Close your eyes and think about the funniest night out you’ve ever had. Not the best, not the most impressive or life-changing – the funniest. Chances are it took place in a high street club called Revenge or GLAM or something with the words “Bar & Grill” on the end. A sweatbox with laminated booklets of sambuca deals strewn along the bar and posters for pyjama parties glued to the walls with Tresemmé Freeze Hold and body fluids. They are the temples of “90s, pop and cheese”. The places you go to celebrate your A-level results, or on a Tuesday. They are the cornerstones of British culture, and they are dying.
Figures shared by the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) this month revealed that there are only 1,130 nightclubs left in England, Wales and Scotland. That’s a 20% drop since March 2020. The UK’s nighttime economy has long been in tatters, with small music venues shuttering at a rate of one a month even before the pandemic (98% of grassroots venues are rented, leaving them especially vulnerable). However, the more recent storm of financial pressures has led to renewed calls for government support. The NTIA attributes club closures to a “culmination of pandemic debt, growing energy bills, workforce challenges, supply chain issues, insurance premiums and landlord pressures” – big-picture problems that require big-picture solutions. In the meantime, the question for the average person is: where do we go to get on it now?
