That doesn't make sense to me. Anecdotally, most people I know who love actual raves generally didn't go to clubs, for one.
But also more broadly, I've heard from multiple local venues that one big change is that EDM crowds don't drink as much. This means venues make A LOT less money, and that means fewer venues. If I had to guess, another factor is that younger crowds don't have the buying power older generations had, so if anything they would be MORE likely to go to an "illegal" rave with no cover and do some drugs instead of drinking.
Basically, to me, economic forces suggests that the rave crowd and club crowd are NOT correlated.
edit: and more anecdotal data for you, I use to go to a lot of clubs when I was young (and fewer raves), but now that I'm older me and my group tend to either throw our own parties at home with our own gear, or go to "listening bar" type venues that wouldn't typically be classified as a "club." We're all too old to drink high priced shitty beer and deal with lines and bouncers. I'd rather be able to have a top sound system, order an IPA or cocktail, and maybe even have a seat to lounge in!
> Anecdotally, most people I know who love actual raves generally didn't go to clubs, for one.
In a similar vein, most people I know who love watching sports do not play the sport they enjoy watching. However, like the parent, I suspect that the numbers watching a sport strongly correlates with the numbers playing the sport. There need not be overlap between the watchers and the players for the correlation to stand. Something being in the zeitgeist lifts all related boats, it seems. Raves and clubs are different expressions of what is essentially the same fashion. It seems unlikely that only one expression would die off where the general fashion trend remains intact.
Efficient communication of lacking said experience would be met with details provided by someone with experience, not a commentary on efficiency itself. It turns out it is highly inefficient.
Guess what, "rave" isn't a scientific term with a precise definition defined by the IEEE board of standards.
For every raver I know, it means going out dancing to electronic music and usually taking some drugs other than alcohol. It doesnt matter if it starts at 1pm and ends at 1am, or whether it starts at 12am and ends at 5am. The time doesnt matter, legality doesn't matter, and location doesn't matter.
What is an "actual" rave? Are you gatekeeping an English word which means many different things to different people based on where they grew up and their socioeconomic background.
I've been "raving" since 2002 and for me it means dancing to electronic dance music and taking drugs, and it can be in a legit nightclub, or someones house, or a festival, or indeed an illegal warehouse rave. Everyone I have "raved" with, used the term interchangably.
If I told my friend, "I was raving at Tomorrowland last year", they would never say, "you can't say you were raving because that's not an illegal event."
Raving is not a scientific or mathematical term that has some precise definition. Don't try and make it that way, that's not what raving is about dude.
Maybe those who go to raves are more likely to go to clubs too, but it doesn't mean that a decrease in club attendance means a decease in rave attendance.
It may simply mean that clubs are not the preferred destination for partygoers anymore.
To support that, it looks like music festival attendance is going up over the years. Music festivals are, I think, closer to raves than they are to night clubs, which, by the same logic, would suggest an increase in rave attendance.
Also worth mentioning that some of what was called a rave before is now a club. There is a difference between occupying a decommissioned soviet building after the fall of the Berlin Wall and a fancy club on high valued real estate, even though it used to be the same place.
> To support that, it looks like music festival attendance is going up over the years.
This isn't global nor is it specific dance music but at least in the UK, festivals are struggling and have declined significantly since the beginning of covid - 204 festivals have disappeared since 2019: https://www.aiforg.com/blog-database/72-uk-festivals-cancell...
Covid definitely shook things up, but clubs didn't do well even before covid, while festivals were thriving. Now, it is a bit hard to tell as 2024 was just the second "normal" year, and it can take many years to grow a successful event.
It seems like now, we are indeed seeing less festivals, but the remaining ones are becoming bigger and more expensive. So, maybe less festivals but higher budgets.
Weren't there several mass casualties at clubs? I wonder if those had an effect overall. Anecdotally, I remember after several of the movie theatre shootings in the US, my immediate peer group self included decided it just wasn't worth it. Only in the last year or so have I started coming back to theatres.
I live in France and I saw many night clubs close for reasons I think are unrelated to security. I remembrer an entire street with nothing but night clubs, some of them quite famous, they closed down one after the other, the last one was in 2017 I think.
I lived next to the beach for most of my teens, we had two night clubs, none of them remain, the next town has one that still remains but another one that closed in the early 2000s not to open again, a major electronic music came in its place, incidentally cancelled last year for financial fraud raisons.
Where I live today, I saw one night club close, I think in 2019 (before covid) but I didn't see one open. In fact, I don't remember seeing a night club open since the early 2000s. Plenty of bars, but not night clubs.
These are anecdotal evidence, but that's a lot of anecdotes.
In none of these case I saw a particular event motivating this, I guess it was just not profitable. Also worth noting that most night clubs that are still open tend to get terrible reviews on Google (less than 3/5 on average). It is kind of a meme to complain about nightclubs you go to, especially if you get denied entry, but still, not very encouraging.
No, not in the UK, not enough to be noticeable at least. We have sensible gun laws and so don't generally have mass casualty incidents, and don't panic when we do. (See e.g. the London Bridge van incident and pint guy).
How many of the people doing that are locals doing it as a regular thing, vs tourists doing it as a one off experience? The core argument in the article is that the younger generation aren't going to their local clubs regularly enough to keep them afloat, preferring going to do much fewer and more 'special' events. The places that can survive are those that either bring in lots of tourists and/or focus larger one off events that can pull in a really large crowd.
Maybe on a particular night, but on any longer timescale: how does one make friends who will tell you about the cool underground scene without first meeting them in the aboveground club scene? Maybe online stuff plays this purpose now but I assume its still mostly the former.
lots of places. the people at the warehouse rave usually did something else earlier in the night. maybe you met them at a bar or show and asked what they were doing later. “what are you doing this weekend” is a normal thing to ask anyone you meet in a third place. it’s not that big of a secret.
