Pryzm boss blames “young people drinking less” for nightclub closures

The boss of Pryzm in Kingston has said one of the reasons for the widespread closure of UK nightclubs is “young people drinking less”.

Last month, the future of Kingston Pryzm was placed into doubt after its owner Rekom UK, which owns the Pryzm and Atik brands, went into administration. The company cited challenges within the nighttime industry over the past year, blaming increased energy prices and students cutting back because of the current cost of living for its issues.

However, last week, Banquet Records confirmed that Kingston Pryzm, the venue where it frequently hosts ‘outstore’ gigs, will remain open despite its owners calling in administrators.

And now, Rekon UK CEO Peter Marks has told the BBC that young people and students are going out less than ever before because of changes in drinking habits, as well as the cost of living crisis and soaring rent prices.

“A lot of students who used to be paying, say, £800 a month for their accommodation, have been facing [higher rents of] £1,200 a month,” he said. “Obviously people still like coming out, [but] if money is tight [they] are coming later, so they’re arriving at our doors later and they’re spending less.”

“I walked around between 7pm and 11pm, and there were no more than 200 people out in the city. Two years before, it would have been really quite busy and buzzing.”

Banquet Records regularly puts on intimate album release shows in the venue and has hosted gigs by the likes of Billie Eilish, The 1975 and Boygenius, while Future Islands and Yard Act are among the acts scheduled to play there in the future.

This week, statistics were published that revealed around 31 per cent of nightclubs in the UK were forced to close over the last three years. The Night Time Industries Association called for immediate government action to address the crisis, identifying a “profound and systematic marginalisation of the nightclub sector”, which poses a threat to the “vitality of our cultural landscape”.

Another report published in January showed the “disaster” that struck the UK’s grassroots music venues in 2023, with calls increasing for a ticket levy on larger arenas and investment from the wider industry. It identified the core issues as soaring energy prices, landlords increasing rate amounts, supply costs, business rates, licensing issues, noise complaints and the continuing shockwaves of COVID-19.

Last year saw the Music Venue Trust deliver their first annual report at the Houses Of Parliament – warning grassroots gig spaces in the UK were “going over a cliff” without without urgent government action and investment from new large arenas. After the stark warning that the UK was set to lose 10 per cent of its grassroots music venues in 2023, the MVT and others from the sector ended the year by telling NME how 2023 was the “worst year for venue closures” while “no one in music industry seems to care”.