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.
