14 years ago - Berlins new techno beat. why international tech startups should move to berlin - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2729524 (Article is gone so not sure if it's a play on techno)
btw: Watergate (and Renate in a year (and Rummelsburger Bucht a few years ago)) are closing because some secretive Russian oligarch has decided the way he wants to throw his oligarch money around is to buy up left-wing spaces in Berlin and shut them down. Not just rave clubs or whatever they're properly called - he was also the reason for the tiny little squat Liebig 34 getting stormed by over 2000 armed police officer, and I don't remember whether he also had the same role with another squat, Køpi Wagenplatz, which got shut down in a very similar way (the police brought an actual tank to that one). He either has the right connections, or he knows exactly how to manipulate the legal system. Watergate actually tried to buy its own building at a fair market price, but this guy outbid it.
I think the owner of Watergate, felt it was a good time to retire from that anyway, but that isn't the case for the other spaces affected.
It’s fear-mongering, broad and unfounded generalization. It’s a edgelord comment that serves no useful discussion. It’s not what HN is for, and downvoting is the way to show this.
Ahhh, I interpreted this as an oblique reference to accidental overdoses from impure/laced drugs which is a huge problem in the US and probably a real deterrent.
I realize now from the other responses this was maybe a reference to exploding pagers, which is dependent on (I suppose) the view that raves in Europe are heavily attended by people of middle eastern descent?
That’s not really the “known-as-ravers” crowd here in the US so that reference may have just flown way over my head and I injected the top-of-mind US issue which is drug contamination.
On second thought I think it was meant to be a reference to October 7, 2023. I've seen similar stickers at some, back in summer, with messages like "What if terrorists blew up YOUR music festival? #supportisrael"
Took a while to work it out though. Why can't people just say what they mean?
I find it kind of despicable that someone would spend the effort to highlight a terrorist attack against a rave, but ignore the background of terrorist attacks against important stuff like schools, hospitals and residences.
I interpreted this as a poorly written reference to accidental overdoses from laced drugs deterring consumption (and most rave-like events ultimately suck if sober). It’s sort of the elephant in the room.
On the one hand millennials are getting older so it's totally reasonable to expect they wouldn't want to party into the early AM anymore.
On the other hand real raves don't happen in legal venues. I've partied in warehouses, upscale restaurants, artist studios, roller skating rinks, movie theaters, hotels, apartments. I threw parties on the lightship Nantucket (LV-112), although those were day parties. But none of these events would be factored into the financial times reporting.
Some of the evidence presented by the article is compelling but just don't think they can draw real conclusions about the state of nightlife with such a limited perspective.
The article also mentions that earlier ending events made to accommodate aging millennials have seen an unexpected and huge interest from Gen Z
But yeah, the decline of the nightlife and hospitality sector is what this article is about, as the regulated rave experience is very mainstream and has been for a long time now
The production value is quite high now and still improving so I don't see why the illicit rave experience would be so interesting when the facilities would be so lacking in comparison. There are lots of electronic dance music events on boats, cruiseliners, retired battleships and more.
Music festivals are bigger than ever though, and they are so frequent and numerous that you can go as frequently as people were going to clubs. I have multiple friend groups where that’s all they do and it is far more intense than just being out passed 3am, although many do officially end their main programming at 1am, many don’t.
Have you ever been to a rave? I've never seen a fight break out at a rave, but I've seen plenty in clubs. The levels of self-absorbed, inconsiderate, and assholish behavior are usually excruciatingly high at clubs, and tolerably low at raves.
I've never seen a fight at a club. At this one big (80k) festival in northeast lake region Germany neither. In my experience, fighting and aggression are caused mainly by, in decreasing order of importance, alcohol, cocaine, crammed+overfilled spaces. Then a very long gap before bullies and such appear on the list.
I agree, I was surprised to read "real raves don't happen in legal venues" - first time I've heard that line of thinking. Been raving for 20 years and here is what a rave means to me: very dancy music, electronic of some type (doesn't need to be pure edm), no judgements, kindness, love, good energy. I'd argue this is unsurprising given where the idea of a rave came from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Tests
"No judgements" is not something I would attribute to legal venues. I mean there are SOOOOOOOO many clubs with dress codes, and that's just scratching the surface.
It is my understanding that rave culture evolved out of the 90's illegal party scene which grew from the 80's acid house music scene. But even if you take it from the Acid Tests that would mean the parties were only legal for a year and have been illegal for nearly 60 years.
To some a rave is just any party, to me it refers to the event being a grassroots operation. For the people, by the people and which is usually done on the cheap because artists aren't usually rolling in dough.
To each their own though. I'm not gonna police your use of the word (unless you publish it apparently).
> I don't see why the illicit rave experience would be so interesting when the facilities would be so lacking in comparison.
I swear if you strip away legal pot and LGBTQ rights (not saying those are bad) we have culturally returned to the 1950s. This is a very conservative period with little interest in or tolerance for actual outside-the-lines culture or experience.
I have noticed that after normalizing anything, counterculture areas of California will always have something even more unfamiliar trying to get tolerated and representation
But I don’t see what you’re referring to
I think there is a disinterest in illicit raves because the market has reached parity and beyond for the experience that the market actually enjoyed. If it fails to do that or the illegal raves are better again, I think there is still interest in that, far bigger than whatever was happening in the 90s
To me the giveaway is the decline in sexual experience among young people. This is like a top line KPI for youth culture and socialization since when people have a lot of positive social interaction and mutual bonding experiences they tend to have sex.
Loads of people have commented on these trends. I’m not pointing out anything new, but I do think a lot of people don’t see it because it’s hidden behind a facade of very visible socially liberal movements that garner attention out of proportion to their numbers. These folks do not represent the mean or the median of the culture.
If you are in the Bay Area or LA or really any metro California city that isn’t a deep suburb your experience might be different. These areas have always been more liberal than the average and enduringly so. The SF Bay was where gay people could go back when there was not just a strong taboo but in many cases real persecution.
Edit: with the last election I think the conservative zeitgeist is going to finally crest, and probably inspire a backlash that will start the pendulum going the other way. Things like politics are the lagging end. There’s also a backlash brewing against social media including dating apps, which are one of the drivers for both youth alienation and promulgation of reactionary attitudes. Right wing cultural fear mongering has excellent memetic fitness on social media.
Okay this is an interesting topic but I think you are conflating several things.
The decline in sexual experience is occurring in California metros too. Its really interesting how the behaviors have shifted and surprising to me. But people are bonding, social, far less exclusionary, inclusive to things they’ve never heard of - unless you’re the wrong star sign, ironically, or political party.
I date 20-somethings, it’s just different than what I see with people I grew up with. I would say chronic anxiety and demisexuality are common, the most notable to me, and drive a lot of these shifts. But the libidos are there, their age-peers don’t know what they’re doing with really offputting habits or aren’t as interested either. I just cant extrapolate a real exclusionary streak from conservative leanings. Your algorithm is just cooked right now.
> unless you’re the wrong star sign, ironically, or political party.
These things are very different and do not belong in the same list, and I've noticed that when people do put them together, they're often trying to make the point that political party is just another arbitrary inherent attribute like race, rather than a serious reflection of someone's character. Can you explain why you think they belong together?
Because they are just arbitrary attributes rather than a serious reflection of someone's character?
Just because certain media outlets brainwashed you into thinking that Republican == Nazi (they all backpedaled after the election ended by the way) doesn't mean it's true. Go talk to actual people with blue collar jobs. You'll find that their character is quite all right actually.
I don't think this is entirely true. Most people are normal, but if I'm a woman dating a young conservative man. That conservative has a non-zero chance to actually believe shit like "your body, my choice." Probably don't want to be dating that guy. It's not a guarantee, but a danger signal.
Upvoted you, because opinions should be safe to voice even if one disagrees with them. This does appear to be a common concern. I also happen to know many families that vote Republican where the woman also happens to "wear the pants".
100% of modern misogynistic rhetoric and all the new erosion of women’s rights is coming from the right. Ignoring that fact is just stupid. “Wearing the pants” doesn’t mean shit when they also vote a rapist into office.
Let's say that's true: all misogynistic rhetoric is coming from the right. This does not also mean that anyone on the right is automatically a misogynist.
