Britain’s ravers are falling out of love with nightclubs, according to new research that shows the number of people walking through the doors of dedicated dance music venues has fallen 23% in five years.
As the nightclub industry reels from what insiders call an “ongoing war” by regulators, revenue fell by more than a fifth between 2010 and 2015, with Britons spending about £300m less in the sector than they did five years ago, analysts Mintel said.
Even though an estimated half of venues have closed within the past decade, dance music industry figures insisted the scene is in rude health, with people instead choosing all-day events in parks, raves in pop-up spaces and festivals for their weekly freakout.
Mintel found that the number of visits to nightclubs had fallen from 149m in 2010 to 115m in 2015, while nightclub revenues fell from £1.49bn to £1.18bn over the same period. It forecast a further 16% fall in spending by 2020 to just £982m.
The top three issues most likely to put clubbers off were the cost of entry (46%), expensive drinks (46%) and crowding (43%).
Duncan Dick, editor of dance music title Mixmag, suggested that more people were choosing alternative places to rave, at events such as the Sunfall festival in Brockwell Park, south London, and the Mint festival in Leeds.
“This has been a summer of hundreds of daytime events, with DJs and dancing and drinking and fun, and there’s only a finite amount of people in the world; that’s possibly had an effect on the numbers of people going to dedicated nightclubs,” he said.
“There’s also pop-up spaces. It seems this summer like every building site or roundabout in London for one has been taken over by some kind of daytime event, every rooftop or every multi-storey car park, so at the moment that’s what people seem to like.”
However, Dick added, regulatory pressure from local authorities and police had taken its toll on the nightclub scene, with the closure of Fabric in London just the latest example. The closure of the huge Glasgow venue the Arches in 2015 was also likely to have had an effect, he suggested.
“I wonder if you added the 5,000 people that probably went to the Arches every weekend back into that [data], you could see what the closure of one amazing cultural centre and brilliant nightclub can have,” he said.
Despite sounding a positive note on changing tastes, Dick did lament the lack of regular nightclubs such as the Blue Note and the Elephant and Castle pub in London, which nurtured the developing drum’n’bass and UK garage sounds in the 90s.
Mintel research analyst Rebecca McGrath said: “Fabric’s recent closure, alongside other high-profile closures in recent months, highlights the increased regulatory pressure faced by nightclubs, as well as the competition they face from late-night bars and pubs.
“High entry fees and drink prices are having a negative impact on people’s clubbing experiences, with many opting to purchase alcoholic drinks in other locations, including at home, before they get to a club.”
