French nightclubs close as youth stay at home

Times

a day ago

Clubbing is regarded as a pastime for the young, but 70 per cent of nightclubs in France have shut down since the 1980s and their demise is being mourned mainly by the middle-aged.
Generation Z is more likely to stay at home to play video games and watch TikTok videos for fun, unlike Generation X and boomers, many of whom considered dancing until dawn on Saturday night as a badge of honour.
'No one I know goes clubbing,' said 19-year-old Antonin, who declined to be identified by his surname. 'I prefer simple pleasures like chatting with friends or PlayStation. We're a homebody generation,' he told Le Parisien.
• Why Gen Z have fallen in love with the house party
'Everywhere in France, disco balls have stopped turning,' according to the newspaper.
'Only 1,400 clubs are still open, compared with the 6,000 we had a few decades ago,' said Thierry Fontaine, the head of the nightclub section of France's UMIH hospitality union.
'Breathalyser tests on the roads, student poverty and higher entrance fees when you've got big name DJs have put an end to the large clubs.'
The Covid-19 lockdowns also had a lasting impact and young people became used to staying at home, according to Mathieu Dagneaux, marketing manager of Dune, a well-known club in La Grande Motte, a Mediterranean resort near Montpellier in the south of France.
'Since Covid, consumer habits have changed,' he said. 'The young are more demanding. Before, they used to go out three or four nights a week in the summer, regardless of the kind of music played. Now they only go to a club if there's really something happening that grabs their interest.'
Jérémie Peltier, the author of a book on the phenomenon, entitled La Fête est finie (The Party's Over), said young people were still dancing, but not in clubs. 'Since the pandemic, there have been a lot more home parties. It's cheaper, you can control the music, the people you invite and how the night progresses, as going out is viewed as more stressful or even potentially dangerous.'
• UK's worst night out? Costly, crime-ridden London
In the UK, about 400 clubs have closed in the past five years, more than a third of the total number. The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) has warned that clubbing could be 'extinct' in Britain by the end of the decade.
The cost of living crisis, social media and the pandemic have changed the way young people socialise, and an NTIA survey this year found that nearly two-thirds of 18 to 30-year-olds were going out less frequently than last year.
Laurence Voyer, editor of Le Parisien, expressed nostalgia for the club nights of her youth, but concluded that the way young people have fun today 'is not better or worse, it's just different'.