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.
Taylor Swift has revealed the release date for her new album, The Life Of A Showgirl.
The pop megastar announced her 12th studio album earlier this week but didn’t give many details.
Now, in social media posts and an appearance on boyfriend Travis Kelce’s sports podcast, Swift revealed just what fans can expect from the new album.
Taylor Swift and boyfriend Travis Kelce on the New Heights podcast. Pic: New Heights
The Life of Showgirl, written during the European leg of her record-breaking Eras tour, will be released on 3 October.
It consists of 12 songs, including the title track that features pop star Sabrina Carpenter.
The full track list is:
1. The Fate Of Ophelia
2. Elizabeth Taylor
3. Opalite
4. Father Figure
5. Eldest Daughter
6. Ruin The Friendship
7. Actually Romantic
8. Wi$h Li$t
9. Wood
10. Cancelled!
11. Honey
12. The Life Of A Showgirl (featuring Sabrina Carpenter)
Long-time collaborators Max Martin and Shellback, two Swedish producers who worked with Swift on some of her biggest hits, joined the pop star for this album.
Within four hours of posting the full podcast episode on YouTube, it had already gathered 4.7m views.
The cover of Taylor Swift’s newly announced album. Pic: Republic Records
The back cover of Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album The Life Of A Showgirl. Pic: Republic Records
‘The hardest-working star in pop’
The album follows last year’s The Tortured Poets Department, which was released during the Eras tour.
That tour, with shows on five continents and in 51 cities, raked in more than $2.2bn (£1.62bn) and was the highest-grossing tour of all time.
Read more about Taylor Swift:
Swift’s final London show was the ‘best’
The impact of the ‘excruciating’ Era’s tour
Her new chart record
“This album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during this tour, which was so exuberant and electric and vibrant,” Swift said during her podcast appearance.
Sky News culture and entertainment reporter Gemma Peplow said after her globe-trotting tour and a swathe of re-releases over recent years, the new album cemented Swift’s reputation “as the hardest-working star in pop”.
Disgraced US film producer Harvey Weinstein is to be tried for a third time in a sexual assault case.
A jury in New York could not reach a verdict in June against the 73-year-old who was accused of raping actress Jessica Mann, and a mistrial was declared.
Judge Curtis Farber has said he wants the new trial to happen before the end of this year.
The same jury found Weinstein guilty in June of sexually assaulting former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006 and not guilty of assaulting Polish former runway model Kaja Sokola the same year.
Weinstein will be sentenced for the guilty verdict in Ms Haley’s case on 30 September.
He denied all of the charges. Throughout the retrial, his lawyers insisted the sexual encounters with his three accusers were “transactional” and “consensual,” and labelled the women as opportunists.
Weinstein was originally convicted of rape and criminal sexual act by the same court in 2020 and sentenced to 23 years in prison for the crimes.
Last year, however, New York’s highest court overturned the conviction, prompting Weinstein’s retrial this summer.
Weinstein was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood – the co-founder of film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company, who produced films such as the Oscar-winning Shakespeare In Love, Pulp Fiction, and The Crying Game.
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In 2017, a series of sexual misconduct allegations against him propelled the #MeToo movement.
Some of those accusations later led to criminal charges and his convictions in New York and California.
Before the retrial, Weinstein was also serving a 16-year prison sentence after being found guilty of rape in California in December 2022. He has also denied this charge.
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