I know, you'll have a knee-jerk reaction to the above. Let me illustrate the point. 100% of "white people are oppressors" rhetoric comes from the left. By your logic, no white person should vote Democrat. Ah, but you'll say that not everyone on the left is hung up on this, not everyone is actually an oppressor, and we can all get along. Well, the same point applies to the right and misogynists then, doesn't it?
Just because certain media outlets brainwashed you into thinking that Blue Collar == Republican (they all backpedaled after the election ended by the way) doesn't mean it's true. Go talk to actual people with blue collar jobs. You'll find that their character is quite all right actually.
You don't even believe this yourself, and are just trying to come up with a pithy comeback. Sorry, this one fell flat. The celebration of the Republican triumph definitely does not look like backpedaling. To pretend otherwise is to ignore reality.
Whatever you think political party association is, it's not arbitrary. It tells you something about someone's character. People choose political parties based on their personality type to a significant degree, which is not the case for star signs. You don't have to believe that the parties are different, but surely you believe that people don't choose a party by flipping a coin.
Underneath this comment is a dead one that should probably not be dead. I don't have the power to vouch for it, so I recommend that person should make a new account to avoid auto-dead.
When I was young, people had different political opinions and would still be friends and party and do things together. Only some odd fellows would make a fuzz and try to exclude somebody for politics, usually the opposite happened.
When we're older, then political affiliation starts reflecting more on a persons character. Then we've all been through (or should have been through) the different situations where politics have a real world impact on our lives that we can understand and relate to.
When you were young, political differences were more likely about how much tax rich people should pay. Now, political differences are more like who should go in the gas chambers. You can respectfully disagree with people who think the tax rate should be 20% instead of 30%. You cannot respectfully disagree with people who think you belong in a gas chamber.
You say people are bonding in a less exclusionary manner, but that doesnt mean they aren't bonding less as well.
The chronic anxiety you mention, as well as the pervasive loneliness and depression I observe, seems to indicate a lack of healthy and supportive social bonds.
Good point. The subset of 20-something year old women I date are social and have lots of anxieties, but it doesn’t really inhibit their ability to have a support system.
I can see that there are plenty of other people who would have more difficult doing this by nature of not attracting positive attention and interest by default.
> the decline in sexual experience among young people
Can I push back just a bit. I'm the parent of a teenager and we've had the talk. The kids are alright. When I was a teen I felt everyone felt pressure to be sexually active. While the boys carried the brunt of peer pressure it was the girls who had to deal with the actual fallout. Todays teens are dealing with a lot right now. And my impression is they have a healthier relationship with sex then our generation ever did. Girls have agency, and outside of the social media chucklefucks it's taboo to be serial sexual harasser and be treated with any sort of respect.
I don’t disagree. I’m a dad of girls too and things are better for them today as long as we can hold off the idiots who want to LARP The Handmaid’s Tale.
But that kind of intersects with my next point. There is this vast number of basically hikikomori out there, not to mention lots of mostly boys with very screwed up images of sex from early and uncritical consumption of porn and “masculinity” grifter bullshit. It’s from among these groups that every sort of toxic authoritarian movement is drawing its support.
There’s a lot more unhealthy antisocial stuff out there, and overall I think it’s worse. It’s become more extreme. There isn’t a middle. Young people are either healthy today or they are fucked.
Sex happens in private (mostly, and I'm not judging those who prefer otherwise) and people lie about it. A lot.
But a more publicly observable and, obviously, very adjacent indicator is kissing.
Time was, you'd see a lot of people kissing in public. Not just quick ones either. Pretty normal to walk past bars and there'd be a couple (or more than one) making out by the smoking area. Same in bars beyond a certain time of night, same in a lot of city parks. Sometimes even on the subway. Teenagers walking home from nights out or drinking in the park. (Legal here in the UK and not frowned upon like in the US). In the middle of club or festival crowds.
And whether you think that's cool or gross, there's notably less of it around, and that's been a trend for quite some time.
Maybe the 70s through 90s was an anomaly, it would have been heavily frowned upon before that, but something certainly changed in the mid/late 00s.
Yeah I agree. Internet puritanism, some might call it. Turns out the possibility of being recorded all the time and having your life upended based on some 15 second clip of you makes people conservative and wary of risks
> The production value is quite high now and still improving so I don't see why the illicit rave experience would be so interesting when the facilities would be so lacking in comparison
A few reasons:
1. security at official music events are often complete arseholes and can totally destroy the vibe. Think of all the row rent chip on their shoulder wannabe cops, then place them in a field of drunk partying adults with complete power and almost zero oversight (+)
2. Advertising everywhere
3. Massively overpriced food and drink
(+) While I fully understand that once you've got multiple thousands of humans in a field, you do need security, at small illegal raves - say a few hundred people - there's no need and the vibe without feeling like you're being watched is spectacular.
And I would say the large festival audiences are wholly unfamiliar with that, given that the option of the bigger elaborate event was always in their face. There was nothing they needed to find or be in the know about, and to them, the festivals are that same journey.
Regarding expense: not everyone is broke. And many people have shifted their budget to exclusively going to music festivals. I know lots of people that scoff at the idea of going to a nightclub or “going out” at all, but praise and prioritize going to music festivals. Even more are on payment plans for festival tickets far in advance, they are confident they can sell them at a premium if they don't go.
I’m just reporting what I’m seeing and applying market dynamics to it.
Given the tension with “wooks” that bum their way to the bigger festivals and have little to support themselves or any integration into society, I see intentional segregation with the current generation of festivals goers that supports an intentional interest in paying a premium for the exclusion it comes with. Event groups found that pool of wealth and demand, and are capitalizing on it to its extreme. But this crowd is really not trying to be around the other budget conscious crowd at the warehouse and barnyard, and there are plenty of good vibes to be had - you just choose which festival has the vibe you like. if one is too fratty for you, or has too many influencers, then you can still go to the “PLUR” one.
> (+) While I fully understand that once you've got multiple thousands of humans in a field, you do need security, at small illegal raves - say a few hundred people - there's no need and the vibe without feeling like you're being watched is spectacular.
On the other hand - saying this as a former tech guy for illegal raves - even in small raves below 100 people in attendance there's so much potential for shit to go seriously wrong. Obviously substance consumption related issues ranging from ODs over contaminants to mixture effect amplifications, that's the most pressing issue, but you also have your fair share of travel accidents aka someone tripping over tree branches, and you will always have a few people (mostly male, but also a few female) who won't understand borders in all possible ways if they're not sober.
Back then a lot of that dark shit was swept under the rug, let us be very clear here. That's the sad price to pay for fly-by-night events without proper security, EMS and whatnot else that is required for licensed events.
All of these except for the last require medical staff, not security. In my experience, the medical staff at festivals of all sizes are amazing people. I don't see how an illegal rave could ever have medical staff though so it's a personal risk that people can choose to take.
As for people not understanding boundaries, small groups of adults, up to a couple of hundred, are generally self policing. I've witnessed a couple of guys being forceably ejected from gatherings, but over the hundred or so I've probably attended in my life (raves I mean) I've only seen this being required a couple of times.
> The production value is quite high now and still improving so I don't see why the illicit rave experience would be so interesting when the facilities would be so lacking in comparison. There are lots of electronic dance music events on boats, cruiseliners, retired battleships and more.
There will always be people attracted to the underground scene where the production value doesn't rank higher than the energy on the dancefloor.
It's good to have both options but they are very different experiences, the mainstream stuff with high production value is a show, it's meant for people who are going to parties to see specific artists and their shows.
That experience is quite opposite of what a good underground rave is, it's much more raw, less concerned about the surface-level showmanship; artists are there to provide a journey to the ones on the dancefloor but not to be the main star, the main star is supposed to be the party itself.
I really enjoy much more the experience of the underground scene, I don't see phones up in the air recording, I don't see people staring at a light show/screens with AV, the experience of getting lost with a crowd of people, all dancing, interacting among each other.
Personally I think it's quite good to have the mainstream scene, it filters out quite a lot of people who wouldn't belong in an underground rave.
