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Friday, February 10, 2012
Discussion: nightlife during hard times
by Ben Ilfeld, published on January 12, 2009 at 4:14 AM
Storyline: All the rest
The other day I was talking with some friends who were concerned about new nightclubs being planned in Sacramento. One of us remarked that we may crossed a line with too many "top 40 playing" nightclubs and not enough patrons.
Many current restaurant and nightclub owners are already concerned that we have reached our limit.
On The Sacramento Press there has been plenty of discussion about nightlife in the central city: here, here, and here.
Many local residents in conversations on the site point out that diversity is the real problem. Nightlife should not mean the same club, the same music, more and more alcohol. Perhaps we have reached the limit for one kind of nightlife but not another?
Two years ago I used to go to nightclubs often and then my friends and I joked that everyone at the club was in real estate. I wonder if this current economic downturn really affected this demographic and others. Is the market for big spenders at clubs down? Clubs make a lot of money on a few key customers willing to buy bottle service (it always makes me think of baby bottles for some reason). Could it be that the demographic for the club-goer market is just as large, but not living as large?
Of course, I am really interested in the idea that the nightlife market has a limit and that we have exceeded that limit. I may start looking into what local business owners think. For now I want to pose the question again on this forum. Is there a limit? Have we reached it?
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At least in theory, there are few limits to what kind of activities one could do at night. Personally I'm still somewhat in mourning for Tower Records and being able to record shop at 11:00 should I get the urge. But a lot depends on the level of foot traffic needed to encourage business to stay open late, and a community's willingness to tolerate the noise, traffic and other problems that can come with lots of late-night activity--and ability to mitigate those problems. We could certainly use more diversity in evening and night-time events, including more venues that cater to non-drinkers, the under 21 crowd, and families.