The last dance? Bosses fear for future as ‘perfect storm’ sees third of nightclubs close
Christmas and New Year party season is one of the most lucrative times of the year for nightclubs.
But post-COVID pandemic many are continuing to struggle, with a third now being forced to close.
Those still open say a perfect storm is making it extremely difficult to operate.
Yuval Hen, founder of E1 nightclub in London, told Sky News he sometimes feels like a “punching bag”.
“We need to please a lot of different authorities, from police, council, the local community, the residents, the customers, the agents, the management – so many different bodies and they are all pulling in a different direction,” he said.
Nightclub owner Yuval Hem
“It’s a constant battle, and now recently, after two years of COVID, where we were hoping for a big comeback of having fun, of parties, of bringing back our businesses to pay back our big loans that we were taking during COVID, we thought ‘this is our time’ and the economy [has] again gone.”
“And we have the living crisis started and the war in Russia and Ukraine and yeah, everything hit us so hard at the same time.”
The night-time culture economy brings in £36.4bn – and also provides 425,000 jobs across the UK.
It’s also an essential part of the music industry’s eco-system, with even those at the top of their careers concerned by the impacts of closures.
Multi-award-winning singer-songwriter Craig David told Sky News clubs were an essential part of the machine that got him to where he is today.
“Grassroots is where I started my music, so I was in those clubs, I was in the social club practising and DJing,” he said.
Craig David
“So for me working my way up from a young kid with aspirations and dreams to actually being able to perform, grassroots, the clubs are everything to me.
“I really hope that that maintains the same – there has to be balance. I know people want to change things, they want to update, they want to build new things and things move on but there has to be balance, because you can’t lose at the same time.”
Clubbers will also lose out as venues close their doors permanently, as they have provided a home for parts of British culture – and counterculture – for decades.
An empty nightclub
If clubs are left empty it will not just leave a hole in the industry but could also force music lovers underground.
Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association, said: “The worry that we have with everything is as we start to lose clubs and things like counterculture, electronic music, etc. If there are no spaces or platforms for people to perform, then they will find spaces for people to perform.
“We saw that in the late 80s when the freedom to dance movement came out and people decided that they weren’t willing to allow their nights to end in line with where that current government was asking the terminal hour to be.
“They went out and there were underground raves, that really sort of were counterproductive for government, for policing and when you talk about costs to operate the night-time economy, that really put so much pressure on everybody because it exploded at that period.”
Club 49 in Soho
“What we’re concerned about is we’re going to get to a point where clubs are going to be lost at such a level that people are just going to decide to start looking at other sites and places which are unregulated, potentially don’t have the safety protocols in place, the licences, the security…
“And that’s where there is a real fear.”
There are calls for the government to help the night-time economy by freezing alcohol duty, or helping with VAT bills, as without support it will be the last dance for many nightclubs.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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Will Trump address parliament on UK state visit?
This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
The Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s fourth book has been delayed by her publisher.
It comes amid claims that the author lied about her story in her hit first book. Winn previously described the claims as “highly misleading” and called suggestions that her husband had Moth made up his illness “utterly vile”.
In a statement, Penguin Michael Joseph, said it had delayed the publication of Winn’s latest book On Winter Hill – which had been set for release 23 October.
The publisher said the decision had been made in light of “recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health”, which it said had caused “considerable distress” to the author and her family.
“It is our priority to support the author at this time,” the publisher said.
“With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, has made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October.”
A new release date will be announced in due course, the publisher added.
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Winn’s first book, released in 2018, detailed the journey she and husband took along the South West Coast Path – familiarly known as The Salt Path – after they lost their family farm and Moth received a terminal health diagnosis of Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD).
But a report in The Observer disputed key aspects of the 2018 “true” story – which was recently turned into a film starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson.
Raynor and husband Moth (centre) with actors Jason Isaacs (L) and Gillian Anderson (R). Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
Experts ‘sceptical of health claims’
As part of the article, published last weekend, The Observer claimed to have spoken to experts who were “sceptical” about elements of Moth’s terminal diagnosis, such as a “lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them”.
In the ensuing controversy, PSPA, a charity that supports people with CBD, cut ties with the couple.
The Observer article also claimed the portrayal of a failed investment in a friend’s business wasn’t true, but said the couple – whose names are Sally and Tim Walker – lost their home after Raynor Winn embezzled money from her employer and had to borrow to pay it back and avoid police action.
Anderson played Winn in a movie about the couple’s journey. Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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It also said that, rather than being homeless, the couple had owned a house in France since 2007.
Winn’s statement said the dispute with her employer wasn’t the reason the couple lost their home – but admitted she may have made “mistakes” while in the job.
“For me it was a pressured time,” she wrote. “It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.”
She admitted being questioned by police but said she wasn’t charged.
The author also said accusations that Moth lied about having CBD/CBS were false and had “emotionally devastated” him.
“I have charted Moth’s condition with such a level of honesty, that this is the most unbearable of the allegations,” Winn wrote on her website.
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