> The article also mentions that earlier ending events made to accommodate aging millennials have seen an unexpected and huge interest from Gen Z
I do not find it surprising. When I was younger (college age and soon after), I wanted events to start sooner and late events oftentimes discouraged me. It sucked even at that age. It is one thing to start dancing at 8pm and have endurance till the early morning, because you feel like it and have nothing to do the next day. And something completely different if you have to wait till 1am till the event starts. You get tired and dumber the next day, but the amount of dancing you got in exchange is just lower.
I was not using stimulants or anything like that and frankly, dropping amount of stimulants use among young people would explain larger younger crowd at earlier events.
> The article also mentions that earlier ending events made to accommodate aging millennials have seen an unexpected and huge interest from Gen Z
As a millennial in Belgium, my parties started no earlier than 23:00 and ended at 05:00.
But maybe it makes sense that this is disappearing? My parents started partying at 19:00
It’s more alive than ever, I’d say. Just about any weekend in the Milwaukee/Chicago area has at least a couple parties. Proper underground shit. Not sure what it is, exactly, but it’s been feeling like a time portal back to the 90’s and I love it. Drop Bass Network and Chicago Redline will keep you plenty busy.
Yeah, I'm in the UK and there are still regular late night dance / EDM nights in my city.
I was at one a couple of weekends ago, 11pm - 4am.
A good mix of ages too, people clearly in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. Everyone having a great time, I would guess at least 70% of the people were on something too, (MDMA, Ecstasy etc).
Last time I checked, ecstacy is usually how it is called when in pill form, with the idea that it is not pure MDMA. That is, it may be cut, a combination of drugs or something else entirely.
MDMA/molly is usually in crystal/powder form, with the idea that it is more pure.
But how drugs are called on the street and what they are in reality is constantly changing, there are countless myths, and dealers are not exactly a reliable source of information regarding what they sell.
In reality, that's essentially the same thing. If you look at https://www.drugsdata.org/ you will see that it is mostly just MDMA, the form doesn't matter much.
even though MDMA is the real technical name (and Molly + Ecstasy are nicknames), the name "Ecstasy" is kinda misleading because it's usually MDMA mixed with other stuff, and that's not always good...
the name "Molly" has a pure vibe to it. It's like a warm hug from a friend.
Dr. Andrew Huberman said in his video that MDMA is not actually ecstastic, rather it produce warm feelings and promote inner acceptance and peaceful connections with others.
MDMA being the substance, Ecstacy being the delivery, you could simplify it as. Ecstacy always have MDMA in it, but typically also other stuff. MDMA is just MDMA, and in itself have different purity depending on how it was made.
That applies to most tablets too. Not sure why mdma tablets warrant a different when other drugs in tablet form that often come with other stuff don't.
In papers maybe, but in the streets, Ecstasy is the pill form of MDMA and is usually cut with other substances (e.g., speed, LSD, etc.). Therefore, when saying "Ecstasy," someone would expect a pill in a funny shape, whereas with "MDMA," they would expect powder.
I would never expect powder when I said MDMA, I would expect crystals or pills. Ecstasy is often said to be cut with other substances, but almost never is, because most other drugs are more expensive and less potent than MDMA. There are often impure batches containing meth or other amphetamines, often other "designer drugs" being pressed into pills and sold as ecstasy while not being MDMA, but rarely intentionally cutting the MDMA with other drugs.
Drug pro-tip: anything powder is garbage, crack comes in rocks (crack users aren't all that picky though, from beeswax to swiss cheese to chalk, from white as snow to bright yellow, usually off-white, it comes in a variety of appearances and textures and users savor the cut - the most favored stuff is usually not the purest), coke comes in chunks (white, off-white, even yellowish, good quality stuff has a flaky structure and pearlescent shine), heroin comes in chunks (from white to tan to black, occasionally gooey), weed comes in nuggets (but used to come in chunks, maybe still does if reggies/illegal weed still exists in your area), meth is long usually clear crystals, molly is shorter and more cuboid crystals, usually colored (pink, tan/brown, only very rarely clear).
You are right, I used the wrong wording here. I meant crystals, not powder. I used the word 'powder' unconsciously because when I was raving, I would break those crystals into powder form to control the dosage better.
Anyway, regarding the difference between ecstasy and MDMA, from personal experience, I cannot remember a time when the effects were the same. Every time I took a pill, the effect was totally different from MDMA. MDMA provided a more 'pure' experience, whereas with advertised 'ecstasy' pills, I experienced hallucinations, memory loss, and a very heavy hangover.
This rings in Minneapolis. The midwest definitely has a solid, consistent scene for house/techno/electronic with DJs bouncing between Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago for sets.
The demographic is definitely millennial, with maybe ~25% being Gen Z.
It's also definitely not... popular. The biggest nights have a _way_ smaller turnout than college bars or city clubs. I'm not sure how strong the crowd actually was 10-20 years ago, but these clubs aren't in the mainstream appeal. Maybe from lack of marketing, maybe taste+preference.
Created an HN account just to ask... what are the entry ways to know what sets are going on in Minneapolis? The person you replied to mentioned Drop Bass Network and Chicago Redline, both of which have easily follow-able accounts. Anything like that in this area?
Too expensive? I see illegal dance parties in the countryside more than ever. And people drive far for them and sleep it off in the sun the next day (or so). Big bags of drugs (if you buy in bulk, drugs are those things that come with very large discounts) and wholesale energydrinks etc. So those are cheap, but I can see legal places would have issues maybe? High entry fees, super expensive drinks etc.
Despite the headline, the article makes it clear that it is talking about legal nightclubs, primarily in large cities. The younger generation just isn't into clubbing every weekend in that way, don't want to spend (or even have) that sort of money on going out, and the costs of running a club have skyrocketed.
At the same time, according to the article, it seems that larger one off events or festivals are still very popular. So the kids still want to dance.
I see illegal dance parties in the countryside more than ever
Who's attending these? Is it mainly the old timers or are they attracting a strong following from new generations?
> Who's attending these? Is it mainly the old timers or are they attracting a strong following from new generations?
Mostly 20somethings as far as I have seen; invites are word of mouth (aka Whatsapp) and we stumble on them because we hike around a lot and then have a chat. This is during the day when the partygoers are chilling out usually.
Oldtimers are mostly dancing in local bars to small cover bands. Also until the early morning usually and no coke/speed, but just beer/spirits.
> Despite the headline, the article makes it clear that it is talking about legal nightclubs, primarily in large cities.
I guess since they used "rave", people assume they use the commonly understood definition of the word, not just "dancing at a random dance-club in the city", which I don't think many would consider "raving".
> Who's attending these? Is it mainly the old timers or are they attracting a strong following from new generations?
Here in Spain there is a wide range of folks attending dance parties both the ones in/around big cities, and the ones out on the country-side. Obviously, the ones out on the country-side tend to have a crowd that is more "hippie" for the lack of better words, but otherwise I see all types of ranges and people from different walks of life. Mostly skew around my own age I think though, around 30 or so.
I guess since they used "rave", people assume they use the commonly understood definition of the word
yea, this article has unfortunately fallen foul of the 'headline doesn't match the article' problem. Seems to be a common problem these days when the headline writer is judged by how many clicks their headline gets, rather than if it's actually relevant to the article.
Early dancing seems to be getting a bit of a boost though? Dayfever and Annie Mac's "Before Midnight" events seem to be v popular in Ireland and the UK
Yeah because public liability insurance has spiked beyond tolerable levels for post-watershed events, and the licensing board and constabulary are in lock-step for the granting of late licenses to bars and nightclubs to operate past 11.30pm
They use the most spurious justifications regarding newer commercial tenants and antisocial behaviour to deny the legacy cultural tenets their ability to operate as a late-night business from a licensing perspective.
Not at all, otherwise there would have been a dearth of club culture after Acid House and the Electronic Music Acts in the UK. Instead you got the Hacienda and the emergence of Balearic Trance, transforming the UK Northern Soul scene overnight.
You go see older commercial acts in the harder styles (Mauro Picotto, Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin) and you'll see just how old and how hard those crowds go. The younger crowds tend to go more Business Techno or BoilerRoom madness - Amelie Lens, Charlotte de Witte to FredAgain/Overmono.
