though the city is (was?) kind of a regional party hub attracting a lot of tourists.

The 2nd type definitely does exist, though even that one is probably not that narrow a category, especially music wise. But I'd be very surprised if there was just one that really objectively matches your first cat. The closest thing we have is a party series (not a specific club) called "L.A. Nights" organized by a few expat guys, but 1-3 hours, no dancing, sitting all night, everyone drinking $300 bottles? Nope. Dressing up? Yes. But that's actually the speciality of their party.

All the other places are in between. Some pop music, some some electronic shit (I'm sorry, I've grown up on EBM & electro industrial, so these DJ edited songs built around one simplistic theme are pretty boring to me), a very few rock/metal clubs probably. Mostly dancing AND standing by the bar, a good half of the crowd definitely open to meeting new partners (unsurprisingly I'd say). Some get super wasted, most people drink, few people do drugs (I guess, nobody does it very openly at these places). So basically it's about having fun and socializing with the type of crowd you prefer. And there is a, sometimes very subtle, difference between the places WRT the composition of the crowd. Older or younger, higher or lower education, more or less LGBT people, more or less tourists/locals, etc.

Yep. I used to live in Berlin for a lot of my twenties and the club culture is really quite unlike anything else I‘ve seen elsewhere. I loved it, and still do (much less frequently though).

The sheer hedonism is really something to behold. Clubs can run for 5 days straight. Drugs are basically treated as legal and it’s generally a pretty progressive and respectful atmosphere. Techno is closely linked to the LQBTQ and BDSM scene in many venues (like Berghain).

Clubs are dying though. Many are being pushed out by real estate development and obviously covid made everything much worse. Not sure how cities are going to look after things open up again. Club culture has been huge but may not recover.

To get back to your comment. I have no interest in 1). Where 2) has its faults and is not free from elitism at least it doesn’t come down to class as much. But 2) are gonna struggle more because there’s (usually) not as much money involved.

I'm curious how real estate development is pushing out clubs. Here in San Francisco I feel like it's the opposite. Rents are too high and there are not enough spaces to open new clubs anyway. And lack of new development means young adults have to leave the city. You have to be lucky enough (and old enough) to have bought a house 20+ years ago to afford to stay.

Sometimes clubs get evicted so the building can be turned into condos. This happens in San Francisco too. In a city where building is limited, clubs are often located in “blighted” areas that are ripe for redevelopment with few NIBMYs.

I’ve lived in the Bay Area since 2002. During that time I’ve seen Ruby Skye close. A place whose name I can’t recall closed in the design district. DNA Lounge looked like it might go away some years ago. I don’t know what the story was, but a coworker wore a “Save DNA Lounge,” shirt so I have the impression they were in trouble (they’re still open, however).

There was a spot where the basement room had seats from airplanes and was super small and intimate that I’ve never been able to find again after a DnB party (if anyone recognizes this description, please fill me in). I have a sense that there are other places I’ve been that are no more, but it’s been a number of years and there was a lot of alcohol involved.

Hell, there were two websites for tracking events that went defunct over time. BayRaves.com and something else that I don’t recall. We used to have outdoor festivals like Love Parade driving through the streets and then circling up to party at the end of the route. It seem like the scene has been on a slow decline forever.

For a really shocking statistic on gentrification etc: "In the past five years, London has lost half its nightclubs and more than 40% of its music venues." (October 2016, [1]).

I hope they've reversed that trend, but I no longer live in London and haven't followed it very closely.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/22/london-sadiq...

Historically, clubs have found homes in places like old cookie factories or power stations. Sometimes these buildings have been empty or in limbo for a long time. So either they’re being occupied by squatters or potential tenants are able to rent them for a reasonable amount.

Fast forward a couple of years. Suddenly rents in those areas have risen 20% yoy. Gentrification is in full swing.

The owner of that factory is approached daily by real estate developers who want to build (often high end) condos in Kreuzberg and Neuköln. Club managers can‘t compete with that money.

In Montreal

1) Would be a supper-club

2) Close enough to what we would call an after hours ; opens towards midnight closes at noon. Little to no alcohol, drugs readily available on premises, or pop yours before getting in. Typically has a techno area and a hip-hop area.

