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Who killed the rave? Late-night dancing falls into global decline
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| Swamper |
(The rave will never die... club nights, kinda different these days tho)
https://archive.is/ul4Ui
Who killed the rave?
Late-night dancing falls into global decline
From Berlin to New York, clubbers in the world’s party capitals are heading home earlier
New Year’s Eve revellers welcoming 2025 at a 35-hour-long event will be the last to grace the dance floor at the Watergate club, an iconic Berlin venue that has become the latest victim of clubsterben — club death.
“The days when Berlin was flooded with club-loving visitors are over,” the venue’s management said in a farewell statement. Watergate’s co-owner blamed cost pressures, declining tourism, waning enthusiasm from Generation Z and the rise of music festivals for its closure.
The pressures that led to Watergate’s demise are behind a trend transforming nightlife capitals from Berlin to Barcelona and Melbourne to New York: despite the soaring popularity of dance music, clubbers are ending their nights earlier.
The proportion of club nights running beyond 3am fell in 12 of 15 global cities between 2014 and 2024, according to a Financial Times analysis of events on listings website Resident Advisor.
“People can only go out for so many hours,” said Lutz Leichsenring, co-founder of international night-time consultancy VibeLab. “There’s a lot of competition between night-time and daytime events.”
Leichsenring said venue owners were often closing their doors earlier to save on costs, as revenue from drink sales tended to drop off in the early morning hours.
More restrictive licensing rules after Covid-19 have also become an issue for clubs and promoters in cities across the globe. While cities have appointed night mayors and adopted “24-hour city” policies in recent years, the added oversight on the night-time economy since the pandemic has resulted in stricter policing of late-night establishments, Leichsenring added.
The increased popularity of daytime events and festivals is another factor. Mike Vosters, whose company Matinee Social Club organises early evening parties in New York, said that while the 5-10pm events were originally intended for millennials who no longer wanted to party into the small hours, they had received “a tonne of interest” from partygoers in their 20s.
According to Vosters, the shift away from “bottle service” club culture and a new cross-generational emphasis on healthy living have been two of the main drivers behind the surge of enthusiasm for dance parties that end early.
Resident Advisor data reflected the rise in daytime parties, with several big cities showing a surge in events that end at 10pm.
Melbourne lays claim to being the live music capital of the world and 20 years ago boasted a vibrant nightclub scene. Yet the sector has been in sharp decline in the city as consumer habits changed and the cost of running events rose, particularly after the pandemic.
One executive in the entertainment industry said younger people were less inclined to go out raving until 6am as they are more health conscious and less frivolous with money than previous generations. This is reflected in Melbourne’s nightclub closures — with more than 100 shutting down in recent years — and fewer clubs staying open all night.
In Dublin, campaigners are fighting to change restrictive licensing laws that require clubs to pay €410 a night to stay open between 12.30am and 2.30am.
Sunil Sharpe, a DJ and co-founder of Give Us the Night, said the stalling of a proposed law that would extend closing times to 6am has left the industry in limbo, with operators nervous to invest in new venues.
He estimates there are about 20 to 25 clubs left in the city and its suburbs, which are home to 1.3mn people. “It’s prohibitively expensive to open a venue now . . . or to even open your doors for an individual night,” he added.
But there are signs of hope for dance music. A study released by the International Music Summit, an annual conference held in Ibiza, found that the electronic music industry had grown by 17 per cent in 2023, reaching an annual revenue of $11.8bn.
Across the 15 cities analysed by the FT using Resident Advisor event data, venues listing more than five events increased by 60 per cent in 2024 compared with a decade ago. More than 35,000 artists had been booked to play in those cities since 2014 — up 90 per cent over the same period.
“People are still craving community. People still want to go out,” said Vosters. “That hasn’t been diminished and music is still the best way to do that.”
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| Swamper |
Underground DJ club nights are more difficult to come by as venues are harder to acquire and there are also changing patterns amongst the youth. Less are into "clubbing" and many of those into electronic music are seeking festival experiences (which are TOTALLY different and one doesn't replace the other). Also, too many things vying for our attention (Netflix, social media, Tinder, etc.) don't help matters either
Found a LONG discussion on this on YC too:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42606318
I agree with this comment:
| quote: | It's not really surprising, but the article seems to conflate raves with nightclubs, with numerous remarks about the cost of being out at a club all night and paying for things like expensive bottle service.
Raves are not clubs, and historically have never done that well in club environments. People who are really into staying up all night dancing to techno music aren't buying expensive alcoholic drinks, they're buying cheap water to stay hydrated. Many (though by no means all) take drugs, but generally that means one dose of a drug like MDMA at the beginning of the evening. Psychedelic drugs like LSD are also associated with the rave scene but are less compatible with a nightclub environment (bars, security, overgrown disco lights). People are more likely to consume psychedelics at an outdoor party or a warehouse space.