That said there is a noticeable difference between the infantilised and hyper-commercial 'PLUR-fest' nonsense in the US - focusing on kandi and costumes last seen in the happy hardcore scene in Europe 30 years ago. It's in stark contrast to the standard European Electronic music festival circuit and dedicated warehouse venues which definitely skew older.
I'd also highlight the average age of a 'raver' in Berlin is about 8 years older than that of a 'US' one. Average age to have a kid in Ireland is about 35. In the US it's 27. That goes a long way towards maintaining a scene!
Don't know what "rave" is, in normal night clubs not hitting on anyone all night would be considered creepy. And dances are an essential element helping to ... close the distance. Always were, since middle ages.
The key difference is: do you go there to hook up, or do you go there because you like the place, which as a second order effect is great common ground to meeting someone?
Raves are and always have been about dancing. The creeps walking around looking for hookups are just that, a bunch of weird creeps that annoy people trying to dance.
Edit: To clarify, it's creepy becaucse a lot of people are on something and pretty vulnerable, they're there to dance and enjoy the music and now some creep is trying to get in their pants while they're rolling and drunk
At same time this is pretty disingenuous calling people creeps. Yes you don't go to raves to look for hookups but at same time its social occasion and you can meet many people (in all kinds of states). And stuff wears off. So many people end up with new contacts if not straight up going with someone home. You know MDMA and sex match pretty well...
Don't find romantic partners at work, that's against company policy and you will get fired.
Don't find romantic partners at raves, that's creepy, people are there to dance.
Don't find romantic partners at night clubs, that's creepy, people are there to dance.
Don't find romantic partners at public places, that's creepy, people don't want to be bothered in public.
Don't find romantic partners among friends, now you're ruining all the friendships.
Do stay locked up inside and try to find romantic partners between advertisements, by swiping on a screen three thousand times. That's more efficient and won't risk you wasting any productive time that you in fact owe to the government, to shareholders and to pensioners. It's actually quite outrageous that some young people are trying to escape their productivity duties and even risk forming long term relationships and having children, which is literally taking food out of the mouths of the elderly. They need your tax dollar, stop wasting time!
This is exactly right. It's only creepy if you're creepy.
There is always someone looking to vibe with a positive-energy person they met that night. Sometimes it leads to more and sometimes you just dance all night, give a big hug, and never see each other again.
"night clubs were about hooking up" - they weren't talking about raves. Night clubs were a different thing, and hooking up was definitely a big part of that. And for selling expensive liquor to people, but whatever.
You can't have a rave in a nightclub? I'm sorry I thought this whole post was about raves, didnt realise we were specifically talking about outdoor raves?
A nightclub is a location, a rave is a type of party where electronic DANCE music is played.
The idea of a rave is that people go there to DANCE to the electronic DANCE music. Not to hookup.
If you thought it was about raves, why say night clubs?
(In North America at least) A night club is a particular kind of venue, it's not just a location. It's very distinct from a rave, and they have very different cultures. It's confusing when you conflate the two.
> If you thought it was about raves, why say night clubs?
Because the post is about raves. I responded to a comment about nightclubs in a post about raves, its implied then they're talking about raves in nightclubs, what else would they be talking about?
> (In North America at least) A night club is a particular kind of venue, it's not just a location. It's very distinct from a rave, and they have very different cultures. It's confusing when you conflate the two.
What the hell are you talking about, raves happen in nightclubs all the time (all over the US too). You are just making up your own definitions now.
Back in the day, there were rave/dance type clubs which were all about the dancing. They'd typically have focused genres of music, well known or regular DJs, etc.
Then there were more generic nightclubs (usually in University towns) which were where people went to either get drunk or hook up. Those would typically not focus much on music (usually playing crowd pleasers, 50s/60s/70s/80s/ tunes etc.), and instead bringing people in with cheap drinks offers, foam parties, fancy dress nights, etc.
Also, as the comments will show you, we have a very negative attitude now towards anyone who wants to hookup with someone they just happened to see in person and tried to initiate with that person. So if that's the response you'll get, why go out? Stay in and play it safe with apps
I dunno about globally but daylight music festivals killed them for me back around 2005. Raves are about staying up all night in a dark room with good friends, good EDM, flashy lights, suggestive clothing and questionable substances. Take away the 'dark room' part and and turf the rest out onto a sports field at 11am and it's ruined.
In the UK a hybrid is increasingly popular. Start the rave at 2pm, end it at midnight, but it's in a dark room so it might as well be 4am. Usually in some semi-temporary space (e.g. Printworks, now defunct and moved to Drumshed).
I agree this loses some of the spirit of the original rave scene, but as an older person now it fits better for me. If the original late-night scene is dying it's because the younger generation doesn't care very much for this kind of night out.
Maybe this is a dumb take, but how much of this is just demographics? Countries are getting older as birth rates decline, so you would expect a decline in things that skew younger in the audiences they attract.
I don't think it's a dumb take at all. It makes sense to me, especially together with housing unaffordability, which affects the disposable income of young people the worst.
Because the author uses Berlin as an example. As a millenial that grew up in Berlin, I just think that the hype about, what used to be alternative, mainstream clubs is flattening. Especially techno and electro clubs. They are just not as great as social media wants you think they are.
People who love the music will go their for the music and will keep going. Social media folks that go there for the drugs and epic party will lose interest, because it's not as epic as they think it is.
Apart from that other alternative clubs are just doing fine (I am going mostly to drum and bass parties). Even though they got less. But I think the club dying there was because of other reasons, not the missing audience
I think it’s health related, as the article mentions.
>One executive in the entertainment industry said younger people were less inclined to go out raving until 6am as they were more health conscious and less frivolous with money than previous generations
This is the same generation that has 12 step skincare routines, eats only organic food, chooses to vape or zyn rather than smoke because of secondhand smoke, everyone has an Apple watch on their wrist tracking calories, etc.
If anything I’m surprised that binge drinking and going out late as survived as long as it has.
And as far as the money comment, this generation is not less frivolous there’s just less money to go around haha.
But most generations before us also didn't have the same awareness about the health risks associated with a lot of those acts unlike younger people today.
And the generation after us will probably think we were dumb about stuff as well (eg. social media, disinfo, Delta9, etc).
There’s some recency bias to that for sure though - silent and greatest generations were not as big on partying like x or the boomers. Of course things like smoking were more common but the heath risks weren’t as well understood.
Having seen this generation at music festivals, I kind of disagree. I feel like the current generation go really hard on drugs.
In Australia, nightclub entry can be expensive, ranging from $20-50 per club. 10 years ago, you’d club hop, maybe going to 3-4 clubs from 11pm until 7am. These days, it’s not worth it. Drinks are like $12-16 for a basic mixed drink. A lot of patrons just drink at home, then drink (free) water and take MDMA and/or ketamine at clubs, which is significantly cheaper than a night of buying drinks.
And Gen-Beta are still shitting their diapers and crying unintelligibly when they don't get their way. An age-period-cohort analysis is appropriate when looking at that sort of data.
> The proportion of club nights running beyond 3am fell in 12 of 15 global cities between 2014 and 2024, according to a Financial Times analysis of events on listings website Resident Advisor.
Club nights are not raves. Raves are (usually) not posted on RA. The underground scene is doing just fine.
You're right, but on the other hand, are we really expecting "Financial Times" get even get "raving" right, or knowing about the underground scene?
The article seems to be written for people who reads a newspaper with their breakfast, not for people who had yet to gone asleep while that person reads their paper.
Well said. I like to imagine some old guy holding the pink FT pages in a London cafe, peering over his reading glasses while egg drips off of his toast onto his pleated houndstooth trousers.
some old guy holding the pink FT pages in a London cafe
Where do you think the people going to those raves in the early 90s ended up? As old guys who now have well paid corporate jobs in the city and read FT.
That guy could probably bore the crap out of today's youth with stories about how raves and music used to "authentic" and how everything today is crap.
Did you read the article? It's mostly about the business of running nightclubs and organising music events. Something that falls cleanly with the interest of the FT and its readers. The headline is just some SEO optimised clickbait to get traffic.
Plus, as I mentioned elsewhere. A non-trivial number of today's FT readers are the same people that were at those original raves in the early 90s.
