In recent years, club closures in many parts of the world have been a near constant. But amid this turmoil, a promising new type of venue has emerged.
Listen to this article written by Bridge contributor Alice Austin
In recent years, it’s felt like the club community has been constantly losing beloved venues. There’s a literal gravestone outside Watergate in Berlin; South London’s Corsica Studios is now shuttered, broken hearts scattered in its wake; Manchester has lost multiple key institutions this year and is about to lose one more when Salford’s legendary underground music and arts venue The White Hotel closes in January 2027.
According to data from the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) Fourth Electronic Music Industry Report, the UK, for example, has lost over 35% of its total nightclubs since March 2020, averaging around three closures per week. You’d be forgiven for thinking the outlook is bleak.
But amid this turmoil, a new kind of venue has emerged. It’s hybrid, multi-purpose, and it’s open day and night. They aren’t “clubs” in the traditional sense; many of them are cafés and co-working spaces by day. Some have in-house radio stations, others have recording studios and gallery spaces. All of them have a cohesive sense of community.
You’ll find vintage clothing markets on cold winter mornings, or barbecues and tunes on Saturdays in spring. And, of course, these venues serve a crucial purpose after sundown, hosting local and international headliners until the early hours.
With multiple revenue streams and strong communities at their core, these venues aren’t just surviving. They’re spearheading a new, alternative model for nightlife.
With some exceptions, most major cities have experienced a decline in their nighttime economy in recent years. COVID was the clear catalyst, with lockdowns forcing many venues to close, never to reopen. That disaster was closely followed by wars in Europe and the Middle East, which increased operating costs across the board. It’s become more expensive for a venue simply to open its doors, and with clientele also feeling the squeeze, they’re less inclined to walk through those doors.
In the UK, business rates for venues increased on April 1, 2026, coinciding with the removal of previous pandemic-era tax discounts. It meant that many venues faced sharp bill increases, averaging up to 52% for some small firms. The sudden jump squeezed profit margins for already struggling venues, saddling them with high energy costs, minimum wage rises, and general inflation.
Then there’s the shift in habits. People are reportedly drinking less alcohol, with many young folk choosing to spend money on health and wellness over weekend-long benders. On top of that, people are less inclined to buy club tickets in advance, deciding last-minute over planning in advance. That makes it much harder for promoters to forecast success, and does nothing to help their stress levels.
Michael Kill, CEO of the NTIA, said there’s another element to take into account when considering the traditional night club model: the experience.
“Value for money has become a real focus,” he said. “If you’ve only got 10 pounds, you want more for your tenner. So I think the challenge is how to progress from normal, traditional spaces—bars or venues—towards something a little bit more innovative.”
Kill said he’s noticed a sharp uptick in promoter-first events in unusual spaces, known as the pop-up rave. “People want to know where an event is happening,” he explained. “Is it on an airbase, or in an abandoned warehouse? People are looking for more than just a commercially accessible space to enjoy a night of culture or social engagement.”
One way to offer more value is through community. As habits change, people are looking for ways to socialise outside of alcohol-heavy club spaces, while remaining connected to grassroots culture. Although traditional club spaces and cult club nights once attracted the same crowd every week, the current economy makes it harder to sustain the consistent footfall needed to build that cohesion.
Relying on Friday and Saturday night to make all the money needed to keep a business ticking along is no longer realistic. Increasingly, venues are opening their doors throughout the week, and in the day time, to keep on top of costs.
“The traditional nightclub is evolving,” Kill said. “Venues and club spaces are utilising three different dynamics: day, evening, and late night, and that versatility is part of the evolution.”
That’s why increasing numbers of collectives around the world are coming up with their own models, not just meeting these changing needs but building on the premise. Many adapt their model to the landscape of the city, coming up with imaginative ways to nourish people’s lives. These venues are en route to transforming our relationship with grassroots culture permanently.
From the outside, Movers in Nottingham looks like your usual UK high street bar or club space. But step inside and you’ll find it’s so much more than that. If it’s mid-afternoon, there’ll be students working on laptops and baristas serving cappuccinos. If it’s early evening, you might find a neo-funk jazz band playing a live set in the club room; and if it’s a Saturday night you might be transported back to 2006, thanks to FLINTA-led collective Electro Clash’s roster of indie-dance DJs, who refuse to take themselves too seriously.
