'Hope' after Covid, what do you think will happen?

I wonder what the world will look like for going out, club spaces, music and the general culture surrounding these pursuits ? I would be hopeful that things are going to be very free-form and creative with the need to be out and about amongst each other in what we know as the ‘hopeful future’. Clubs look at high risk at the moment, if not there where else could these spaces be created ?

Some of the business executives on mainstream news are expecting an influx of spending, life enhancement through travel and good old fashioned capitalism. I am still unsure and do not have an economics qualification to predict these things but are you seeing/feeling or believing in anything different for the future ? Good or bad ?

In terms of clubs / parties etc when this first happened last year and we went into lockdown, I thought a big reset was inevitable and that when venues were allowed to open again there would be a shift towards local crews being given more opportunity to put on their own things instead of having to invite / rely on ‘DJ big bollocks’ to put bums on seats. Now I’m not so sure, there’s too much money involved for those at the top table and I suspect a return to the status quo. I hope I’m wrong though :slight_smile:

One thing I do know though, when venues can re-open and parties can happen properly without social distancing the energy is gonna be off the fucking chain.

I’m of the mind set that it’s going to be 50/50-

I know that major artists are starting to book tours and dates via the mega promoters like Livenation, MSG entertainment etc but I can also FEEL a groundswell of more diy stuff coming too. Every third person I talk to is considering opening a venue a bar whatever.

Proof of vaccination is going to be a must everywhere but I’m hoping that post covid Nyc might leave the bottle service or bushwick dichotomy behind in favor of something a little more interesting.

I’m planning on starting a loft for friends with families- no drugs, a bouncy castle and kid friendly hours.

To cross pollinate threads, in the words of a song that I have loved forever “I wanna see all my friends at once.”

Bushwick Dichotomy ? I stayed there for a week last year, interesting neighbourhood.

A loft in NYC, do they even exist without having to pay for the equivalent of a small country ?

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The dichotomy here has been the choice between partying in bushwick with people half your age or going to a horrible bottle service club with sparklers and “waiting for the drop” or whatever. I’m hoping the burst of pent up creativity and lower rents leads to a return of the endless variety of options I grew up with.

As for lofts, I would just rent a place by the day but yeah there are still some neighborhoods out here with affordable lofts especially if you have access to an automobile.

Ps- bushwick sucks :man_shrugging:t2:

I liked the area, the Air BnB host had been there for about 20 years and kept referring to the places I went to as ‘new Bushwick’ or ‘old Bushwick’. I was on Knickerbocker, it was fairly quiet when the shops closed but the Salsa music at the weekend was excellent, particularly on Labour Day.

A crazy place even by the standards of the 70s-90s. My homie lived in a barn with not one other house on his block.

New bushwick is every post gentrification post college playground in America. They’ve all merged into a unitary whole of track bicycles and hot yoga. Just not for me. I find it uninteresting to “be different the same” as all your neighbors.

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I think there’s a difference between clubbing and raving - clubbing is getting done up to look nice, go to a smart place on the high street, hear some songs with words you know, maybe pull, get a kebab for the taxi home, all because it’s Becky’s birthday or whatever. Whereas raving is being into the music and the culture - basically, the type of person who knows and cares who is actually DJing. They’re very different pastimes but they’re very easily conflated - a lot of people claim to like clubbing but they would never set foot in a venue playing house and techno.

I think raving will come back, but I think clubbing will really struggle. The younger folk I know through work etc, they already prefer to drink and party at home. It’s cheaper and they can control the music themselves on Youtube with an aux cable. The idea of snogging a stranger in a nightclub in the post-covid world isn’t appealing. They’re hyper-aware of their presence online - not being on social media pictured drinking or ending up in a “hilarious” viral Snapchat. They want to look good for Instagram and, let’s be honest, two-day long benders just aren’t conducive to that.

I’m not saying all 18-yr-olds are only into clubbing - of course there’s plenty of them out there who love dance music and raving culture etc. But I think that venues will need to become destinations, rather than take for granted a steady stream of young people ready to get drunk, because between post-covid fears and the ways the digital revolution has changed them, the appeal will be limited. To become destinations they’ll need to offer something worthwhile - quality music and DJs, value for money, etc.

The audience for a raving nightclub experience will be committed and keen but I think it will be harder to convince “casuals” to come through the door. So I think venues will struggle but the atmosphere in the ones that survive will become better, because it will be necessary for them to do so.

