Closing Times

Its been a few months since my last post, a mixture of reasons why, but this comes as a specific one... Why are the closing times in NN1 so early? Barring Elysium, now named Ku which finishes at 5am, there are only a small handful of venues that take advantage of late licence finishes. The usual finish times seem to be 1am on Friday or Saturday, walk into most cities and this would traditionally be the busiest times of queues and lines trying to get into venues.

So why is this? There has to be several reasons:

• The people aren't there - there's just not the appeal or draw to be out that late, traditionally its been the independent electronic music nights thats kept the licences late - lets be honest the rockers are in bed by the time most decent club nights are getting going in London... (No offence) So where are these nights in NN1?

• The people have changed - we're told that younger people are spending more time socialising in non-alcoholic venues and getting to bed earlier, this may be the case in some instances, but why is London and more diverse areas such as North Shields above Sunderlund thriving?

• The support isn't there/is too costly - barstaff and security are key contributors to late night success - without them there is no chance of succeeding, if they aren't motivated or paid to reward then the scenes collapse. This is an easy statement to make, but fully appreciate as someone running a business it is not easy to deliver

• Lastly, and this is the hardest one to write, the consistency of quality just isn't there in a club night that demands the late night licence, DJs in NN1 have a comfortable existence of doing the bars and local pubs in their own style - but is it actually moving anything forward? Over the past 2 years we could count on one hand the actual numbers of emerging quality nights that demand the licence - Murmur at The Black Prince being the biggest and most consistent. The question is - where are the others?

So... In 2027 my new year's resolution is to start a monthly electronic music night... somewhere, the aim will be to cross genres with no agenda on styles, methods, hardware - the focus is on consistency and quality, and consistent quality. The focus will also be on local quality - drawing on DJs already featured on this page and beyond.