3 ) Club / Night Club here would be as @scraft describes in his reply.

4 ) @scraft > "Places you sit down at tables and drink are typically pubs or bars. These days the two are pretty similar, at a push the more traditional feeling places are more likely to being pubs." Same over here. Note the price discrepency with what OP describes in 1) and what this quote refers to ; beer, shooters, 100$ bottle of non-descript "booze".

[Edit] I might as well add 5 ) our world renowned strip-clubs. High-end no touching - down to sex on premises available. Stuff in between and probably ways to leave with a girl at any joint if you're nice, polite and pack $.

Disclaimer ; Intel valid as of 10-15 years ago ... probably much the same.

At least in London and Dubai the first category is getting murdered by members only clubs and restaurants like Amazonico, Coya and Zuma.

These restaurants just deliver a far superior product if #1 is the experience you're after.

Re: loss to culture

Anywhere with a thriving local music scene and a community is a loss. Many of my favourite life time memories are live music venues.

Speaking about at least NYC, the nightclub prices have gone just a little bit too nuts right before Covid - think $2k for a table for 4 with a single bottle of ($30 dollar) vodka. $25 mix drinks were a norm.

Combined with lack of innovative artists and ever-increasing homogeneity of style (do I sound like a grumpy old man yet?), clubs seemed to have been racing towards a peak. Smaller venues were suddenly cooler, cheaper, and more interesting.

Jesus H Christ! 2 G's for a table? You know, where I'm from, a person can get a decently sized house with a 12,000 downpayment. All you have to do is stay home for 6 straight weekends in NYC. Apparently.

Not sure that's a relevant comparison, the class of people that will put a 12000 down payment for this decently sized house are not the same class of people that will splash 2k on a nightclub table in NYC

They’re the same class, one group just has a lot more money than the other

$25,000 for a top table at LIV Miami NYE. $7,500 on a regular night.

I have not been to a club night or otherwise in over 25 years. It's just not my thing. But I am curious what is the difference between a top table and a regular table? What even goes on at a regular table?

Location within the club. In and around DJ booth / dancefloor can cost almost 10x the cheapest table. See and be seen = $$$$$

At these venues you aren't paying for the table per se... these are generally minimum spend amounts for drink/food (pre gratuity).

For ticketed events, table reso also usually includes admission & line bypass for x guests.

This seems very strange, why on earth would you pay that much to listen to music and who are you trying to impress? Is there some implicit assumption that you can meet otherwise unavailable women / men there? That seems extremely unlikely as well.

I assume that it's prostitution with extra steps.

It has been submitted before : https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/07/03/the-secret-economi...

Here : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24390388

Access to higher “””quality””” drugs and women.

Just to add to what everyone else said: I’m in Miami right now and most of the clubs (the ones that open at midnight and close at 0500) basically work such that if you don’t spend $1-10k for table/bottle service you might as well not even go.

It's explicitly conspicuous consumption, a way to signal one's financial status to others without having to wear expensive clothes, watches, shoes, et c.

I would imagine that it gets you a certain amount of attention from a certain type of person.

$12,000 might be a down payment for a parking spot in a major city.

My experience is in London, but very similar. Even if you can afford it, the "real" nightclubs are total waste of time and money.

Unfortunately a lot of places that were actual music venues (Fabric was the one that got the most press attention, but there were others) got shut down in recent years because of noise complaints, drug investigations, etc. This of course played right into the hand of property developers. I'm sure lockdowns aren't helping either, and there's probably a bunch of suits frothing at the mouth to replace everything with "luxury housing units" in places that currently have decent nightlife like Vauxhall, the northern part of Kingsland Road leading to Tottenham, etc.

On the other hand I don't think it's possible to kill culture, and the people who want to put on events will find a way. At least that's the only optimistic way to look at the current situation.

Ironically it’s those same suits who are paying for the bottle service.

It is possible to kill culture and it's been happening in London for years, the more people are priced out of the city the less interesting things that are happening. You can see that in microcosm in the differences between Berlin and London. The number of small interesting arts and music venues in Berlin is an order of magnitude higher than in London because it's much more affordable to live there and keep doing your thing for little to no financial reward.

