The atmosphere in the club is friendly, people generally aren’t drunk, and since it’s dark inside, it could just as well be 4am instead of 4pm. Welcome to the daytime rave, where you can dance, meet people and still be curled up on the sofa afterwards in time for Newsnight. It’s a home from home for Joyce Harper, who says she has been “a big clubber my whole life. In the 1990s, I used to go religiously twice a month and we’d stay up all night. We were knocked out for days and always felt terrible. I realised, as I’ve got older and wiser, the importance of sleep.”
Last week she was at a day rave at the London club Fabric, and the week before that at Ministry of Sound. “I am aiming to do two a month at the moment,” says Harper, who is professor of reproductive science at University College London, as well as a podcaster and author. She’s 61 but, she adds, “For any age, staying up all night has so many disadvantages – obviously all the effects on sleep, but also things like getting home, having to wait for the first train.”
In the last couple of weeks alone, several conversations I’ve had have highlighted how rare a big night out is becoming. First, the person who partied till 6am was talked about in my social circle with a kind of hushed awe. Someone else went out on a Saturday night and reported that the pubs were dead. Other friends went to a daytime club and headed home by 10pm. All this is secondhand reporting from the field because I, of course, am in bed shortly after 9pm, even at the weekend. This is not just the life of a middle-aged bore – there are multiple warning signs that the night out is in peril.
At the weekend, David McDowall, chief executive of the Stonegate group, which runs more than 4,000 bars, said people’s drinking habits had gone from night to day. At the Slug and Lettuce chain, the busiest time is now between 3pm and 4pm on a Saturday; it used to be between 9pm and 10pm. “By the time 8pm comes around, it is time to head home,” he told the Sunday Times. As for Friday evening, traditionally the time to let your hair down after a week of work, it’s “bingo night” at the chain.
Nightclubs are under threat – a report by the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) last month found 31% of clubs had closed between March 2020 and December 2023, an average of 10 a month. Meanwhile, all sorts of other leisure spaces, from escape rooms to ice-cream parlours – the type of places that close at a reasonable hour – are thriving.
Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the “hottest new bedtime for twentysomethings” was 9pm. Those aged between 18 and 35 were going to bed earlier, and businesses were shifting in response – bars and clubs in New York were hosting earlier events, and pre-6pm dinner reservations were increasing. One woman, a 32-year-old actor who likes to go to bed between 8pm and 9pm, said social media had helped make an early turning-in time more acceptable, such as TikTok’s “soft life” trend, which prioritises peace and rest above hedonism and hustle culture.
To look at the complaints of clubbers online, everything from sexual harassment to the boom in the tranquilliser ketamine has been blamed for killing the party vibes. As with everything these days, people filming on their phones, rather than enjoying the moment, seems to be an irritating fixture of club life – and nobody wants to be the person whose dancing becomes a viral meme.
Nightlife, says Patrick Hinton, editor of the dance music magazine Mixmag, is in danger of “dying out for a list of reasons, which cross political, economic and sociological boundaries”. He thinks people are going out much less frequently, and when they do, it tends to be to a big club or music venue. “We’re seeing a shift to massive festival-style events, massive clubs, and a real concentration of money in the biggest parts of the industry, rather than the regular weekend grassroots clubbing that was more common in the past.” Covid was catastrophic for venues, and the energy crisis has put pressure on profit margins.
Everything is more expensive, and people – especially younger people – have less disposable income to spend each week on Friday and Saturday nights out. “About 10 years ago, a nightclub ticket might be £5; the bus home would be £1. But now, you’re looking at £40 or £50 for these big nights, and even the smaller club nights are about £20. The economic impact is huge in general – it’s harder to be a musician, it’s harder to put on events. A lot of grassroots club nights are run by passionate individuals who aren’t careerist, but a 19-year-old promoter still can’t afford to lose thousands of pounds on a night.”
The pandemic and its lockdowns meant that those who were in their prime early clubbing years – the older teens – never really got into the habit of going out, says Hinton. “A lot of people’s introduction to dance music was from livestreams on the internet. We’ve seen 90s rave nostalgia booming among gen Z, but these are scenes that are developing on platforms like TikTok. DJs are getting loads of followers, but people aren’t going out to see them as regularly.”
