4 ms·

I assert this without evidence, but I would highly suspect club attendance numbers and rave attendance numbers to be strongly correlated.

carlmr 2y ago
Strong negative correlation? Can't attend both events, and most people only have the weekend to attend max one event.
- iamthirsty 2y ago
  You should come to Miami. Some people start the night at a normal club, go to a rave at Factory town, and meet the sunrise at Space, all in one night.
  - dagw 2y ago
    How many of the people doing that are locals doing it as a regular thing, vs tourists doing it as a one off experience? The core argument in the article is that the younger generation aren't going to their local clubs regularly enough to keep them afloat, preferring going to do much fewer and more 'special' events. The places that can survive are those that either bring in lots of tourists and/or focus larger one off events that can pull in a really large crowd.
    - iamthirsty 2y ago
      As a local, most of it is actual locals, often bringing out of town friends, but the core is always locals.
- ElevenLathe 2y ago
  Maybe on a particular night, but on any longer timescale: how does one make friends who will tell you about the cool underground scene without first meeting them in the aboveground club scene? Maybe online stuff plays this purpose now but I assume its still mostly the former.
  - leetcrew 2y ago
    lots of places. the people at the warehouse rave usually did something else earlier in the night. maybe you met them at a bar or show and asked what they were doing later. “what are you doing this weekend” is a normal thing to ask anyone you meet in a third place. it’s not that big of a secret.
- crowcroft 2y ago
  Most people have more than one weekend per year. High volume purchasers in a category are more likely to purchase many things across the category. I don't go to nightclubs ever, odds that I'm going to go to a rave are also pretty close to zero. I have a friend who DJs, even removing the nights he performs, he goes to nightclubs infinitely more than I do. He also goes to raves more than I do.
GuB-42 2y ago
Maybe those who go to raves are more likely to go to clubs too, but it doesn't mean that a decrease in club attendance means a decease in rave attendance. It may simply mean that clubs are not the preferred destination for partygoers anymore. To support that, it looks like music festival attendance is going up over the years. Music festivals are, I think, closer to raves than they are to night clubs, which, by the same logic, would suggest an increase in rave attendance. Also worth mentioning that some of what was called a rave before is now a club. There is a difference between occupying a decommissioned soviet building after the fall of the Berlin Wall and a fancy club on high valued real estate, even though it used to be the same place.
- kefabean 2y ago
  > To support that, it looks like music festival attendance is going up over the years. This isn't global nor is it specific dance music but at least in the UK, festivals are struggling and have declined significantly since the beginning of covid - 204 festivals have disappeared since 2019: https://www.aiforg.com/blog-database/72-uk-festivals-cancelled-in-2024 https://www.aiforg.com/blog-database/72-uk-festivals-cancell...
  - GuB-42 2y ago
    Covid definitely shook things up, but clubs didn't do well even before covid, while festivals were thriving. Now, it is a bit hard to tell as 2024 was just the second "normal" year, and it can take many years to grow a successful event. It seems like now, we are indeed seeing less festivals, but the remaining ones are becoming bigger and more expensive. So, maybe less festivals but higher budgets.
    - spydum 2y ago
      Weren't there several mass casualties at clubs? I wonder if those had an effect overall. Anecdotally, I remember after several of the movie theatre shootings in the US, my immediate peer group self included decided it just wasn't worth it. Only in the last year or so have I started coming back to theatres.
tensor 2y ago
That doesn't make sense to me. Anecdotally, most people I know who love actual raves generally didn't go to clubs, for one. But also more broadly, I've heard from multiple local venues that one big change is that EDM crowds don't drink as much. This means venues make A LOT less money, and that means fewer venues. If I had to guess, another factor is that younger crowds don't have the buying power older generations had, so if anything they would be MORE likely to go to an "illegal" rave with no cover and do some drugs instead of drinking. Basically, to me, economic forces suggests that the rave crowd and club crowd are NOT correlated. edit: and more anecdotal data for you, I use to go to a lot of clubs when I was young (and fewer raves), but now that I'm older me and my group tend to either throw our own parties at home with our own gear, or go to "listening bar" type venues that wouldn't typically be classified as a "club." We're all too old to drink high priced shitty beer and deal with lines and bouncers. I'd rather be able to have a top sound system, order an IPA or cocktail, and maybe even have a seat to lounge in!
- saberience 2y ago
  What is an "actual" rave? Are you gatekeeping an English word which means many different things to different people based on where they grew up and their socioeconomic background. I've been "raving" since 2002 and for me it means dancing to electronic dance music and taking drugs, and it can be in a legit nightclub, or someones house, or a festival, or indeed an illegal warehouse rave. Everyone I have "raved" with, used the term interchangably. If I told my friend, "I was raving at Tomorrowland last year", they would never say, "you can't say you were raving because that's not an illegal event." Raving is not a scientific or mathematical term that has some precise definition. Don't try and make it that way, that's not what raving is about dude.
- 9rx 2y ago
  > Anecdotally, most people I know who love actual raves generally didn't go to clubs, for one. In a similar vein, most people I know who love watching sports do not play the sport they enjoy watching. However, like the parent, I suspect that the numbers watching a sport strongly correlates with the numbers playing the sport. There need not be overlap between the watchers and the players for the correlation to stand. Something being in the zeitgeist lifts all related boats, it seems. Raves and clubs are different expressions of what is essentially the same fashion. It seems unlikely that only one expression would die off where the general fashion trend remains intact.