I did read the article because I was interested in the decline of raves. I unfortunately found an article on something different. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they wanted to draw traffic that would be interested in the article, and thus the mixup was an accident due to not understanding the difference between a nightclub and a rave, though that does call into severe question their knowledge on nightclubs. Alternatively it is possible they knew full well they were trying to get people who were not interested in nightclubs to click on their link, in which case they succeeded. Either way, my point stands.
The FT is actually entertainingly into this sort of stuff.[0]
Honestly my favourite news outlet these days, despite my being well to the left of their editorial staff. I read it mostly for their drum and bass coverage.
Yeah I'm pretty sure the Financial Times editorial board would probably enjoy sending me to an internment camp for ideological reasons but I find their coverage is great when you ignore the slant, which is obvious and tends not to obscure the actual reporting like other papers.
From what I’ve gathered, nowadays, “raving” refers to all legal parties that are posted on RA as well. The biggest difference is, younger people associate specific venues/music as “rave”s, where mainstream music isn’t played, and people are more likely to party in the brains. It’s just the definition has shifted since the 2000s.
I wouldn’t discredit FT writers as well, as I’m assuming they’re writing for a specific audience.
It doesn't feel like that. More that people had a slight preference for above board shows, but with increasing prices, low trust environments from general popularity, and staff that treats you like cattle, more people looking for and enjoying more underground events.
It's sort of like the pressures that lead people to pirate versus streaming service.
I'm not in the club or rave scene - practically the opposite - but it astounds me that the FT thought they could draw useful conclusions about an underground scene by analyzing publicly-posted events on a site named Resident Advisor.
To be fair, RA is /the/ place to post more organized events. Even my local underground spot posts there. (Yes, it's underground, ~20 people show up to the small shows)
Goddamn. I looked them up and there's clearly an ingroup meaning that went over my head. I was hoping for a Meetup competitor that wasn't enshittified on day one.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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-cancell...
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.
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.
I live in France and I saw many night clubs close for reasons I think are unrelated to security. I remembrer an entire street with nothing but night clubs, some of them quite famous, they closed down one after the other, the last one was in 2017 I think.
I lived next to the beach for most of my teens, we had two night clubs, none of them remain, the next town has one that still remains but another one that closed in the early 2000s not to open again, a major electronic music came in its place, incidentally cancelled last year for financial fraud raisons.
Where I live today, I saw one night club close, I think in 2019 (before covid) but I didn't see one open. In fact, I don't remember seeing a night club open since the early 2000s. Plenty of bars, but not night clubs.
These are anecdotal evidence, but that's a lot of anecdotes.
In none of these case I saw a particular event motivating this, I guess it was just not profitable. Also worth noting that most night clubs that are still open tend to get terrible reviews on Google (less than 3/5 on average). It is kind of a meme to complain about nightclubs you go to, especially if you get denied entry, but still, not very encouraging.
No, not in the UK, not enough to be noticeable at least. We have sensible gun laws and so don't generally have mass casualty incidents, and don't panic when we do. (See e.g. the London Bridge van incident and pint guy).
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!
> 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.
Efficient communication of lacking said experience would be met with details provided by someone with experience, not a commentary on efficiency itself. It turns out it is highly inefficient.
Guess what, "rave" isn't a scientific term with a precise definition defined by the IEEE board of standards.
For every raver I know, it means going out dancing to electronic music and usually taking some drugs other than alcohol. It doesnt matter if it starts at 1pm and ends at 1am, or whether it starts at 12am and ends at 5am. The time doesnt matter, legality doesn't matter, and location doesn't matter.
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.
The definition of "rave" is in question here, what it means depends on what country you're from, and even in given countries the idea of "rave" means different things to different people.
For me it means people dancing to electronic music and most likely taking drugs too. It can mean raving in a club or a festival or on the beach in Thailand or in a forest in the UK or in a warehouse in Brooklyn, if there's electronic dance music and drugs, then it's a rave.
Here is what Claude says:
"A rave is a large dance party or festival typically featuring electronic dance music (EDM), characterized by:
Extended duration - often running late into the night or through early morning hours
Electronic music - featuring DJs playing various genres like house, techno, trance, and drum & bass
Distinctive atmosphere - using elements like elaborate light shows, lasers, fog machines, and visual projections
Communal experience - bringing together large groups of people dancing in a shared space"
I cannot comment on the article - it’s paywalled - but I can talk about the claim in the headline.
I can tell from my personal experience that I stopped going because most club shows start earliest at 10 pm, and even then headliner probably goes on at 1, and that’s just not sustainable for me, especially if I wanted to take a risk and see someone I was 50/50 on.
I’m aging, I’m 29, I enjoy the morning a lot more than I used to. It’s just too exhausting. And if the music isn’t perfect, you’re left bored and exhausted. The venues are also way too crowded, drinks are expensive, it’s just not as good of a time as in smaller underground venues.
I’d rather go to a show during the day, or early evening and HAVE and they’ve been GREAT but house and techno acts are compelled to start after midnight, and I will probably never go to one of those again.
I'm in my mid 40s and it's the same problem for me. I can push myself through an all-nighter if the music is really great, but most of the time it isn't, and then it's just tedious waiting around for something better to come on when I know I could go home and buy a couple dozen new tracks on Bandcamp that are exactly to my taste. Sure I wouldn't get to listen to them on a banging sound system or stomp my heart out amongst a couple hundred like-minded nutters, but if I'm honest half the time I'm going wild on the dancefloor these days the rest of the crowd is waiting around for a different style of music than the one I'm particularly into so it's not an especially communal event anyway.
I'm not sure if I have gotten more picky about music than I used to be - I certainly remember getting into ridiculous arguments over sub-sub-subgenres back in the 90s - but when I was younger perhaps I was simply a bit more tolerant of dancing to music that wasn't exactly what I liked? Or maybe I was so full of energy and excitement about going out in the first place that the music wasn't as make-or-break for me back then?
Last year I settled into a routine of going to a small outdoor rave once every few months or so, ones with daytime components so I could join at dawn. The music played at outdoor parties in my area is not exactly my favorite, but at least it's still electronic and because it's less exhausting to dance during my normal waking hours I don't mind so much.
I definitely miss being so sucked into the vibe that I can't pull myself away, but I've just accepted that that's not something you can really get everywhere all the time. In certain cities, at certain times, when there's a big enough local crew whose tastes exactly align with yours, you'll have a magical few years, but then the music changes, the people change, and it'll be another dry spell. I like to think, though, that my dry spells are someone else's peak years. Maybe it all balances out in the end?
It's probably what you've said. I think perception changes, all the different venues and different types of music were once exciting. Then your brain forms the patterns and isn't as excited by x,y and maybe only z elicits a reaction.
Then you become more and more a morning person, so in the evening you aren't even that hyped up and your brain is already trying to call it a night.
For me something like standard 4x4 techno has become so formulaic that it doesnt interest me as much
Yeah it's such a sacrifice. Many of the acts come on at 1am earliest, but usually 3am. That's getting home before 6 if you're lucky and then the whole next day is wasted.
In the two cities either side of me, a large portion of the organised events (on the DnB side at least) seem to be going daytime with a 10pm or 11pm finish on a weekend.
Great fun.
And there's still nighttime ones (also great fun) and illegal ones (which look to also be great fun).
Anyone go to cat head's parties in the early 90's. There were cat's head spray painted on the sidewalk leading to abandoned warehouses on the Brooklyn waterfront. The legend was they were worlwide. Some friend of mine knew to follow them.
call a number on the card, use a phone booth, find the pickup point, 1am-2am was the appointed time, get on a schoolbus with everyone else, go to a warehouse, nobody knows where, dance until sunrise, somehow make it back more alive than you started. it must have worked because we were good people, there's no other explanation.
853 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 369 ms ] threadhttps://archive.is/BdJlM
(Better Watergate photos)
Berlin's famed nightclubs, losing customers, face an uncertain future (300 comments) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38151205
14 years ago - Berlins new techno beat. why international tech startups should move to berlin - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2729524 (Article is gone so not sure if it's a play on techno)
I think the owner of Watergate, felt it was a good time to retire from that anyway, but that isn't the case for the other spaces affected.