In my view what has killed raves was the declining availability of cheap accessible commercial spaces, police/administrative hostility to informal economic activity, and overcommercialization, which has tended to select for the tiest music/DJs. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
"Bottle service" doesn't really exist in UK dance music culture. I can think of maybe two or three clubs I've been to in the UK that have had VIP rooms, and they were ultra-commercial places hanging on from the '90s like Ministry Of Sound or Godskitchen. It's never been a factor here.
It's funny that just before the pandemic, my perception was that dance music was in rude health. When RA wrote this article The Changing Economics Of Electronic Music: Part 1 in 2019, the very first sentence was: "The dance music industry is booming right now." How the tone has changed since. Pretty much everyone I know who runs a party or venue - whether it's daytime or night - seems to agree it's harder than ever to get people through the door. Venues are closing because they can't make money, clubbers aren't going out because they've got no money, promoters aren't putting on events because they can't get people through the door. So it's not just nightclubs. Everything is struggling: bars, daytime parties, festivals - everything.
But beyond that, it definitely does feel like old fashioned nightclubbing has been usurped by festivals and big main stage events like The Warehouse Project. And an increasing number of the clubnights go to have been daytime events. A quick mental tally suggests I went to 10 "proper" events in 2024 (IE: ones where I wasn't DJing myself), and 6 of them were daytime parties. And to be perfectly honest, it makes a lot of sense. You don't end up staying awake for 40 hours and utterly trashing your sleeping pattern. You can even (gasp) get through 7-8 hours of dancing without drugs, because it isn't 6 in the morning by the time the thing is over. Club culture may be struggling, but the daytime party is definitely a welcome stage in its evolution. |
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| 72hrpartyanimal |
I guess you could say clubs killed the rave by popularizing the music/culture. Then festivals killed the clubs.
I remember back in our Spundae days (Go Spundae!), the vibe was always awesome! As raver, I loathed the clubbing environment until my first Spundae party at 1015 Folsom nightclub in SF. It's the first time where I felt the rave culture met clubbing culture. No dress codes, booze, albeit, pricier than a rave, good music, etc. The club/promoter attracted a certain crowd that appreciated the music and the culture. Then ALL the club started doing hosting electronic music where booking DJs became competitive. Enter Insomniac Events who pretty much ruined everything monopolized all the talent and made it so much more difficult to book anyone.
Now that I think about it, the talent/DJ costs definitely played a role. When artists fees drastically increased, promoters were forced to increase prices.
Just random thoughts. |
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| Parysatis |
I think that daytime and evening events offer a more inclusive alternative for people who value their health, safety, and balance. Last year, I played all my DJ sets during the day or in the evening. These times, especially the evening, even bring a unique energy that complements my introspective approach to raving and music. Maybe it is time for clubs to rethink their approach? Perhaps the decline of late-night clubbing isn’t the death of rave culture but rather its transformation into something more adaptable and inclusive ...
That said, the allure of night is undeniable. Something about the cover of darkness creates a dreamlike, liminal space where people can express themselves more freely. The connection between the music, the energy of the crowd, and the transformation of ordinary spaces into surreal ones can be electric. The night has its own rhythm, and the moments when the sun starts to rise as the music still plays are iconic for a reason ... |
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| SPANIARD |
| Everything is too damn expensive compounded with older generations having families (retiring) compounded with music sucking 90% of the time. There ya go the end. |
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| DanceFloorPoet |
I haven't gone out for about a year now, so I'm probably not qualified to comment on parties and clubs, but I'm pretty convinced that the tradtional dance music genres of house, techno, tech house, dub techno, progressive house all are at a long-term low point now. This low point might not be visible until we have more hindsight on it in the future.
I'm probably the biggest vinyl crackhead you'd ever meet but my last purchase for a newly released 12" record was back in March of 2024 I believe. The prices suck, 90% of new records are coming from overseas and the shipping + inflated vinyl price does NOT match the quality of the music that is being pressed.
Simply put, its not a good deal anymore, and its not that fun.
I've shifted my interest back to the golden era which for me is 1999 to 2005 and I've been having a ton of fun buying those records from retired djs and collectors.
Everytime I browse Juno just to see what's out there, its just garbage releases resulting in frustration. There is nothing that is even tempting me to pull the trigger once the shipping price is figured in on the shopping cart page. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| I sometimes think you love buying records more than you actually love listening to music, Mark. |
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| naeblis |
| I blame social media. Down with TikTok and long live the message board. |
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