carlmr 2y ago

Strong negative correlation? Can't attend both events, and most people only have the weekend to attend max one event.

iamthirsty 2y ago
You should come to Miami. Some people start the night at a normal club, go to a rave at Factory town, and meet the sunrise at Space, all in one night.
- dagw 2y ago
  How many of the people doing that are locals doing it as a regular thing, vs tourists doing it as a one off experience? The core argument in the article is that the younger generation aren't going to their local clubs regularly enough to keep them afloat, preferring going to do much fewer and more 'special' events. The places that can survive are those that either bring in lots of tourists and/or focus larger one off events that can pull in a really large crowd.
  - iamthirsty 2y ago
    As a local, most of it is actual locals, often bringing out of town friends, but the core is always locals.
ElevenLathe 2y ago
Maybe on a particular night, but on any longer timescale: how does one make friends who will tell you about the cool underground scene without first meeting them in the aboveground club scene? Maybe online stuff plays this purpose now but I assume its still mostly the former.
- leetcrew 2y ago
  lots of places. the people at the warehouse rave usually did something else earlier in the night. maybe you met them at a bar or show and asked what they were doing later. “what are you doing this weekend” is a normal thing to ask anyone you meet in a third place. it’s not that big of a secret.
crowcroft 2y ago
Most people have more than one weekend per year. High volume purchasers in a category are more likely to purchase many things across the category. I don't go to nightclubs ever, odds that I'm going to go to a rave are also pretty close to zero. I have a friend who DJs, even removing the nights he performs, he goes to nightclubs infinitely more than I do. He also goes to raves more than I do.

GuB-42 2y ago

Maybe those who go to raves are more likely to go to clubs too, but it doesn't mean that a decrease in club attendance means a decease in rave attendance. It may simply mean that clubs are not the preferred destination for partygoers anymore. To support that, it looks like music festival attendance is going up over the years. Music festivals are, I think, closer to raves than they are to night clubs, which, by the same logic, would suggest an increase in rave attendance. Also worth mentioning that some of what was called a rave before is now a club. There is a difference between occupying a decommissioned soviet building after the fall of the Berlin Wall and a fancy club on high valued real estate, even though it used to be the same place.

kefabean 2y ago
> To support that, it looks like music festival attendance is going up over the years. This isn't global nor is it specific dance music but at least in the UK, festivals are struggling and have declined significantly since the beginning of covid - 204 festivals have disappeared since 2019: https://www.aiforg.com/blog-database/72-uk-festivals-cancelled-in-2024 https://www.aiforg.com/blog-database/72-uk-festivals-cancell...
- GuB-42 2y ago
  Covid definitely shook things up, but clubs didn't do well even before covid, while festivals were thriving. Now, it is a bit hard to tell as 2024 was just the second "normal" year, and it can take many years to grow a successful event. It seems like now, we are indeed seeing less festivals, but the remaining ones are becoming bigger and more expensive. So, maybe less festivals but higher budgets.
  - spydum 2y ago
    Weren't there several mass casualties at clubs? I wonder if those had an effect overall. Anecdotally, I remember after several of the movie theatre shootings in the US, my immediate peer group self included decided it just wasn't worth it. Only in the last year or so have I started coming back to theatres.

tensor 2y ago

That doesn't make sense to me. Anecdotally, most people I know who love actual raves generally didn't go to clubs, for one. But also more broadly, I've heard from multiple local venues that one big change is that EDM crowds don't drink as much. This means venues make A LOT less money, and that means fewer venues. If I had to guess, another factor is that younger crowds don't have the buying power older generations had, so if anything they would be MORE likely to go to an "illegal" rave with no cover and do some drugs instead of drinking. Basically, to me, economic forces suggests that the rave crowd and club crowd are NOT correlated. edit: and more anecdotal data for you, I use to go to a lot of clubs when I was young (and fewer raves), but now that I'm older me and my group tend to either throw our own parties at home with our own gear, or go to "listening bar" type venues that wouldn't typically be classified as a "club." We're all too old to drink high priced shitty beer and deal with lines and bouncers. I'd rather be able to have a top sound system, order an IPA or cocktail, and maybe even have a seat to lounge in!

saberience 2y ago
What is an "actual" rave? Are you gatekeeping an English word which means many different things to different people based on where they grew up and their socioeconomic background. I've been "raving" since 2002 and for me it means dancing to electronic dance music and taking drugs, and it can be in a legit nightclub, or someones house, or a festival, or indeed an illegal warehouse rave. Everyone I have "raved" with, used the term interchangably. If I told my friend, "I was raving at Tomorrowland last year", they would never say, "you can't say you were raving because that's not an illegal event." Raving is not a scientific or mathematical term that has some precise definition. Don't try and make it that way, that's not what raving is about dude.
9rx 2y ago
> Anecdotally, most people I know who love actual raves generally didn't go to clubs, for one. In a similar vein, most people I know who love watching sports do not play the sport they enjoy watching. However, like the parent, I suspect that the numbers watching a sport strongly correlates with the numbers playing the sport. There need not be overlap between the watchers and the players for the correlation to stand. Something being in the zeitgeist lifts all related boats, it seems. Raves and clubs are different expressions of what is essentially the same fashion. It seems unlikely that only one expression would die off where the general fashion trend remains intact.