This page hasn't been updated in over 6 years but: https://padowatch.noblogs.org/
I realize now from the other responses this was maybe a reference to exploding pagers, which is dependent on (I suppose) the view that raves in Europe are heavily attended by people of middle eastern descent?
That’s not really the “known-as-ravers” crowd here in the US so that reference may have just flown way over my head and I injected the top-of-mind US issue which is drug contamination.
Took a while to work it out though. Why can't people just say what they mean?
I find it kind of despicable that someone would spend the effort to highlight a terrorist attack against a rave, but ignore the background of terrorist attacks against important stuff like schools, hospitals and residences.
(for a chuckle: the wikipedia page for the device begins with "The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is a[n] explosive ...")
Favorite GTA mod: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_GhODn4FRoE
(Tyres from Spaced)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9is5gJORl4
On the other hand real raves don't happen in legal venues. I've partied in warehouses, upscale restaurants, artist studios, roller skating rinks, movie theaters, hotels, apartments. I threw parties on the lightship Nantucket (LV-112), although those were day parties. But none of these events would be factored into the financial times reporting.
Some of the evidence presented by the article is compelling but just don't think they can draw real conclusions about the state of nightlife with such a limited perspective.
But yeah, the decline of the nightlife and hospitality sector is what this article is about, as the regulated rave experience is very mainstream and has been for a long time now
The production value is quite high now and still improving so I don't see why the illicit rave experience would be so interesting when the facilities would be so lacking in comparison. There are lots of electronic dance music events on boats, cruiseliners, retired battleships and more.
Music festivals are bigger than ever though, and they are so frequent and numerous that you can go as frequently as people were going to clubs. I have multiple friend groups where that’s all they do and it is far more intense than just being out passed 3am, although many do officially end their main programming at 1am, many don’t.
But sure you go mass appeal and you get a manufactured mass appeal vibe, which on the scale of rave vibes is a 3 or 4 and the scale is exponential.
If you don't know you don't know but it's worth checking it out if you can.
to me, rave is about PLUR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLUR
"No judgements" is not something I would attribute to legal venues. I mean there are SOOOOOOOO many clubs with dress codes, and that's just scratching the surface.
It is my understanding that rave culture evolved out of the 90's illegal party scene which grew from the 80's acid house music scene. But even if you take it from the Acid Tests that would mean the parties were only legal for a year and have been illegal for nearly 60 years.
To some a rave is just any party, to me it refers to the event being a grassroots operation. For the people, by the people and which is usually done on the cheap because artists aren't usually rolling in dough.
To each their own though. I'm not gonna police your use of the word (unless you publish it apparently).
I swear if you strip away legal pot and LGBTQ rights (not saying those are bad) we have culturally returned to the 1950s. This is a very conservative period with little interest in or tolerance for actual outside-the-lines culture or experience.
I have noticed that after normalizing anything, counterculture areas of California will always have something even more unfamiliar trying to get tolerated and representation
But I don’t see what you’re referring to
I think there is a disinterest in illicit raves because the market has reached parity and beyond for the experience that the market actually enjoyed. If it fails to do that or the illegal raves are better again, I think there is still interest in that, far bigger than whatever was happening in the 90s
Loads of people have commented on these trends. I’m not pointing out anything new, but I do think a lot of people don’t see it because it’s hidden behind a facade of very visible socially liberal movements that garner attention out of proportion to their numbers. These folks do not represent the mean or the median of the culture.
If you are in the Bay Area or LA or really any metro California city that isn’t a deep suburb your experience might be different. These areas have always been more liberal than the average and enduringly so. The SF Bay was where gay people could go back when there was not just a strong taboo but in many cases real persecution.
Edit: with the last election I think the conservative zeitgeist is going to finally crest, and probably inspire a backlash that will start the pendulum going the other way. Things like politics are the lagging end. There’s also a backlash brewing against social media including dating apps, which are one of the drivers for both youth alienation and promulgation of reactionary attitudes. Right wing cultural fear mongering has excellent memetic fitness on social media.
The decline in sexual experience is occurring in California metros too. Its really interesting how the behaviors have shifted and surprising to me. But people are bonding, social, far less exclusionary, inclusive to things they’ve never heard of - unless you’re the wrong star sign, ironically, or political party.
I date 20-somethings, it’s just different than what I see with people I grew up with. I would say chronic anxiety and demisexuality are common, the most notable to me, and drive a lot of these shifts. But the libidos are there, their age-peers don’t know what they’re doing with really offputting habits or aren’t as interested either. I just cant extrapolate a real exclusionary streak from conservative leanings. Your algorithm is just cooked right now.
These things are very different and do not belong in the same list, and I've noticed that when people do put them together, they're often trying to make the point that political party is just another arbitrary inherent attribute like race, rather than a serious reflection of someone's character. Can you explain why you think they belong together?
Just because certain media outlets brainwashed you into thinking that Republican == Nazi (they all backpedaled after the election ended by the way) doesn't mean it's true. Go talk to actual people with blue collar jobs. You'll find that their character is quite all right actually.
I know, you'll have a knee-jerk reaction to the above. Let me illustrate the point. 100% of "white people are oppressors" rhetoric comes from the left. By your logic, no white person should vote Democrat. Ah, but you'll say that not everyone on the left is hung up on this, not everyone is actually an oppressor, and we can all get along. Well, the same point applies to the right and misogynists then, doesn't it?
When we're older, then political affiliation starts reflecting more on a persons character. Then we've all been through (or should have been through) the different situations where politics have a real world impact on our lives that we can understand and relate to.
The chronic anxiety you mention, as well as the pervasive loneliness and depression I observe, seems to indicate a lack of healthy and supportive social bonds.
I can see that there are plenty of other people who would have more difficult doing this by nature of not attracting positive attention and interest by default.
Do we have statistics on sex from the age of opium? (Gen Z is the first smartphone-with-unregulated-social generation.)
Can I push back just a bit. I'm the parent of a teenager and we've had the talk. The kids are alright. When I was a teen I felt everyone felt pressure to be sexually active. While the boys carried the brunt of peer pressure it was the girls who had to deal with the actual fallout. Todays teens are dealing with a lot right now. And my impression is they have a healthier relationship with sex then our generation ever did. Girls have agency, and outside of the social media chucklefucks it's taboo to be serial sexual harasser and be treated with any sort of respect.
But that kind of intersects with my next point. There is this vast number of basically hikikomori out there, not to mention lots of mostly boys with very screwed up images of sex from early and uncritical consumption of porn and “masculinity” grifter bullshit. It’s from among these groups that every sort of toxic authoritarian movement is drawing its support.
There’s a lot more unhealthy antisocial stuff out there, and overall I think it’s worse. It’s become more extreme. There isn’t a middle. Young people are either healthy today or they are fucked.
But a more publicly observable and, obviously, very adjacent indicator is kissing.
Time was, you'd see a lot of people kissing in public. Not just quick ones either. Pretty normal to walk past bars and there'd be a couple (or more than one) making out by the smoking area. Same in bars beyond a certain time of night, same in a lot of city parks. Sometimes even on the subway. Teenagers walking home from nights out or drinking in the park. (Legal here in the UK and not frowned upon like in the US). In the middle of club or festival crowds.
And whether you think that's cool or gross, there's notably less of it around, and that's been a trend for quite some time.
Maybe the 70s through 90s was an anomaly, it would have been heavily frowned upon before that, but something certainly changed in the mid/late 00s.
Like racism?
Whoops, not that kind of outside-the-lines, buddy! We only do the certified kind of transgressions here!
A few reasons:
1. security at official music events are often complete arseholes and can totally destroy the vibe. Think of all the row rent chip on their shoulder wannabe cops, then place them in a field of drunk partying adults with complete power and almost zero oversight (+)
2. Advertising everywhere
3. Massively overpriced food and drink
(+) While I fully understand that once you've got multiple thousands of humans in a field, you do need security, at small illegal raves - say a few hundred people - there's no need and the vibe without feeling like you're being watched is spectacular.
Regarding expense: not everyone is broke. And many people have shifted their budget to exclusively going to music festivals. I know lots of people that scoff at the idea of going to a nightclub or “going out” at all, but praise and prioritize going to music festivals. Even more are on payment plans for festival tickets far in advance, they are confident they can sell them at a premium if they don't go.
