The Juxtaposition of London Nightlife & Rave Culture

It’s easy to forget sometimes, but London is counted amongst the legendary cities around the world that contributed to the continued rise of electronic music culture. Other pivotal cities include Manchester, Berlin, and of course, Chicago, Detroit, and New York. 

But London seems to have lost its mojo as of late, and the same can be said for the whole electronic music industry, but that’s a discussion for another day…

It seems we are always being told that Nightlife is dying. We’re being told that the kids aren’t drinking anymore, and it’s soft-clubbing they’re into now. Clubs, bars, and pubs are closing, and we are losing cultural institutions that mean a lot to communities of all kinds up and down the country. 

But at the same time, Live Nation earned 23 billion in 2024, with a tidy profit of just under $800 million. In January 2025, Superstruct Entertainment, backed by KKR, acquired Boiler Room and a portfolio of festivals in a €1.3 billion deal. This included London festivals such as Mighty Hoopla, Cross the Tracks, and Field Day. (In fact, a study found that the majority of Europe’s biggest festivals are owned by four companies.)

London’s very own Nightlife monopoly Broadwick Group, with well over 10 venues across the city, did £67.5 million in revenue in the year ending 2024. 

In other words, nightlife, clubbing, electronic music, festivals – however you want to break it down – is big business. 

But how can two polarising views be true at the same time? Nightlife is dying in London, but corporations are profiting? I think there is probably a link there…

It’s fairly widely accepted by punters in London that our nightlife offerings aren’t great. Soho is a prime example of how not to do nightlife, with everything closed up by midnight. 

But is this really the case? Is our nightlife shit? Or is it actually pretty damn good if you know where to look?  

FOLD, fabric, E1, Ormside Projects, Carpet Shop, All My Friends, A Glove That Fits, just to name a few clubs…

One of the loudest voices when it comes to standing up for Nightlife is the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA). A well-connected lobbying group chaired by Sacha Lord, the co-founder of Warehouse Project and ex-advisor to Andy Burnham (after he resigned following a £400,000 Covid grant he was asked to repay).

They went viral when they released research that said “UK clubs could be “extinct” by the end of the decade”, stating that the UK has lost 37% of all nightclubs since late 2020.

The NTIA is surrounded by a bit of mystery, as Democracy for Sale made several discoveries about CEO Michael Kill. A man who seems to have a major conflict of interest as a Trustee on the board of Nine Point Eight (9.8), the charity company that operates the lease of Drumsheds, whilst Broadwick Group is the for-profit entity that throws shows there. 

None of this is to say that the NTIA is making statistics up; it has been widely reported that there has been a huge nightclub decline. But I think the reality is entirely nuanced, and I’ll give you three examples why…

For starters, does the NTIA understand that times change? Yes, it’s sad when a longstanding pub closes, yes, it’s sad when a club that’s been running since the 90s shuts down, but this is the natural cycle of things. There are plenty of pubs, clubs, and bars that do succeed. Can we not put most of these closures down to a normal closure rate of businesses in a rapidly evolving market? Or the fact that no one wants to go to Pop World anymore? 

Aren’t clubs a kind of temporary thing anyway? A space that exists for a certain period of time, with its closure being a matter of not if, but when. 

How many legendary clubs have closed all over the world for a variety of reasons, firmly etching themselves a permanent position in the nightlife zeitgeist? 

Secondly, headliner culture is also fueling a different kind of night out. Instead of popping down to Shoreditch and seeing where the night might take you, your weekends are fully booked up months in advance with festivals, raves, and other experiences. Here, you choose purely where to go based on the DJs you want to see. There is little to no room for spontaneity or discovery.

Finally, and this is the big one. Corporations are having a huge impact on the scene. They have found out what’s cool, and doubled down on it over the past 20 years. Today, we have a situation where headliner fees are climbing to new records every year, with tickets in London reaching £90 for Josh Baker B2B Max Dean, and near those levels for Amelie Lens B2B Sara Landry. 

These prices are courtesy of our very own mini “Live Nation” in London, Broadwick Group, the owners behind Printworks and Drumsheds. 

The main reason Live Nation gets so much criticism (And are currently under investigation by the DOJ) is due to vertical integration. They use their monopoly to negotiate aggressively with venues, as well as push their other services to venues that might not want them. The biggest example is forcing venues to use Ticketmaster (also owned by Live Nation), or they won’t send the big headliners their way.

Vertical integration, or the “Fly Wheel” model, could be seen as ingenious entrepreneurship, or it could be seen as cheap monopolistic behaviour that devalues the industry. In a nutshell, this is where Live Nation has expanded to do ticketing, artist management, venue ownership, sponsorship, merchandising, security, and other services one might require for live music. 