Even ignoring the cost (which isn't that bad for an occasional thing if you don't buy a table, which I've never done), I've never had that much fun at a nightclub. I feel on edge the entire time. It's something about the overall atmosphere of the place that raises your stress levels. I can't quite put a finger on it.

Now a slightly more laid back live music venue I love. Can't tell you how many times I went to Brooklyn Bowl and Rockwood pre-pandemic.

There's a sentiment rolling lately in music-making communities that EDM is past its peak, and I think it's tied to how the scene has evolved commercially, including its presence in nightclubs, as well as the ushering in of streaming media.

I just can't see how clubs that are basically on some continuum of the sexual socializing scene (from meat market to more meet/greet) aren't getting completely undermined by online dating/hookup/meet apps.

Maybe corner bar for first meets, but who would take a first date to a zoot suit club?

Drug/experience/rave/music clubs should all rebound though.

Agree with this - my step-son is 18 and wouldn't even consider going to a nightclub regardless of Covid. For his generation it seems to be standard to find a house where the parents are away for the weekend and invite everybody + their dog down.

Nightclubs aren't even on their radar, which is very different to when I was 18.

I'm 5 year older and I agree. You can also have a lot more fun by mixing board games / (drinking) card games / beer pongs in the same party.

It's becoming pretty common to know a few amateur DJs / music creators and if you have some decent speakers they happily mix for a part of the night. When they're done it's back to DJ ipod.

There is also plenty of raves where I live. I feel the atmosphere is much more enjoyable there than in night clubs

90s clubs grew out of a similar scene. Many started as informal house parties, then grew into warehouse parties and field raves, and eventually that generated enough money for a permanent base and/or an official festival and/or supporting merch and other outlets. (Music labels, merch sales, boho restaurants and bars...)

There was a real startup-like scene around this in the 90s in Europe. You actually need impressive organisational, networking, and marketing talent to make a warehouse or field rave happen.

The festivals this spawned eventually turned into gigantic multi-stage events with the latest audio, VJ, laser, and other tech.

Unless Covid restrictions become permanent, I'd expect a similar cycle to repeat, although perhaps with different properties. (Empty shopping malls? Maybe even empty office blocks?)

But that might just be because there he's in a different subculture. The clubbers were never the majority of population and there was also always a "bar crowd", "park drinking crowd" (not so much in US I guess), "home party crowd", etc. etc.

When I was 15 I had a fake ID to go to the 18 & Over nights at the local beach club.

House parties are cheap and don’t necessarily require any fake IDs, just somebody’s older sibling or friend to make the liquor store trip. Things shifted towards bars and nightclubs with my friends when people got older, started making money, and started living among yuppies and even families rather than more party-tolerant student housing.

...Things shifted when we all moved to cities for work, international travel, our flats became 30 square meters large and we were “unrooted” = not having the social fabric to know someone who has a house. Best case, we’d rent something from AirBnb for NYE in the mountains. Things stayed in bars until we started having our own houses, so between 20 and 35-40...

The problem of “unrooting” (emigrating, being nomad and torn from the social fabric) is a serious civilizational issue, similar to when workers in XVIIIth were poorer than farmers of the same social level, because they had no land if things went bad.

This is just anecdotal. On the whole clubs are just as popular with young people as they have ever been.

The article is available here: https://outline.com/VuhFpq

Lets not forget gentrification. In the bit of London near London bridge, there were 3 clubs, (a large, medium and small one), that have all gone due to gentrification.

Now there are no places doing proper music + DJ nights.

What is there now? There's the odd late night cocktail place thats moved in, but nowhere to go and dance + listen to loud music.

EDIT: The only hope I see for the future, is that lots of people are moving out of cities (700k out of London in this year alone). As buildings empty out, there may once again be landlords willing to rent out places to be music venues.

It depends on whether foreign money continues to buy up all the properties in London, landbanking at the expense of homes and culture.

I suspect it's because an entire AirBnB can be had for 1/10th the price of a table.