I’m just reporting what I’m seeing and applying market dynamics to it.
Given the tension with “wooks” that bum their way to the bigger festivals and have little to support themselves or any integration into society, I see intentional segregation with the current generation of festivals goers that supports an intentional interest in paying a premium for the exclusion it comes with. Event groups found that pool of wealth and demand, and are capitalizing on it to its extreme. But this crowd is really not trying to be around the other budget conscious crowd at the warehouse and barnyard, and there are plenty of good vibes to be had - you just choose which festival has the vibe you like. if one is too fratty for you, or has too many influencers, then you can still go to the “PLUR” one.
On the other hand - saying this as a former tech guy for illegal raves - even in small raves below 100 people in attendance there's so much potential for shit to go seriously wrong. Obviously substance consumption related issues ranging from ODs over contaminants to mixture effect amplifications, that's the most pressing issue, but you also have your fair share of travel accidents aka someone tripping over tree branches, and you will always have a few people (mostly male, but also a few female) who won't understand borders in all possible ways if they're not sober.
Back then a lot of that dark shit was swept under the rug, let us be very clear here. That's the sad price to pay for fly-by-night events without proper security, EMS and whatnot else that is required for licensed events.
As for people not understanding boundaries, small groups of adults, up to a couple of hundred, are generally self policing. I've witnessed a couple of guys being forceably ejected from gatherings, but over the hundred or so I've probably attended in my life (raves I mean) I've only seen this being required a couple of times.
There will always be people attracted to the underground scene where the production value doesn't rank higher than the energy on the dancefloor.
It's good to have both options but they are very different experiences, the mainstream stuff with high production value is a show, it's meant for people who are going to parties to see specific artists and their shows.
That experience is quite opposite of what a good underground rave is, it's much more raw, less concerned about the surface-level showmanship; artists are there to provide a journey to the ones on the dancefloor but not to be the main star, the main star is supposed to be the party itself.
I really enjoy much more the experience of the underground scene, I don't see phones up in the air recording, I don't see people staring at a light show/screens with AV, the experience of getting lost with a crowd of people, all dancing, interacting among each other.
Personally I think it's quite good to have the mainstream scene, it filters out quite a lot of people who wouldn't belong in an underground rave.
I do not find it surprising. When I was younger (college age and soon after), I wanted events to start sooner and late events oftentimes discouraged me. It sucked even at that age. It is one thing to start dancing at 8pm and have endurance till the early morning, because you feel like it and have nothing to do the next day. And something completely different if you have to wait till 1am till the event starts. You get tired and dumber the next day, but the amount of dancing you got in exchange is just lower.
I was not using stimulants or anything like that and frankly, dropping amount of stimulants use among young people would explain larger younger crowd at earlier events.
As a millennial in Belgium, my parties started no earlier than 23:00 and ended at 05:00. But maybe it makes sense that this is disappearing? My parents started partying at 19:00
I was at one a couple of weekends ago, 11pm - 4am.
A good mix of ages too, people clearly in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. Everyone having a great time, I would guess at least 70% of the people were on something too, (MDMA, Ecstasy etc).
(Neither really my scene).
MDMA/molly is usually in crystal/powder form, with the idea that it is more pure.
But how drugs are called on the street and what they are in reality is constantly changing, there are countless myths, and dealers are not exactly a reliable source of information regarding what they sell.
In reality, that's essentially the same thing. If you look at https://www.drugsdata.org/ you will see that it is mostly just MDMA, the form doesn't matter much.
why?
even though MDMA is the real technical name (and Molly + Ecstasy are nicknames), the name "Ecstasy" is kinda misleading because it's usually MDMA mixed with other stuff, and that's not always good...
the name "Molly" has a pure vibe to it. It's like a warm hug from a friend.
Dr. Andrew Huberman said in his video that MDMA is not actually ecstastic, rather it produce warm feelings and promote inner acceptance and peaceful connections with others.
MDMA is typically just that one substance in crystalline powder form.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA#Forms
Drug pro-tip: anything powder is garbage, crack comes in rocks (crack users aren't all that picky though, from beeswax to swiss cheese to chalk, from white as snow to bright yellow, usually off-white, it comes in a variety of appearances and textures and users savor the cut - the most favored stuff is usually not the purest), coke comes in chunks (white, off-white, even yellowish, good quality stuff has a flaky structure and pearlescent shine), heroin comes in chunks (from white to tan to black, occasionally gooey), weed comes in nuggets (but used to come in chunks, maybe still does if reggies/illegal weed still exists in your area), meth is long usually clear crystals, molly is shorter and more cuboid crystals, usually colored (pink, tan/brown, only very rarely clear).
Anyway, regarding the difference between ecstasy and MDMA, from personal experience, I cannot remember a time when the effects were the same. Every time I took a pill, the effect was totally different from MDMA. MDMA provided a more 'pure' experience, whereas with advertised 'ecstasy' pills, I experienced hallucinations, memory loss, and a very heavy hangover.
The demographic is definitely millennial, with maybe ~25% being Gen Z.
It's also definitely not... popular. The biggest nights have a _way_ smaller turnout than college bars or city clubs. I'm not sure how strong the crowd actually was 10-20 years ago, but these clubs aren't in the mainstream appeal. Maybe from lack of marketing, maybe taste+preference.
Like the other person said, house proud is probably my favorite. If you see a tall thin guy likely wearing a sweater and hat, say hey to me!
At the same time, according to the article, it seems that larger one off events or festivals are still very popular. So the kids still want to dance.
I see illegal dance parties in the countryside more than ever
Who's attending these? Is it mainly the old timers or are they attracting a strong following from new generations?
Mostly 20somethings as far as I have seen; invites are word of mouth (aka Whatsapp) and we stumble on them because we hike around a lot and then have a chat. This is during the day when the partygoers are chilling out usually.
Oldtimers are mostly dancing in local bars to small cover bands. Also until the early morning usually and no coke/speed, but just beer/spirits.
I guess since they used "rave", people assume they use the commonly understood definition of the word, not just "dancing at a random dance-club in the city", which I don't think many would consider "raving".
> Who's attending these? Is it mainly the old timers or are they attracting a strong following from new generations?
Here in Spain there is a wide range of folks attending dance parties both the ones in/around big cities, and the ones out on the country-side. Obviously, the ones out on the country-side tend to have a crowd that is more "hippie" for the lack of better words, but otherwise I see all types of ranges and people from different walks of life. Mostly skew around my own age I think though, around 30 or so.
yea, this article has unfortunately fallen foul of the 'headline doesn't match the article' problem. Seems to be a common problem these days when the headline writer is judged by how many clicks their headline gets, rather than if it's actually relevant to the article.
the rent
If a rave is somewhere that your parents go, then it's naff.
It's also extremely expensive if it's legal. Everyone is brassic.
They use the most spurious justifications regarding newer commercial tenants and antisocial behaviour to deny the legacy cultural tenets their ability to operate as a late-night business from a licensing perspective.
(a demographic that includes myself fwiw)
You go see older commercial acts in the harder styles (Mauro Picotto, Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin) and you'll see just how old and how hard those crowds go. The younger crowds tend to go more Business Techno or BoilerRoom madness - Amelie Lens, Charlotte de Witte to FredAgain/Overmono.
That said there is a noticeable difference between the infantilised and hyper-commercial 'PLUR-fest' nonsense in the US - focusing on kandi and costumes last seen in the happy hardcore scene in Europe 30 years ago. It's in stark contrast to the standard European Electronic music festival circuit and dedicated warehouse venues which definitely skew older.
I'd also highlight the average age of a 'raver' in Berlin is about 8 years older than that of a 'US' one. Average age to have a kid in Ireland is about 35. In the US it's 27. That goes a long way towards maintaining a scene!
Here, this isn't an environment to chat someone up in:
https://youtu.be/T14r2dBJzvc?si=5rkQIJx_zuAtsr-B
Raves are and always have been about dancing. The creeps walking around looking for hookups are just that, a bunch of weird creeps that annoy people trying to dance.
Edit: To clarify, it's creepy becaucse a lot of people are on something and pretty vulnerable, they're there to dance and enjoy the music and now some creep is trying to get in their pants while they're rolling and drunk
I don't think that's an appropriate way to frame it.
