Our main goal at Keep Hush is to Back the Underground - supporting the dance music scene.

We do this by platforming artists, collectives, labels, creating content through livestreams, editorials, newsletters and more. During the pandemic, everyone realised that once you take away nightlife, every aspect of the dance music scene is at risk of collapsing. For us, the lack of nights heavily impacted our abilities to carry out our mission and maintain the high energy levels required to effectively platform and support the underground scene. 

Although nightclubs have re-opened, this “pandemic mindset” has continued. Event promoters and even household name festivals  are struggling to shift tickets - and when they do, it’s more last minute than ever.  

For months, our team has been trying to crack the code of today’s raver - with little success. After realising that we weren’t the only ones scratching our heads, there was only one way to find out what was really going on - by asking our community. 

We were overwhelmed to receive 1,165 responses to our ‘U Going Out?’ survey. After trawling through spreadsheets of results we’ve uncovered 6 key takeaways and reflected on them as a team. 

1. Both Gen-Z and Non Gen-Z report they are less interested in clubbing following the pandemic.

It was found that the anecdotal reasons for this were “can’t convince mates” and “prefer staying in”. Both hint towards the ‘early retirement theory’ - meaning, the pandemic has brought on an earlier exit from clubbing within the scene. The closure of clubs and social places for a significant amount of time would undoubtedly have an impact on partying habits - with people chilling at their mates’ houses and even moving away from these types of social activities as a whole. 

Putting this into perspective, it is fair to say that an anxiety and uncertainty around the reopening of spaces was a very common feeling amongst the team and friends in general - so a shift in post-pandemic attitudes makes a lot of sense .   

The interesting question here is, are these people done with clubbing for good? Or does a change in some part of the clubbing / partying formula need to happen? 

2. Both Gen Z and non-Gen Z cited being less interested in drink and drugs as the top reason for going out less. Clubbing being less financially viable was more of a concern for Gen Z. 

It was particularly interesting to us that both age groups are less interested in drinking and drugs. 

Thinking of this in relation to the previous point and the forced shift in location, it is likely that less interest in d&d and going out less are having a simultaneous effect on each other. People are going out less because they are less interested in d&d AND people are less interested in d&d because they have been going out less. This makes it hard to understand which factor is affecting the other - how closely do people within the scene / our community associate d&d with clubbing - are they mutually exclusive?  

Lockdown may have impacted recreational habits amongst individuals and groups that were less likely to engage in d&d outside of ‘club spaces’. Now that clubs have reopened, the appeal of d&d in the club may have been lost for some people. It is equally possible that during lockdown people have become more health conscious and don't seek out the spaces that they associate with d&d anymore. 

This said, assuming d&d to be the primary factor that influences members of our community to go out seems pretty unfair. Associating underground culture with a d&d lifestyle is a damaging narrative. We’ve seen the dedicated music heads that come to our events - so are there other factors driving this effect?  

3. Everyone says they are less likely to buy tickets in advance now, compared to before the pandemic.

24% of Gen Z and 31% of non-Gen Z said that they are less likely to buy tickets in advance after the pandemic.

The team’s explanation for this is that people are less organised and more spontaneous after the pandemic - this is supported by responses to other parts of the survey. We’ve seen this happening across events for example; livestreams selling the majority of tickets on the event day or people buying last-minute festival tickets on ticketswap. 

Two factors could be at play here;

1. Again, a shift in partying and socialising habits during lockdown has shifted peoples focus away from events in these spaces. So, doing promo months in advance is going to have no impact on a group of mates that only buy tickets when they are a few drinks down, looking for a Friday night motive.

2. Another shift in habits could have happened as a result of the prolongement of lockdown and endless postponement of events. Particularly during summer last year, festivals and events such as Houghton & Dekmantel had to cancel at the last minute - so to avoid disappointment it may have become the norm to spontaneously buy tickets.

The knock-on effects of the pandemic may be something that continues to happen for the foreseeable future - so could there be a way for organisers to guarantee ticket buyers security as a way to ensure advance ticket sales? 

4.  Gen Z and non-Gen Z gave extremely similar reasons for enjoying club nights.   Both said that listening to music they like in the club was their top reason, with “getting lit” being slightly more important to Gen Z.

It’s interesting that both age groups gave similar reasons for enjoying club nights.

Particularly encouraging is the fact that music is the driving force behind people’s enjoyment - especially for promoters like us who put this factor above all else. 

Possible explanations for Gen Z valuing “getting lit” above non-Gen Z could include; older generations feeling more health conscious post-pandemic with a ‘been there done that’ type attitude, compared to Gen Z who may have not yet experienced letting loose in the club. 

So should organisers be playing it safe and focusing on putting together lineups for their known audience, as opposed to putting forward fresh curation ideas to challenge and incorporate a wider audience? 

As a company that aims to platform & push forward new talent, this type of approach seems damaging to the scene - a balance should be found between playing it safe to allow for sales and continuing to facilitate the development of newer scenes.   

5. Going with mates was the top reason why Gen Z picked an event, whereas non-Gen Z cared more about going to a good venue.  

Hard to speculate on this one but initial thoughts from the team centred around the different ways in which generational communities have formed. For Gen Z, whose ‘coming of age’ in the clubbing sphere coincided with the pandemic, it is more likely that their dance communities were built around their mates. Gen Z were meeting people at university with similar tastes and rather than being able to go out and explore this, were forced to build communities whilst hanging out at their mates’ houses. 

As opposed to the older generation, who experienced spaces like The End and Plastic People around which their communities were built. This would make sense as to why Gen Z have put more of an emphasis on clubbing with their mates/ community, compared to non-Gen Z that associate a good venue with pushing forward their dance music communities. 

6. Despite a cost of living crisis, “cheap tickets” ranked last for both demographics when deciding what events to attend. 

This is surprising but also encouraging. Despite the general consensus that inflation is having a huge effect on people’s habits, it seems that punters are willing to pay a fair price for the right event. An interesting insight from @dnbillustrated was that as a millennial they could relate to the point above in “factoring a good venue over a less favourable one”. As well as being more willing to spend on nights that they know they will enjoy. They stated that lockdown shifted their mindset to “lifes too short” to spend precious funds on a night they’re not fully invested in. This could explain that despite ticket bundles converting some ticket buyers, the majority would rather save up and put their money towards events that they really value. Once again this poses the question to promoters - should the focus be on tailoring events to audiences and communities? Or is there a more sustainable method in which an open, yet balanced dialogue could exist meeting the needs of both the punter and promoter?