This doesn't reflect my experience from the UK. In the UK a club to people I know is thought of roughly as:
- Late (22:00 - 03:00 probably been core hours)
- Music/dancing being the primary activity
- A small amount of seating, either VIP tables, or some small area or bit near the dance floor
- Alcohol (and perhaps drugs) being consumed quite liberally
- A lot of the clientele looking for a short term partner
The dress side of it just varies, there are places with little to no dress code, places that require shirt and shoes and others inbetween, but I wouldn't specifically say the dress code leads to fundamentally different places, except, the more relaxed dress code typically means more relaxed, diverse people, where as fancy dress code can be a bit more mainstream/think-they-are-something-special.
Places you sit down at tables and drink are typically pubs or bars. These days the two are pretty similar, at a push the more traditional feeling places are more likely to being pubs.
When I was younger I went to the above type establishments not just in the UK but in pretty much every country in the EU and something I found in lots of the EU is something I call "europop" nightclubs, which is a bit harder to explain, but it is venues which are really laid back, everyone just wants to have fun (no aggressive behaviour, male dominance/competition) and plays a whole host of music that has never come to the UK, but everyone over there knows. All of my best club experiences have been these type of places - it's where a 30 year old rock influenced person can be dancing away next to a mainstream 18 year old student and they can chat without barriers.
I do see an increasing amount of younger people that don't really drink and fuel their social interactions from Tinder and other social media, so I have wondered a few times if clubs will fade further out over the years.
That just seems like a shitty meat market club that idiots and teenagers go to.
There are indeed a lot of them, but the second type in parent comment do indeed exist and are gems. Places like Corsica Studios, Printworks (though this is a huge venue), Chip Shop, Fabric, E1 (to some extent). Volks in Brighton. A LOT of them have closed down for bullshit reasons though (licensing, police being dicks, property developers squeezing rent, dickheads moving in next door and complaining about noise). A real shame. People absolutely do get drunk though.
The first type do exist too, especially in the west end, Chelsea etc.
One difference between the UK and Europe is that the clubs get started even later in Europe like 00:00 - 06:00. They seem to get later as you go further south so maybe it's something to do with waiting for the heat of the day to fade (?). As I get older, this makes going out to a club less enticing (oh, maybe that's the point!)
Larger venues in the UK often open at 22:00, I think traditionally this was to overlap with the pub licensing, which forced pubs to close at 23:00, but I could be wrong. They typically close at 04:00 or 06:00.
However, there have always been after hours parties, usually in smaller, more niche venues. The first license enabling a legal after hours night was granted in 1990 [1] and originally used to run two promotions in a single night - kicking everyone out at 03:00ish and starting again.
I would guess that UK clubs have suffered ever since pubs were allowed to open later, when last orders in the pub was at 10:30 a club was the obvious place to go afterwards.
Where in the UK are you? In London the type 2 clubs (Fabric, Village Underground, Oval Space, Pickle Factory, Corsica Studios, The Cause, Egg, E1, etc.) only open their doors around 23:00, and it'd be weird to show up before midnight - the place would be deserted. Peak time is 1:30-3:30am. At some of these places, almost everyone is on drugs.
In the dancing clubs here, the actual dancing floor fills at like 1:00. But, I stopped going there years ago precisely for that reason - I would much prefer the British way you describe. Dancing from 21:00-22:00 ish makes so much more sense then having to wait till it is super late.
This is probably because you aren’t going to the type 2 clubs that OP refers to.
Go to any of the following and see if you enjoy it:
London
* egg, village underground, fabric, ministry of sound, union, e1, studio 338,
Bristol
* motion
Birmingham
* rainbow venues
Manchester
* hidden, warehouse project
Newcastle
* digital
- Late (22:00 - 03:00 probably been core hours)
- Music/dancing being the primary activity
- A small amount of seating, either VIP tables, or some small area or bit near the dance floor
- Alcohol (and perhaps drugs) being consumed quite liberally
- A lot of the clientele looking for a short term partner
The dress side of it just varies, there are places with little to no dress code, places that require shirt and shoes and others inbetween, but I wouldn't specifically say the dress code leads to fundamentally different places, except, the more relaxed dress code typically means more relaxed, diverse people, where as fancy dress code can be a bit more mainstream/think-they-are-something-special.
Places you sit down at tables and drink are typically pubs or bars. These days the two are pretty similar, at a push the more traditional feeling places are more likely to being pubs.
When I was younger I went to the above type establishments not just in the UK but in pretty much every country in the EU and something I found in lots of the EU is something I call "europop" nightclubs, which is a bit harder to explain, but it is venues which are really laid back, everyone just wants to have fun (no aggressive behaviour, male dominance/competition) and plays a whole host of music that has never come to the UK, but everyone over there knows. All of my best club experiences have been these type of places - it's where a 30 year old rock influenced person can be dancing away next to a mainstream 18 year old student and they can chat without barriers.
I do see an increasing amount of younger people that don't really drink and fuel their social interactions from Tinder and other social media, so I have wondered a few times if clubs will fade further out over the years.