Don't find romantic partners at raves, that's creepy, people are there to dance.
Don't find romantic partners at night clubs, that's creepy, people are there to dance.
Don't find romantic partners at public places, that's creepy, people don't want to be bothered in public.
Don't find romantic partners among friends, now you're ruining all the friendships.
Do stay locked up inside and try to find romantic partners between advertisements, by swiping on a screen three thousand times. That's more efficient and won't risk you wasting any productive time that you in fact owe to the government, to shareholders and to pensioners. It's actually quite outrageous that some young people are trying to escape their productivity duties and even risk forming long term relationships and having children, which is literally taking food out of the mouths of the elderly. They need your tax dollar, stop wasting time!
There is always someone looking to vibe with a positive-energy person they met that night. Sometimes it leads to more and sometimes you just dance all night, give a big hug, and never see each other again.
A nightclub is a location, a rave is a type of party where electronic DANCE music is played.
The idea of a rave is that people go there to DANCE to the electronic DANCE music. Not to hookup.
(In North America at least) A night club is a particular kind of venue, it's not just a location. It's very distinct from a rave, and they have very different cultures. It's confusing when you conflate the two.
Because the post is about raves. I responded to a comment about nightclubs in a post about raves, its implied then they're talking about raves in nightclubs, what else would they be talking about?
> (In North America at least) A night club is a particular kind of venue, it's not just a location. It's very distinct from a rave, and they have very different cultures. It's confusing when you conflate the two.
What the hell are you talking about, raves happen in nightclubs all the time (all over the US too). You are just making up your own definitions now.
Back in the day, there were rave/dance type clubs which were all about the dancing. They'd typically have focused genres of music, well known or regular DJs, etc.
Then there were more generic nightclubs (usually in University towns) which were where people went to either get drunk or hook up. Those would typically not focus much on music (usually playing crowd pleasers, 50s/60s/70s/80s/ tunes etc.), and instead bringing people in with cheap drinks offers, foam parties, fancy dress nights, etc.
I agree this loses some of the spirit of the original rave scene, but as an older person now it fits better for me. If the original late-night scene is dying it's because the younger generation doesn't care very much for this kind of night out.
People who love the music will go their for the music and will keep going. Social media folks that go there for the drugs and epic party will lose interest, because it's not as epic as they think it is.
Apart from that other alternative clubs are just doing fine (I am going mostly to drum and bass parties). Even though they got less. But I think the club dying there was because of other reasons, not the missing audience
>One executive in the entertainment industry said younger people were less inclined to go out raving until 6am as they were more health conscious and less frivolous with money than previous generations
This is the same generation that has 12 step skincare routines, eats only organic food, chooses to vape or zyn rather than smoke because of secondhand smoke, everyone has an Apple watch on their wrist tracking calories, etc.
If anything I’m surprised that binge drinking and going out late as survived as long as it has.
And as far as the money comment, this generation is not less frivolous there’s just less money to go around haha.
There's nothing wrong with it (quite the opposite), but keep in mind that this is not a normal thing. Most generations didn't act like this.
And the generation after us will probably think we were dumb about stuff as well (eg. social media, disinfo, Delta9, etc).
In Australia, nightclub entry can be expensive, ranging from $20-50 per club. 10 years ago, you’d club hop, maybe going to 3-4 clubs from 11pm until 7am. These days, it’s not worth it. Drinks are like $12-16 for a basic mixed drink. A lot of patrons just drink at home, then drink (free) water and take MDMA and/or ketamine at clubs, which is significantly cheaper than a night of buying drinks.
Club nights are not raves. Raves are (usually) not posted on RA. The underground scene is doing just fine.
The article seems to be written for people who reads a newspaper with their breakfast, not for people who had yet to gone asleep while that person reads their paper.
Where do you think the people going to those raves in the early 90s ended up? As old guys who now have well paid corporate jobs in the city and read FT.
That guy could probably bore the crap out of today's youth with stories about how raves and music used to "authentic" and how everything today is crap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBuTTz1-IQU
Well, yes, it's just another kind of "underground scene", you know, the ones on private islands.
Plus, as I mentioned elsewhere. A non-trivial number of today's FT readers are the same people that were at those original raves in the early 90s.
Honestly my favourite news outlet these days, despite my being well to the left of their editorial staff. I read it mostly for their drum and bass coverage.
[^0] See https://www.ft.com/content/7796593c-08ac-485c-afe9-a45ac2c28... or https://www.ft.com/content/084bab07-c5cf-4b25-ba7d-769af6b42..., but there's loads.
Brilliant. I love this on 174 different levels.
https://www.ft.com/content/09f792fc-5548-11e4-89e8-00144feab...
I wouldn’t discredit FT writers as well, as I’m assuming they’re writing for a specific audience.
It's sort of like the pressures that lead people to pirate versus streaming service.
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.
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.
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-cancell...
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.
These are anecdotal evidence, but that's a lot of anecdotes.
In none of these case I saw a particular event motivating this, I guess it was just not profitable. Also worth noting that most night clubs that are still open tend to get terrible reviews on Google (less than 3/5 on average). It is kind of a meme to complain about nightclubs you go to, especially if you get denied entry, but still, not very encouraging.
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!
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.
This is a very efficient way to communicate that you don’t have experience with raves and/or clubs.
Raves usually start about then.
They are not remotely the same thing.
For every raver I know, it means going out dancing to electronic music and usually taking some drugs other than alcohol. It doesnt matter if it starts at 1pm and ends at 1am, or whether it starts at 12am and ends at 5am. The time doesnt matter, legality doesn't matter, and location doesn't matter.
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.
For me it means people dancing to electronic music and most likely taking drugs too. It can mean raving in a club or a festival or on the beach in Thailand or in a forest in the UK or in a warehouse in Brooklyn, if there's electronic dance music and drugs, then it's a rave.
Here is what Claude says: "A rave is a large dance party or festival typically featuring electronic dance music (EDM), characterized by: Extended duration - often running late into the night or through early morning hours Electronic music - featuring DJs playing various genres like house, techno, trance, and drum & bass Distinctive atmosphere - using elements like elaborate light shows, lasers, fog machines, and visual projections Communal experience - bringing together large groups of people dancing in a shared space"
I can tell from my personal experience that I stopped going because most club shows start earliest at 10 pm, and even then headliner probably goes on at 1, and that’s just not sustainable for me, especially if I wanted to take a risk and see someone I was 50/50 on.
I’m aging, I’m 29, I enjoy the morning a lot more than I used to. It’s just too exhausting. And if the music isn’t perfect, you’re left bored and exhausted. The venues are also way too crowded, drinks are expensive, it’s just not as good of a time as in smaller underground venues.
I’d rather go to a show during the day, or early evening and HAVE and they’ve been GREAT but house and techno acts are compelled to start after midnight, and I will probably never go to one of those again.
I'm not sure if I have gotten more picky about music than I used to be - I certainly remember getting into ridiculous arguments over sub-sub-subgenres back in the 90s - but when I was younger perhaps I was simply a bit more tolerant of dancing to music that wasn't exactly what I liked? Or maybe I was so full of energy and excitement about going out in the first place that the music wasn't as make-or-break for me back then?
Last year I settled into a routine of going to a small outdoor rave once every few months or so, ones with daytime components so I could join at dawn. The music played at outdoor parties in my area is not exactly my favorite, but at least it's still electronic and because it's less exhausting to dance during my normal waking hours I don't mind so much.
I definitely miss being so sucked into the vibe that I can't pull myself away, but I've just accepted that that's not something you can really get everywhere all the time. In certain cities, at certain times, when there's a big enough local crew whose tastes exactly align with yours, you'll have a magical few years, but then the music changes, the people change, and it'll be another dry spell. I like to think, though, that my dry spells are someone else's peak years. Maybe it all balances out in the end?
Then you become more and more a morning person, so in the evening you aren't even that hyped up and your brain is already trying to call it a night.
For me something like standard 4x4 techno has become so formulaic that it doesnt interest me as much
Non paywalled link
Great fun.
And there's still nighttime ones (also great fun) and illegal ones (which look to also be great fun).
The demographic that has that energy are also the ones that skip on a cover charge as much as possible and pregame