“Their tagline is ‘dancing with attitude,’” says Movers’ owner and director Felix Coulton. “A lot of the DJs have only really been playing for a maximum of one or two years, so the energy they bring is liberating. They might not know the rulebook yet, so you get these unpredictable moments that you might not get with a really experienced DJ.”
That’s a decent summary of what Movers is about. With the massive rise in DJ fees and flight costs, they prioritise local talent over international names. This has the handy side effect of establishing community, careers, and a loyal following.
Coulton’s concept started in 2021 as Swing Dash, a practice studio and alternative to Pirate Studios in Nottingham. They added live-streaming capabilities to the space via a community radio station, and in 2025 expanded the concept to become Movers. The goal was to create a new hub for Nottingham’s grassroots music community, champion local talent, and showcase a diverse range of excellent music across multiple genres.
“We’re trying to create a safe space that’s accessible and inclusive,” Felix said. “It’s not a dark and dingy nightclub. The dance floor’s a bit lighter but still immersive, and it’s not just for people within the dance music scene. We try to reach broader audiences, and be inclusive with the demographics we engage.”
That’s why the venue closes at midnight. “We find it’s a lot more friendly for people who want to wake up in the morning,” Felix continued. “Whether they’ve got work or want to go for a run or have breakfast with a friend. They might have kids. It’s basically a way of making nights out more accessible for those people.”
In a world where time is a scarce resource, Movers has come up with a way to throw great nights out that don’t eat up the rest of the weekend.
It’s a model that works well for them, but over stateside, Queer Nightlife Community Center (QNCC) have gone the other way, often throwing club nights that last all weekend.
Michael Falco is the Executive Director and co-founder of QNCC, apparently the only queer-led, multi-purpose, day-to-nightlife community space in the US. He thought that nightlife in New York City is following a different trend compared to the UK. “A lot of clubs have been opening,” he said. “We’re in this moment where people really want to find that connection and that sense of belonging, and I think New York is working hard to position itself to be hospitable to nightlife.”
Falco said club culture in NYC is currently experiencing strong institutional support, particularly through the city’s Office of Nightlife, which helps venues navigate issues with police and local residents.
“Some smaller clubs are struggling, because the margins are really tough,” he said. “But there is an audience, so I think it’s the question of affordability.”
And QNCC asks: why stop at nightlife when they can serve their community all day?
You’ll find QNCC in a sprawling multi-story warehouse complex. The space fulfils multiple purposes depending what time you rock up. It’s New York City’s first community centre dedicated to queer and transgender nightlife workers, artists, and local communities, and functions as a hybrid daytime resource hub, nightclub, and performance space.
Hours are event-dependent, opening for specific community sessions, presentations, and workshops at around 2 PM some days. Nightlife events, including their signature Office Hours club nights, typically run from 10 PM to 6 AM, while their extended Slambient marathons on specific weekends run continuously for up to 21 hours across multiple storeys and rooms.
“For these events, the majority of our audience arrives around 6 AM or 7 AM,” Michael said. “People will have a normal night. They’ll go to bed. They’ll eat dinner, wake up, walk their dog. Then they’ll roll into an event and stick around for four or five hours and treat it like they went to the gym or something. They go home and don’t feel like they’ve missed a night of sleep.”
Michael understands that people don’t return to QNCC because of DJs alone; they return because they’ll see their friends, or they’ve signed up to volunteer, or their favourite drag king is giving a workshop. QNCC isn’t just a place to dance but a place to learn and develop your artistry. Historically, club nights sold out based on their line-ups; QNCC’s club nights sell out because they’ve built an ecosystem rooted in solidarity, community and vibes.
Another shining example of this model is Bethlehem’s Wonder Cabinet, one of Palestine’s cultural triumphs. Built on a hilltop overlooking the Karkafeh valley by architects Elias and Yousef Anastas, the brutalist building is home to a restaurant run by visiting chefs, a shop selling local products, an artist studio and showroom, a small cinema for community screenings, and Radio Alhara, a station that champions Palestinian and global artistry.
Wonder Cabinet is a space for communal and experimental learning, where local artists develop, and where international visitors can share their skills and foster connections with a geographically isolated community.
“We opened at the end of May in 2023, and the idea of the practice was to push idea exchanges and work in a cross-disciplinary formulation,” said Elias. “So Wonder Cabinet brings people from Palestine and abroad together to explore new forms of knowledge transmission and production, whether through music, food, design or carpentry.”
