Are super clubs dead and buried?
During the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, the term super club was born. These referred to extremely large night clubs which could hope many thousands of people. Top quality DJ’s made up residences at places such as Cream in Liverpool, Ministry of Sound in London etc. But these quickly disappear as attendances dropped off. The main issue was that to support the sheer size of these clubs, they needed to be full. Was this drop off due to the shift in dance music? Perhaps, Trance was very big during this time and was well suited to large venues, but now people are preferring to attend more intimate club nights at smaller venues, which also seem less commercial (although generally are not). Also attendances at gigs and indie playing clubs are up, due to the introduction of internet piracy, record labels have had to replace revenues from album sales to live performances, changing the way bands are promoted. This could have a knock on effect on club nights as although to different genres of music there is a strong cross over between the two audiences