This is certainly my experience from Eastern Europe. A few party hungry people hires one of the "hollywood director style" villas for a few thousand for the night, and have a one-night ad hoc club there. This is even more common now during Corona for obvious reasons. Hey, even the EU parliament members does it. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55174210

What kind of nightclub are you talking about? The best ones don't have tables and entrance is the price of a drink.

the cobalt in Vancouver BC had dirt floors until not that long ago

Maybe it's a bit of a generational thing? I'm not a fan. Shit loud music, £5+ to get in, the drinks are expensive and bouncers are arbitrary so you have to deal with that.

Bouncers were my regular insult to my developing identity in my latter teenage years. We were engineers, we didn’t understand what those bouncers wanted... We couldn’t bring girls, we didn’t know many. A weekly frustration.

I believe that is why I really enjoyed becoming gay. I was cute, muscular and decently dressed, lord knows why I wasn’t welcome in straight clubs (and I wasn’t effeminate), but at least in gay clubs there was no ratio or requirement to bring women on board.

The same when dealing with a gay relationship: No assigned gender role, no problem if the other is doing the washing up. I literally became gay because it was easier, I was desired by many, accepted in clubs, found equality in the relationship, where I was refused by women. I never pierced the secret.

But I’m still regretting.

Well it's much easier for women to be attractive because of makeup. Being muscular for men is only half of the equation, you need to buy fit clothes to show them. Also taking care of your beard do make a difference.

I think there’s a lot of things that “even before X, they were struggling” could apply to as well. Like shopping malls, department stores and the internet.

COVID is a trend accelerator.

I don't know how serious you were intending that to be, but I think it's pretty much spot on. I was dipping in and out of a virtual event last week essentially about current and future work (from The Economist actually) and one person made a comment to the effect of COVID brought the next decade of workplace changes into the present. i.e. there's not a lot that wasn't happening to some degree anyway, but it's been greatly accelerated.

I was serious.

Nice brevity.

Even back in my day, nightclubs had a high turnover. It seemed the lifespan of nightclub was around 5 years before they closed down, only to be replaced by another to repeat the cycle.

(edit) Nightclubs have often been used for laundering money. Changes in how money is laundered because people going cashless using credit cards, legalization of the billion dollar pot industry, and technology have changed that. Also, there are other instruments for laundering money such as high art and real estate that compete with nightclubs in the space.

The thing is (and I live in NOLA at the moment and have for years) even though cash bars have been declining the alternative scene still self organized - there used to be one just down the street from Republic on N Peters (which is not the FQ granted) where lots of people would head immediately after Decadence for example (I’m being purposefully vague but if you know anything about the scene you can determine which I mean)

very much agree. nightlife has been struggling, is my prescription, in my city. it's very pricey. a lot less youth, a lot less live musical & clubs, more medium-upscale dining.

It's misleading to blame "the pandemic" when in fact the lockdowns have left businesses fighting for their survival. In particular because many of the world's most renown epidemiologists (such as Stanford Professor Ioannidis) keep warning that lockdowns are devastating because they cause much more harm than good. In spite of that, our governments keep pushing for more strict lockdowns.

Lockdowns manipulate markets to an extreme extend. The profits of a few mega-corporations are skyrocketing while small businesses are dying like flies. It feels like we're forgetting that diversified markets are essential for democracy.

Source?

Epidemiologists from Stanford, Harvard and Oxford demand: "Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal." [1]

Stanford study: "we find no clear, significant beneficial effect of [lockdowns] on case growth in any country." [2]

[1] http://gbdeclaration.org/

[2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13484

The second paper is interesting, and I have only skimmed it, not read it (I'l check it out this evening). Basically it compares 8 country's with harsh measures (mrNPI's) with 2 countrys with lighter measures (lrNPI's)

It might imply that lockdowns are not the only way forward, but surely does not advocate doing nothing.

Some notes from Page 5 figure 2 - That whole table is interesting to show what works and what doesn't.

France, national lockdown is in green, i.e. significant effect estimated on daily growth rate. So lockdowns do work, according to the paper.

In lrNPI's, the countrys without lockdown, the table suggests as alternatives:

* For South Korea: Optional social distancing and emergency declaration.

* For Sweden: School closure, no public or private gathering.

