Where can you dance?
CLUBBING: NOT AS POPULAR NOWADAYS– UNLESS IT’S AN ‘EXPERIENCE’
Study shows about 60% of millennials go clubbing, but mostly only once a month.
With the silly season upon us, you can’t avoid the boom-box banter of office workers at their year-end parties. As I walk by a popular indoors-outdoors pub and bistro in Greenside, I hear a drunken slur: “Kyle! My ou! My brother from another mother! Which club are we taking the larnie’s credit card to after this disaster?”
An equally inebriated Kyle responds: “Bra, we probs gonna have to schlep all the way to Midrand and I don’t even know if they’re happening tonight.” Silence! “Eish ek sê, let’s rather check out one of those bougie hotel rooftop lounges vibes.”
There seems to be a dwindling in South Africa’s once-thriving nightclub scene, with industry players believing it’s a generational thing, with millennials (aged between 22 and 37) having the biggest impact.
A US study published in Urban Land magazine, which observed the social and buying power of millennials in America, shows this generation aren’t frequenting nightclubs the way the preceding Gen Y did.
“Slightly more than 60% of millennials go out to clubs and among those who do, only 25% do so more than once a month,” according to the study.
And the situation uniquely American.
“There may not be the same urgency to get into clubs as there was with previous generations, who looked forward to their 18th birthday because they’d finally be allowed into a club but the need is still there,” Tadeu Andre, 23, a Johannesburg-based electronic artist and DJ told The Citizen.
While acknowledging the accuracy of the study, Andre says there is still an attraction to clubs. “Once people get into clubs, particularly clubs which allow for true freedom of expression, they find it hard to not want to go back.”
Olwee, a popular local events DJ and TV personality (and a millennial), is not feels clubs are not really a thing for his generation.
“We go ... on special occasions. But even then it’s a drag because it’s the same thing.”
He added what’s popular is experiences: a theme, a strange place, a fun crowd.
Andre says it’s important that today’s generation feel free to explore and experiment with their sexuality and culture, “to have spaces ... to be yourself”.
In South Africa there’s an apparent shift to monthly, seasonal and more memorable events.
That said, the club scene is still a festive favourite and worth a night out with friends or colleagues.