What’s that ringing in your ears? Maybe a car alarm in meltdown after this week’s infernal heat? Or just the same old tinnitus? No: it’s the death knell for yet another of Britain’s beleaguered nightclubs. This week we learned that Printworks, a former printing press turned laser-studded 6,000-capacity venue in Wapping, London, is to close its doors after just five years. Clubbers heaved a familiar sigh and implored London’s “night tsar” Amy Lamé to do something about it, but Printworks’ fate was sealed.
Lurking behind that high-profile closure, though, was the news that Space 289, a 200-capacity railway arch in Bethnal Green, would also be shutting down this month. The venue made the decision after the arch’s new owners – the American investment bank Blackstone, who bought it off Transport for London in 2019 – decided to more than double the cost of rent.
Printworks and 289 could hardly be more different. One is a vast labyrinth of high-spec light and sound attracting international acts like Peggy Gou, Aphex Twin and Bicep. The other is a scrappy neighbourhood spot made for rising stars and noisy underground mavericks. But their closures are part of the same dismal trend in nightlife that contributes to a feeling that club culture is being steadily hollowed out.
Covid-19 caused havoc for venues and nightclubs, but lockdown losses aren’t the reason why these two spots are shutting down. Clubs have been dropping like flies since long before the pandemic. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of nightclubs in the UK reportedly halved. Now it seems audiences are dwindling too. Since the stilted return to dancefloors after 18 months of lockdown, promoters have been in dire straits, facing poor sales and low turnout. No one wants to be the first to say their party isn’t selling, but ask around privately and the mood is grim.
Still, Printworks and 289 aren’t shutting down due to lack of interest from punters. Nor was that the case when The Cause closed six months ago. This sprawling warehouse venue sprung up in a brownfield patch of Tottenham in 2018, along with its nextdoor neighbour Grow, a club-cum-community garden. Like Printworks, The Cause was set up on a so-called “meanwhile use” licence – a temporary agreement through which the local council allowed the former car mechanics warehouse to be used as a nightclub, while shiny new apartment towers shot up like beanstalks in the surrounding streets. But a noisy club means unhappy neighbours.
Printworks was also destined for redevelopment from the off. Its own meanwhile use deal with the council was designed to add some sparkle to the dull flatlands of Canada Water while property developers British Land worked out what to do with the area. The idea was that putting a club inside the old printing works would increase the chances that the site would have a permanent cultural use. In the end, they’ve said it’s going to be turned into offices and shops.
Other meanwhile use spaces are likely to disappear in the coming years, too, including E1 London – a hangar-like club in Wapping – and Pop Brixton, the controversial cluster of shipping containers in SW9.
Increasingly, new clubs are just temporary spaces, loaned out by councils on short term deals or squeezed into ill-fitting industrial buildings on a budget. They’re great fun while they last, providing a short-term boost of noise, colour, jobs and vibrancy for neglected patches of the city. But ultimately it feels like club culture is just a handy way to stick a flag in the ground while an area is “regenerated”. Cash-strapped councils are desperate for property developers’ investment to balance their books, and developers have joined in this cycle, supporting clubs and community centres until the new residents have moved in, and then pulling the plug. Call it art-washing, even.
The long-term outlook may be miserable, but there are some bright spots on the horizon. While purpose-built clubs like Fabric or the Haçienda are vanishingly rare these days, London is about to get its first new superclub in decades. Four storeys below Denmark Street – slap in the middle of central London, of all places – a vast new venue is being built. HERE is going to be enormous – 25,000 square feet, according to the owners – and with a focus on fun, queer-friendly lineups (Hercules and Love Affair and Annie Mac are among the first bookings) it could be the vibe injection that Soho has so desperately needed when it opens in September.
In the meantime, the team behind Printworks is hoping to pull off another huge rave destination at The Beams, a 55,000 square foot warehouse out near City airport. If you really want to dance, there’s no shortage of places to do it. But none of these big venues can bloom without a rich soil of grassroots venues and small scenes in tight spaces. The meanwhile use idea shows that councils do think that clubbing has value, even if it’s purely in terms of the “night-time economy”. Now we need some joined-up thinking to leap from short-term wins to long-term prospects.
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