Young people, says Hinton, are into dance music and culture, but “they’re poorer, they have less opportunities for it. It’s harder for them to go out in the same way, or with the same frequency.” He worries about the effects. “Historically, nightlife has been pretty good at weathering economic downturns, but now people aren’t turning to it in the same way. If there isn’t more policy and funding from the top to help the bottom, we are in danger of seeing more decline in a really important aspect of UK culture.”
The primary concern for clubs and bars, says Mike Kill, director of the NTIA, is the economic situation and high running costs, but there are other challenges – “things like transport infrastructure that doesn’t support the late-night economy”. The increase in remote working has put an end to the spontaneous night out and virtually killed the Friday blow-out, with more people working from home at the end of the week.
Late-night safety is also a concern – this week, the spiking of drinks was highlighted and the government announced that thousands of bar staff in England and Wales will be trained to deal with it. “We know that there are places up and down the country where petty crime and antisocial behaviour is rife because the policing isn’t strong enough,” says Kill. Nightclubs, he thinks, tend to be good at managing issues inside, “but the reality is, as soon as people leave to go home, that’s where the concerns lie”.
The pandemic supercharged some aspects of on-demand life, meaning we need never leave home – we can order restaurant food, find a partner and spend hours watching TV. “We’ve got to work hard to get people out,” says Kill. “There is that societal armchair culture that we’ve got to battle against.”
For those who drink, alcohol prices in bars and clubs are alarming, compared with a night at home with a pack of supermarket beer. Then there are the growing number of people who have gone sober, or decreased their alcohol consumption, particularly among younger generations, who are now the most likely of any age group not to drink.
Millie Gooch, the founder of Sober Girl Society, gave up drinking when she was 26 (she’s now in her early 30s). She had been a “party girl”, she says. “I loved it until it got dangerous for my mental health. I started drinking when I went to uni, and I was using drinking as a bit of a crutch, going out drinking myself into oblivion, waking up, having hangover anxiety for the next three days, and then got into a bit of a cycle.”
She still had nights out after she stopped drinking, but it tailed off. “It’s got a lot to do with age, but I realised that I didn’t enjoy nights out as much without drinking. I would get more tired, and go home earlier, whereas before I’d stay to the very end. I think when you’re sober, you notice your energy levels dipping a bit towards midnight – it’s that point when everyone around you is on a different level.” Gooch doesn’t miss it, though. “My whole social life has just shifted forwards. I do a lot more afternoon activities, lovely dinners, so it’s just a case of not being out until the early hours of the morning any more.”
It’s possible to admire sensible young people for not drinking themselves sick and staying out all night as older generations did, while at the same time mourning the decline of the big night out and what it might mean for all of us – even those of us who do prefer to be in bed by 9pm. In the 1990s, says Dave Haslam, a DJ, writer and the author of Life After Dark: A History of British Nightclubs & Music Venues: “People would go out every week. It’s almost inconceivable now.” It’s not that younger generations value culture and music any less, he says. “I just think that they consume it in a different way and some of their choices are down to the fact they haven’t got the money.”
Grassroots venues – “what we used to call the underground”, he says – are particularly vulnerable to closure. “It is where people are interested in new or weird things, or emerging things. The grassroots drives all kinds of culture. Great art always starts outside of the cultural institutions; great music starts outside of the major venues. I’m very utopian about the whole idea of small clubs and music venues – they’re an incredible resource in any town and city. They have a personal impact on people when they discover somewhere they feel at home, that’s providing them with entertainment they feel is really life-enhancing. So we lose a lot personally, socially and culturally when those smaller underground venues disappear.” Haslam hopes the Labour government will see their value and intervene.
Whether or not the popularity of daytime raves or gigs could produce the next influential subculture remains to be seen. But for those of us who enjoy an early bedtime, it’s a welcome development. “I just think it’s the best thing ever,” says Harper, who is already planning her next daytime parties. “I think dancing and music is a really important part of our wellbeing, and it makes people very happy. It’s so good for our mental and physical health. We’re there to hear great music, support DJs, dance, meet people, be social – it just ticks every box for me.” While the crowd does tend to be older, she says there are a lot of young people too, who presumably also value an early night. “I wish I hadn’t spent so much of my younger years staying up all night and then feeling absolutely terrible for days afterwards.”
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