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not sure how much difference covid will make to the wider festivalisation of the scene (which imo has been a catastrophe for the art of DJing and dancing). then again, for the generations that don’t get out so much anymore, summer boutique festies are probably the only option where people are likely to put the effort in anyway or early doors listening bars. but bona fide clubs? forget it. it’s all shifted to daytime or adhoc things. maybe I’m out the loop, everything I knew as recently as 10 years ago, no longer exists. I try to support the local scene where I live albeit hit hard by sound limiters, red tape, competition from the corporates and people not going out so much, all had a negative effect so we try and get across to IBZ for pikes or whatever but it’s one-offs instead of a scene now.

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I played in Bushwick a couple of years ago. Or was it Greenpoint. Totally booked for the wrong party, some horrible ketty after hours thing. They wanted hard, bland tech house. I tried playing the hardest stuff I had with me, Craig Craig remixes and such. Still didnt go down well, ha. I thought that black t shirt techy scene was mostly European, I was so disappointed to find out it was a thing in NYC too

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My only say on this nothing good will happen for clubbing / raving or whatever you call it with all these rules and regulations. I for one don’t care if I never see another country again, I won’t be getting a Vaxport or any of that crap I’ve read on other sites… Its like people think we get the jab straight down to travel agent and book our 2 weeks in the sun… Sorry but that ain’t happening as for big clubbing destinations openings and festivals they are going to suffer hard… Hometown heroes and clubs it’s their time to shine and let DJ rocket pant disappear to another planet or back up his own arse

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I really really hope 3 things happen:

  1. More people appreciating their local scene, particularly away from the big hubs. Would be nice if Clubs managed to come back to being important cultural venues, not just social.

  2. Less festivals, more residencies. I definitely think that’s going to happen here in Brazil, as the exchange rate makes bringing others over and paying them very very very expensive. 90% of the time it was being done was relatively unnecessary. Big festival-like lineups and parties will make less and less sense, and too risky money-wise. Best to have a good lineup in a smaller room year-round, and at least here there are plenty of local DJ’s to make that happen.

  3. More long sets!! As in 6h long. This is a bit of a result of the previous 2. 2h sets became the norm after lineups got unnecessarily large. Longer sets will definitely make for more interesting parties.

This is all assuming (and I do) that we will all be able to share packed dancefloors again…

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Summer 2022 everything will go back to normal if there is not a twist in this film, like a new deadly strain.

And people will go mental, human nature

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Agree. A lot of professions are spending considerable amounts of time theorising on a potential new reality and how we might adapt. Cataclysmic events are easily forgotten.

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It is obvious that things like working from home are here to stay and it makes sense but the rest as soon as the risk is gone everything will go back to normal, pubs, clubs, shops …

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Will COVID-19 be remembered in history?

It’s too early to know if we’ll remember this one, but the precedents suggest we won’t. There were two other flu pandemics in the 20th Century: the 1957 Asian flu and the 1968 Hong Kong flu. They killed about 2 million and 4 million people, respectively. We are nowhere near those numbers yet and yet we don’t compare this pandemic to them. We immediately head for the enormous one in 1918, which is strange in itself. But they were much worse than this one to date, and we don’t remember them

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As someone who lives in a country where the lockdown has pretty much been over for a few months(Australia, NSW). I really don’t see any real difference from before. There was a real “get back to normal” feeling going on just out of lockdown. We still have some number limitations etc, as we are processing returning nationals from overseas, but everything seems to be heading along like before lockdown.

I’m sure there are subtle changes, but in general things are going back to the way they were slowly.

My feelings are that the majority of people just want to put it all behind them and go back to the way things were. I’m sure this will differ from place to place, but that’s how I see things down here.

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There is some sort of opportunity then ? Some good points made.

I’ve got friends who have DJ’d in a few established Sydney small venues recently that are usually an all night dancing sweatbox. I’m not sure if they are playing slower, more subdued records, but now they are playing to seated patrons.

It did give me an idea to get something happening that was more conducive to a seated social gathering that wasn’t one of those “lets listen to a classic album in it’s entirety on a hi end system” events, nor was it trying to have people dancing in their seats - something inbetween would be nice. It’s been mentioned before that people’s listening habits have changed somewhat over the past 12 months, so maybe now is the time to tap into this with some cleverly themed events.

As for the future, I’m not sure things will return to full swing clubbing for some time, at least not until Europe and the US has a proven effective vaccination.

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