I'm not sure if this is much better than a complete lockdown. There are also big differences in how well people follow guidelines from their governement. Cliché maybe, but i see optional social distancing working better in South Korea culture than in an USA style 'fuck the gubberment' culture.

The site's PDF viewer should be taken out and shot, BTW. Here is a download link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/eci.13...

In my city I'd suggest a big change that was already happening before COVID-19 was that you'd go buy fancy ice cream instead. You can listen to current music, hang out with your friends, buy something you don't really need, late at night, but because ice cream doesn't cause humans to become stupider and more violent it causes much less trouble so the ice cream place doesn't have a constant war with the courts and police over the excess crime.

The ice cream shop does shut a bit earlier than the nightclubs (midnight versus 0200 or so) though.

https://archive.is/clhiI

I worked for the biggest club owner in Boston for 4 years. Well, second biggest by the end, so maybe I’m not the best source. It started off great. This was back in the trance era. The clubs were full of mostly young and very attractive women, and their male friends they brought along. The small staff was reliable, and the DJ was creative and original but unobtrusive. It was a nice gentle real-estate investment business, but it didn’t bring in much money. The girls don’t want to pay much, and we didn’t let in a lot of unaccompanied dudes, which you may call foul on, but it was generally safe and pleasant this way. It made more money as a concert or event venue. So we started leasing the space more and more to promoters who would, of course, pack the place with anybody that had $20. For the first few weeks it was free, because they hire street teams to hand out promo tickets. That was utter chaos. The normal crowd was gone forever after the first night. They had to hire their own security, mostly ex-cons, bartenders off the street, and the DJ was playing straight off the top40 hip hop list and somehow making that worse by overdriving the pre-amp, hitting the horn every 10 seconds, and yelling derogatory rap tropes at the women. There was no dancing, just people mashed together with hands in uninvited places. I thought that would be the end of it, but it persisted. The owner was in court all week showing off his indemnity clause in the lease for all the theft, fighting, disorderly conduct, drug charges, and sexual assault cases that traced back to club goers. When the freebies ended it was nearly all dudes, and everything about the place got even worse, but, I have never seen so many $20 bills. The cashier was overwhelmed and scared for her life. Same thing at the bar. We couldn’t store enough well vodka, nor secure all the cash. All the cash-handling employees were ours, but most of them quit, and we had to replace and augment in a hurry. Then, predictably, the cash started disappearing. We were on the road once brainstorming with the owner about how to shift the business to a gym, or just about anything else. One day, the Pats were celebrating their super bowl win at one of the smaller clubs, so I was there for a bit and then went back to the man club. There was a dead body pooled in blood in the middle of the street outside, and the widest human I’ve ever seen in my life being held down and then ushered into the back of a police van. By that point, everybody was getting thoroughly frisked at the entrance. We had had a few shanks before, so were were trying to be careful. This dude packed a whole .357 magnum revolver deep under the folds of his belly and kept it there all night until the place started emptying out and he blasted a dude right through his back. Screw that. I was finally out. A whole industry built on the hopeless sexual frustration and angst of men buying alcoholic women free drinks in the hopes that they’ll become suggestible or possibly incapacitated. I loved night clubs in their best version. I loved the music. I loved dancing. I loved the show and the tease of scantily-clad beautiful people, the safe place we used to provide them to be admired and desired but in their own space. I always hated the alcohol and the drugs though. The best times were when it was rented out by a reputable group, like HBS or the “Last Chance Dance”, or the Russian parties. I don’t think it’s possible to have a good environment with open admissions. Even the high end clubs just ended up full of drug dealers and working girls that nobody “high-end” would have wanted to meet. The gay clubs were okay, much safer and more actual dancing, but lack a lot of the main attraction, even for the gay men. Well anyway, I see night clubs dying because they’re just not safe anymore, especially for the most desired patrons. You can’t count on a random group of strangers to uphold a strong code of community ethics. You’re vulnerable in there, especially when drinking, much more than you think when planning the night. Maybe it never was safe, but I’m pretty sure it’s gotten worse as the crowd has changed everywhere.

they aren't struggling too much around here even during covid... still a bunch of tourists in FL

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