The neon-soaked dance floors that defined youth culture in the 80s, 90s and even the early 2000s are slipping into silence. From New York to London to Paris, the great clubs are shutting their doors.
A report from the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) revealed that nearly one in three nightclubs in the UK shut down between 2020 and 2023. Across the Atlantic, the story isn’t much different. Forbes noted that Los Angeles alone lost about 20% of its nightlife venues since 2019.
Gen Z and younger Millennials aren’t flocking to clubs the way their parents once did in the 80s and 90s, when nights out were all about crowded dance floors, pounding music and sweaty strangers turning into friends.
Today’s youth are socialising differently, often from the comfort of their bedrooms. In a 2024 YouGov poll, fewer than three in ten young Americans, those between 18 and 34, said they go out to nightclubs regularly.
At the same time, young people are lonelier than ever. Back in 2021, an American Perspectives Survey showed just how deep the loneliness runs. More than six in ten Gen Z respondents admitted they often feel seriously lonely, a sharp increase compared to ten years earlier. Friend circles have shrunk too.
15% of young men and 10% of young women now say they don’t have a single close friend, according to a study by the Survey Centre on American Life.
Romantic connections are fading as well. Only 56% of people aged 18 to 30 were in relationships in 2020, compared to two-thirds at the turn of the millennium.
Technology has also reshaped how relationships begin and end. Dating apps, remote work and a culture that places comfort and convenience over communal nights out have chipped away at the nightclub’s once-unchallenged role. Many shuttered venues are being converted into cafes, co-working spaces or left abandoned altogether.
The NTIA has already warned that, unless something changes, entire nightlife ecosystems could vanish by 2030.