Since opening, Wonder Cabinet has succeeded in engaging with people around the world to enrich Palestinian culture. “International artists often observe Palestine from afar, but we want them to come here and produce from inside Palestine instead,” said Elias. That’s why they host residencies for local and international artists, helping strengthen ties internationally. Wonder Cabinet regularly exchanges airwaves with NTS, Refuge Worldwide, Soho Radio, and other stations across the Middle East.
“Our focus is very much local,” Elias explained. “Trying to foster transformation in the neighbourhood and question how we can collectively use the space to serve as an experimental model.”
Although each culture has its own character, the traditional nightclub model looks remarkably similar across borders. Techno clubs in Berlin might resemble a techno club anywhere else in the world. But multi-purpose venues tend to reflect and serve the needs of the local population, making them unique to their geography.
For example, Recyclart in Brussels, is located in Molenbeek, one of the city’s most diverse and culturally vibrant neighbourhoods, with a large immigrant population and a strong grassroots community network. Recyclart works directly with their neighbours through free bread-baking sessions, creative workshops for local children, and participatory arts projects exploring the relationship between residents, architecture, and the city. They also run employment and training programmes through its workshops and restaurant, supporting people who face barriers to entering the labour market. They combine their club nights with vocational training, affordable workshops, community meals, and local cultural programming, reflecting the city’s and neighbourhood’s multilingual, multicultural identity.
90 Mil in Berlin is another example. They centre grassroots and marginalised creative communities, including Latinx, Black, queer, FLINTA and international artists. They blend club culture with migrant-led discussions, exhibitions, film screenings, and cross-border cultural exchange.
Open Ground in Wuppertal responds to the city’s industrial heritage by combining a world-class listening room with artist residencies, research, education and long-form experimental music programming that couldn’t exist in a conventional nightclub.
EXIT in Glasgow, firmly rooted in the city’s grassroots music ecology, combines club events with artist development, workshops, affordable rehearsal space and community-led programmes that are shaped by the city’s independent creative scene. Their tagline is “not here forever,” capturing their belief that grassroots spaces should evolve with the communities they serve, rather than existing for their own sake.
Then there’s Sister Midnight in Catford, Lewisham, which is foucused on the needs of the area. Launched in 2021 by Lenny Watson, Sophie Farrell, and Lottie Pendlebury, what started as a grassroots record shop and venue in Deptford will soon become a sprawling, multi-purpose venue, cooperative, radio station, bar, café, and studio.
“Catford hasn’t really had the investment or care that it should over the last couple of decades,” Watson said. “From people that we’re speaking to, the community are really desperate for something exciting that’s theirs. Everyone is really craving that.”
Lewisham Council gave Sister Midnight a dilapidated 1880s social club called the Brookdale Club on a ten-year rent-free lease. They’ve spent the last five years raising a target of £500,000 to revamp the space, and plan to open it this year.
“The act of opening a space, putting on music, and allowing people to come is, in itself, enough,” Watson said. “It can be a really political act, but I think we’re in a time where the economics of just being a space that opens for a few hours on a Friday and Saturday night no longer stacks up in this climate.”
Instead, Sister Midnight aims to build a sustainable future, funded through a mixture of revenue streams and grants. Their community is expansive and the renovation has called on their wide range of skills sets, creating a robust sense of camaraderie. You’re more likely to spend time in a venue if you literally helped build it.
Just like Movers in Nottingham, safety is a high priority. That’s why they’re on a high street, and don’t close too late. Visitors can get home safely without having to walk through dark or isolated areas late at night.
If these venues are responding directly to the needs of their community, then they aren’t necessarily replacing the traditional night club model but filling the gaps.
NTIA’s Michael Kill said that this upward trend in multipurpose venues is redefining club spaces. “We did a survey of 2,000 18 to 30 year-olds some months back, and we asked them what would make you go out later, and what would make you go out more frequently,” Kill said. “And three answers came back: more money in their pocket, feeling safer, particularly women after midnight, and the last one was just a guarantee of being able to get home.”
In other words, three simple requests that many of these multi-purpose models address.
People want nightlife to fit into everyday life, rather than disrupt it. A place to make friends, spend time during the day, develop skills, expand horizons, and experience world-class artists and music, both local and international. And by becoming open-ended community spaces that people grow to love and rely on, their future is inherently more sustainable.
Text: Alice Austin