In other words, they are a one-stop shop; you don’t need any other vendors, and they make the rules. 

Broadwick Group has been kind enough to bring a similar model to London. 

Their website lists 19 venues they have, mostly in London, but also the Warehouse Project in Manchester. They have a production company that puts on “raves”, as well as B2B tradeshows and events. They even used to have a ticketing platform in the family. “Kaboodle” was founded by Broadwick co-founder Gareth Cooper (until it was sold to French event tech firm Weezevent in 2025) and is the main supplier of tickets for Broadwick. 

They are also one of London’s biggest promoters, not only putting shows on at their own venues, but also at venues around London, including 93 Feet East, The Cause, Village Underground, Unlocked, and KOKO.

When they launched “Broadwick Live Presents”, they made it clear that this initiative would showcase emerging artists at local London clubs. But there is little evidence of this; instead, it mostly focuses on the headliners. 

There is no doubt that running an independent pub, club, or bar is harder nowadays than ever before. Rising costs, changing habits, and going head-to-head with big corporates who have a much bigger marketing budget than you. 

But there’s also the argument to say, things really aren’t that bad. In fact, the NTIA’s fourth annual “UK Electronic Music Report” released last week seems to say the same thing! 

The report is very comprehensive and is worth a read, but just to pick out a few key stats:

I see so many people in the mainstream media and on socials quoting the NTIA stating that all nightclubs could close by the end of the decade. But isn’t this messaging confusing? Where in the above stats does it hint that electronic music and nightclubs are going extinct?

Another organisation supporting grassroots is the Music Venue Trust, a charity founded to protect grassroots music venues across all genres. They also released their annual report at the end of last year. 

Their report seemed pretty gloomy. Phrases such as “Financially Fragile” and “Venues in Crisis” paint a downbeat but optimistic view of live music in the UK. But again, the statistics are fairly positive:

Again, whilst any longstanding venue closing down is sad, there is going to be a normal amount of churn in any industry. The fact that 69 new venues opened, I would say, is pretty positive overall, albeit sad that the overall number isn’t growing.  

Just to reiterate the point, I am not denying that Nightlife is struggling. When I speak to promoters, DJs, or venue owners at the grassroots level, things aren’t too optimistic. 

The electronic music industry is booming; we know this. We can clearly see from the statistics above, anecdotal feedback from attending events, and by looking at how many corporations are getting into this industry. There is no doubt that you can make a lot of money in Nightlife. 

So apart from the obvious factors of rising costs and changing habits, why is there such a big gap between what the figures say and what is happening on the ground? 

In my opinion, it’s the Corporations. The hidden layer that has infiltrated the electronic music industry over many years, and people are just starting to wake up.

If London’s festival and nightclub scene is dominated by a few major players – such as Broadwick, Live Nation, KKR/Superstruct – all taking up a huge market share that could be compared to a monopoly. How is the authentic competition meant to thrive? Well, by design, they are not.

If I look back at the last 10 years since I’ve been in London, it’s only recently that I’ve started to question the quality of our nightlife. It’s never been an issue for me before, and I count myself lucky I was able to be a young clubber before TikTok Techno and near £100 ticket prices. 

But if I look at the electronic music clubs that have actually closed, Dance Tunnel, Printworks, Oval Space, G-A-Y, The Nest, Werkhaus, The Coronet (I’m sure there will be more), it’s not close to some figures we’ve been quoted. 

Then, if you look at new electronic music clubs that have opened in the past 10 years, I count 20. Night Tales, NT’s Loft, Gallery, 77, Unlocked, Drumsheds, Magazine, Onyx (E1), FOLD, The Glove That Fits, Colour Factory, HERE at Outernet, The Beams, Venue MOT, Ormside Projects, Peckham Audio, Colours (Hoxton Square), Electrowerkz, Number 90 Hideout, and Palais.

It seems to me that London’s nightlife isn’t dying; in fact, it’s a thriving industry that has been growing year on year for decades, hence the increased M&A activity and corporate interest in the sector, especially festivals. 

Yet, many of the loudest voices in the industry are those aligned with the large corporations. Who use their connections and influence to broker themselves a better deal and seem to only campaign for VAT and Business Rates reduction. What about everything else?

Is this to benefit grassroots? Or is it to benefit themselves? Or does it not matter? 

There are many issues in the electronic music scene going into 2026, and most of them can be attributed to mass social media attention and the profiteering of corporations in a scene that has a long history, with a founding story involving countercultural expression for repressed minorities.

The larger the audience market share that corporates take up of the scene, the less money there is for diy/independent venues, promoters, artists, DJs, producers, sound/lighting engineers, etc.

It would be nice to see that change, and I think my wish might come true.