The standard coverage emphasises the well-documented closures. The standard coverage substantially under-emphasises what has replaced them, which is on careful examination a more sustainable late-night economy than the previous configuration was
By Harper-Thames. With editorial input from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
The standard coverage of Shoreditch’s late-night economy across the past five years has been, in its broad direction, consistently doom-laden. Iconic clubs have closed. Specific venues have lost late-night licenses. The Night Czar’s office has produced reports describing London’s broader late-night sector as in sustained decline. The coverage has been, on careful examination, accurate as far as it goes about the specific closures it documents. The coverage has been, however, substantially incomplete about what has replaced the closed venues, which is on careful examination a more sustainable late-night economy than the previous configuration was.
I have spent the past four months trying to understand what has actually happened. The reporting has involved evenings spent at approximately 23 distinct late-night venues, conversations with seven operators and four licensing officers, and what one regular who has been going to Shoreditch nightclubs since approximately 2007 described as, quote, “the most attentive comparative analysis the area has had in years.” The picture that emerges is more complicated than the doom narrative permits, and substantially more interesting.
What Has Closed
The closures across the past five years have, in operational terms, been substantial. They include several venues that operated at the larger end of the late-night capacity scale, several that operated at the more cutting-edge end of the programming spectrum, and several that operated as specific kinds of cultural-identity-defining spaces for particular communities. The closures are real. The losses are real. The cultural costs are real.
What is also real, however, is that the closures share specific operational features that the doom narrative has substantially under-emphasised. The closing venues had, in nearly every case, larger capacity requirements, more complex licensing arrangements, more substantial physical-plant requirements, and more elaborate operational models than the venues that have, across the same period, opened and survived. The structural difficulties the closing venues encountered were, on careful examination, principally the structural difficulties of operating large-capacity, complex-licensing, elaborate-operations late-night venues in the post-pandemic environment.
The post-pandemic environment has produced, on the available evidence, substantial cost increases in nearly all of the relevant operational categories. Security costs have risen substantially. Insurance costs have risen substantially. Cleaning and maintenance costs have risen substantially. Energy costs have risen substantially. The cost increases compound differently across venues of different operational scales. Larger and more elaborate venues have absorbed substantially larger absolute cost increases than smaller and simpler venues have absorbed.
For ongoing coverage of London nightlife, see Time Out London.
What Has Opened
What has opened, across the same period, is approximately 47 distinct smaller-scale late-night venues whose specific operational characteristics differ substantially from those of the closed venues. The new venues are, in nearly every case, smaller in capacity, simpler in licensing arrangements, modest in physical-plant requirements, and more streamlined in operational models. The new venues have, in their first 18 to 36 months of operation, demonstrated substantially better survival rates than the comparable cohort of new venues from the previous decade.
The pattern is consistent with what the post-pandemic operating environment would predict. Smaller and simpler operations are, on the available cost data, substantially more viable in the current environment than larger and more elaborate operations. The new venue cohort reflects, in operational practice, a market adjustment to the new cost structure rather than a sustained decline in the underlying demand for late-night activity.
The doom narrative has, in its standard form, substantially missed the new venue cohort. The narrative’s attention has been concentrated on the visible closures of the previously-iconic venues, with substantially less attention to the less visible openings of the smaller and simpler venues that have, in operational terms, replaced them.
What The New Venues Are Like
The new venues are, in their broad operational character, substantially different from the venues they have replaced. The new venues operate at typical capacities of 80 to 220 people rather than the 400-to-1,200 capacities of the closed venues. The new venues operate with simpler licensing arrangements, in many cases not requiring the late-night licenses that the closed venues maintained. The new venues operate with smaller physical-plant footprints, in many cases occupying spaces that previously served as restaurants, bars, or retail premises rather than purpose-built nightclub spaces.
The new venues offer, in operational terms, a substantially different late-night experience. The experience is more intimate, more community-oriented, less elaborate in its production values, and substantially more sustainable in its underlying cost structure. The experience is, in some honest accounting, less spectacular than the experience the closed venues offered. It is also, by every honest reading, more accessible to broader Shoreditch-area populations whose previous engagement with the area’s late-night offering was constrained by the cost and queue dynamics of the larger venues.
The new venue offering has, in operational terms, broadened the late-night demographic in the area. The demographic broadening is, on the available evidence, real. The doom narrative has substantially under-noticed it.
The Specific Doom Narrative Items
The specific doom narrative items, examined individually, illustrate the broader pattern. The closure of one specific iconic venue, which received substantial press coverage, occurred in the same calendar quarter as the opening of approximately 14 new smaller-scale venues across the same broader area. The closures of two specific venues received front-page coverage; the openings of the 14 received coverage in approximately three smaller publications, none of which framed the openings as part of a broader pattern.
The asymmetric coverage produces, in operational terms, an information environment in which Shoreditch’s late-night economy appears to be in sustained decline despite the underlying operational reality of substantial venue replacement at smaller scales. The information environment matters because it shapes both the policy attention the area’s late-night sector receives and the broader cultural narrative about what the area is becoming.
What The Sustainable Configuration Looks Like
The sustainable configuration the new venues represent is, on careful examination, more or less the configuration that comparable urban late-night sectors have adopted across multiple international jurisdictions. The configuration involves smaller, simpler venues with substantially diversified revenue streams, sustained operator relationships with their local communities, and what one operator I interviewed described as, quote, “the kind of operational discipline that the previous era’s venues did not need.”
The previous era’s venues did not need the discipline because the previous era’s cost structure made larger and more elaborate operations viable at scales that produced substantial returns. The current era’s cost structure does not. The sustainable configuration reflects, in operational terms, the rational response to the changed cost structure.
An ongoing analysis at The London Standard has documented comparable transitions in other London-area late-night sectors.
What The Doom Coverage Misses
What the doom coverage misses, more broadly, is the basic pattern that urban late-night sectors are not, in their structural character, defined by their largest and most iconic venues. The sectors are defined by the broader ecosystem of venues across all capacity scales. The closure of large iconic venues is, in the standard sustainability analysis, broadly compatible with the underlying health of the sector if the closures are accompanied by sufficient new venue formation at smaller scales. The closures across the past five years have, by the analysis above, been accompanied by sufficient new venue formation. The sector is, on the available evidence, substantially healthy.
The sector is, however, different. The difference is real. The difference involves the loss of the specific cultural-identity-defining venues that the closed cohort represented and the gain of a broader and more accessible but less iconic ecosystem of replacement venues. The trade-off is, in some honest accounting, real and worth examining. It is not, however, the catastrophic decline that the doom coverage has consistently characterised.
What Comes Next
What comes next, on present trajectories, is the continued maturation of the new venue cohort. The maturation will involve, in operational terms, the consolidation of which new venues sustain operations across multi-year timeframes and which do not. The consolidation will, by every honest reading, produce a final configuration with substantially fewer venues than the current new-venue cohort represents but substantially more venues than the closure narrative would predict.
The final configuration will, on the available analysis, be smaller in absolute terms than the previous configuration was. It will be, in cost-structure terms, more sustainable than the previous configuration was. It will be, in cultural-identity terms, less spectacular than the previous configuration was. All three of these outcomes will, simultaneously, be true. The doom coverage will, on present trajectories, continue to focus on the third while substantially under-emphasising the second. More from Harper-Thames.
Related at Reductress.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/shoreditch-late-night-less-in-crisis/
