Rave new world: How clubs are being rescued by Gen X

As the nightlife economy struggles, Stephen Armstrong talks to the over-40s who are heading back to the dancefloor – and finds out why Gen-Zers are more than happy to join them

- Stephen Armstrong

“Seeing everyone with their hands in the air, I was like, OK, this is great.”

Davis has a critical eye. He used to be out four nights a week as Ministry magazine’s clubs editor in the Nineties, then found himself deep in corporate life working for companies such as Vodafone and Samsung, before heading out to Ibiza to run wellness retreats. After moving back to London post-Covid, he discovered that all the old names – and all the old clubbers – were back.

“I know people who are really senior lawyers at big law firms, but secretly they go raving as well,” he explains. “It’s not even about reminding us of our youth, it’s being back in that inclusive, happy culture. That’s something that’s missing in the modern world.”

Davis’s experience is backed up by the reels on TikTok and Instagram showing archive footage from clubbing days when no one had phones and everyone was in it for the good time. And new research from Liverpool University shows that clubbers in their forties and fifties make up a significant part of the city’s underground club culture. Sometimes the majority of those at underground events are over 40. Richard Anderson, author of a thesis titled “The Persistence of the Underground in Dance Music Scenes”, researched clubs that he says were trying to create evenings where people could lose their inhibitions and be friendly in an unfriendly society. He was surprised to find that many of those who attended were members of Generation X.

“These clubbers have a limited aspiration to grow and become the biggest thing ever,” he explains. “The intention is just having the best night, not to necessarily see the biggest-name DJ. It could just be someone who’s going to play the music that they like; whether that’s music made 35 years ago or 35 months ago, it doesn’t really matter.”