It’s a Friday evening, work has finished and pre-drinks have kicked off with cheap spirits and even cheaper mixers. Outfits have been chosen strategically to cope with the frosty commute and a sweaty dance floor. Discussion is dominated by tonight’s head-lining act. It’s a routine that has existed since the birth of club culture. Except we are not waiting in KOKO or Heaven or another of central London’s famous nightlife venues. Instead, the DJ is my best friend and the venue is his kitchen.
More than four decades since the birth of modern clubbing and – we are told – British nightlife is facing an existential crisis. The industry reportedly contributes around £112 billion to the economy every year – around 5 per cent of GDP. And yet, it is at breaking point. More than one in four nightlife venues closed across the country between the start of the pandemic and early last year, according to the Night Time Industries Association. If this trend continues, there will be no clubs remaining in Britain by the end of the decade – and there’s no government lifeline in sight.
Why has this come about? A socio-economic hangover remains from the Covid-19 lockdowns which, when mixed with rising operational costs, has placed the industry on a path towards imminent collapse. Yet, despite these obvious economic reasons, popular opinion is keen to point the blame at Gen Z-ers like me.
There is, of course, logic to this. My generation is struggling to party through a cost-of-living crisis, forcing many of us to prioritise daily necessities over night-time antics. Then there’s the growing influence of the wellness industry, whose doctrines and marketing tactics have transformed many of my peers into alcohol-free early birds who consider clubbing a taboo.
For me, clubbing has morphed into an infrequent luxury that occasionally graces my calendar – an event that arrives much like the Full Moon. But while I therefore accept my role in the industry’s decline, I refuse to accept the conclusion that is so often deduced: that us Gen Z-ers are uninterested in music or dancing the night away. The potential extinction of British clubs does not, in fact, signify the death of club culture. It simply points towards the next stage of its evolution: the growth of the house party.
House parties, of course, are nothing new. Generations past have long sufficed with American-style red cups or – at the other end of the spectrum – home-mixed martinis. The difference for my generation is that we’re too old for high-school shin-digs yet too poor for cocktail ‘soirees’. Our decision to move the ‘nightlife’ to our kitchens has been born out of economic necessity – and therefore requires more creativity to match the dancefloors we’re missing out on.
Gen Z’s decision to move ‘nightlife’ to our kitchens has been born out of economic necessity – and therefore requires more creativity
One innovation is the surge in Gen Z-ers learning how to DJ. A recent survey from DJ brand AlphaTheta found that more than a third of under-30s thought the best sets happened in ‘improvised’ spaces rather than on stage. Meanwhile, a quarter said they’d first DJ-ed at a house party. I’ve never managed to make it past pressing ‘play’ on a Spotify playlist so I’m speaking as a member of the audience here. But given the accessibility and economic value of ‘at-home’ decks, where there were once designated drivers forced to ferry friends to and from clubs, we now have designated DJs, assigned to entertain the group.
While house parties cannot fully replicate the atmosphere and experience of clubbing, there are alternative benefits to this relocation: intimacy. What we’re creating in our kitchens is more personal and communal, more spontaneous and imaginative than anything we could find on a crowded club floor. Smaller gatherings breed confidence and musical expression: friends performing back-to-back, taking turns to show off playlists and introducing one another to new artists and sounds. A gathering becomes an epicentre for experimentation, an alcohol (or non-alcohol) fuelled opportunity for learning.
Whether you blame it on a cost-of-clubbing-crisis or a shift in the cultural zeitgeist, Gen Z’s appetite for partying is being forced to evolve. This evolution is shaping where and how we party – but not why. Like past generations, we congregate to feel joy through movement and sound; we seek freedom of expression in a way that pushes boundaries and creates new musical genres in the process. House parties deliver this but in a form that is affordable and accessible while being intimate, meaningful and creative.
Our parties may be taking place in a kitchen and our sound systems may be sourced from a laptop but the purpose remains the same: club culture may have moved to the kitchen but the music’s still far from over.
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