At a February gig in East London called \u201cSave the Moth Club,\u201d hordes of people jammed inside the venue to see a show by the Chicago band Whitney.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just suitably rowdy,\u201d said Julien Ehrlich, the drummer, who said that Moth Club was one of the band\u2019s favorite stops in London: \u201cIt certainly felt like the energy was 1000 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
The event was intended to raise awareness about what the club \u2014 which hosts gigs for up-and-coming bands, and sometimes bigger acts like Wet Leg (and once even Lady Gaga) \u2014 has described as an existential threat: a pair of building proposals for apartments next door.<\/p>\n
Among other things, it would mean that people would be living right up against the nightclub\u2019s noisy smoking area, said Keith Miller, the head of events at Moth Club. He said that would be a potential disaster for a music venue with a late-night license: \u201cWe will unfortunately be creating noise seven days a week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller said it was a common tale for a club to \u201cregenerate the area, and then people end up killing it\u201d once they flood in to live there.<\/p>\n
That tension is explored on the other side of town at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in an exhibition that examines some of those fallen sites and the forces that did them in. The show, \u201cLost Music Venues,\u201d<\/a> which runs through October 2027, looks back at 50 clubs that shuttered across Britain between the mid-1980s and 2010s, some of which had helped launch bands like Oasis<\/a> and Daft Punk<\/a>.<\/p>\n Harriet Reed, the exhibition\u2019s curator, said that it was a chance to \u201ccelebrate the creative contribution\u201d of music venues but also \u201cto explore the issues that they face as a sector, particularly the last 15 years or so.\u201d<\/p>\n The Victoria and Albert Museum collected memorabilia from the public for the show, acquiring objects like an old device from the Ha\u00e7ienda nightclub in Manchester that measured noise levels. Other submissions included a trove of items from Mark Webber of Pulp from the band\u2019s early touring days.<\/p>\n Reed said that the reasons that venues close were \u201calmost cyclical,\u201d with issues coming up again and again, like new housing developments that drive up rent and then lead to a burst of noise complaints from new residents. \u201cThe politicians may change, the audiences may change, the way music is played might change \u2014 but you see the same difficulties,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The Museums Special Section<\/p>\n Changing social habits and the rising cost of living also mean that people go out less and, crucially, buy less alcohol when they do. This all comes as the industry is still recovering from the toll of pandemic-era shutdowns. And although venues in other cities around the world have faced similar struggles, nightlife in Britain seems to have been hit particularly hard.<\/p>\n \u201cThere isn\u2019t a single one of these buildings that wouldn\u2019t be making more money if it was a pizza restaurant,\u201d said Mark Davyd, the founder of the Music Venue Trust<\/a>, a nonprofit that supports independent music clubs, known as grass-roots venues, that typically host lesser-known acts.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you were simply in the business of making as much money as you possibly could, then tickets would just go up exponentially,\u201d he added \u2014 but that\u2019s at odds with \u201cthe kind of work that these venues do.\u201d<\/p>\n Davyd said that more than 50 percent of those smaller venues in Britain didn\u2019t make a profit last year. According to research from his organization, an average of one venue closed<\/a> every two weeks in 2024. The pace slowed last year, he said, but the situation for clubs is \u201cinherently fragile.\u201d<\/p>\n Moth Club launched an aggressive campaign for support, and its Change.org petition acquired 35,000 signatures, including from well-known musicians like Lewis Capaldi and Tame Impala. Tens of thousands of people wrote to local officials in support of the venue.<\/p>\n Whitney\u2019s guitarist, Max Kakacek, said the decision to perform at the \u201cSave the Moth Club\u201d event didn\u2019t take \u201ca long conversation\u201d \u2014 \u201cit was just: of course.\u201d<\/p>\n The public pressure seems to have paid off, at least for now. In March, the local council rejected one of the neighboring building applications, though the developers are appealing, and the second is still under consideration. But Miller, the club\u2019s events head, said he was \u201cfar more optimistic\u201d than a few months ago.<\/p>\n Other venues haven\u2019t been so lucky. Last September, Corsica Studios, a beloved club in the Elephant and Castle district of London, announced that it wold be shutting down after 24 years. The raucous venue, where acts from Bicep to Bj\u00f6rk had played sets, cited a tidal wave of redevelopment that had transformed the neighborhood. \u201cIt\u2019s no secret that operating a late-night venue such as ours has become increasingly difficult,\u201d the club said in a statement<\/a> announcing the closing.<\/p>\n Corsica Studios emphasized that it had not been squeezed out by developers or officials, and said it might reopen in some form in the future. But for now, its closure in March has left a void in London\u2019s club scene.<\/p>\n Jay Donaldson, an English D.J. who performs as Palms Trax, played at Corsica Studios in January for a closing event. He said he had attended gigs there before becoming a D.J., and later found it to be a valuable \u201ctesting ground\u201d for his music. \u201cThere\u2019s always an ebb and flow in nightlife\u201d he said, but \u201cit\u2019s impossible to see what kind of small venue would be able to rise from the ashes and fight off all of the existential threats that the city poses to it.\u201d<\/p>\n London\u2019s mayor convened a nightlife task force<\/a> last year to assess those headwinds. The city is trying to act on some of its recommendations, said Justine Simons, a deputy mayor for culture and the creative industries, though she said its powers were limited. The efforts include a bid to allow the mayor to grant late-night licenses \u2014 which are now given by local boroughs according to their own complex rules \u2014 as well as a push to create a higher bar for noise complaints.<\/p>\n The British government is also pushing a ticket levy, intended to funnel money from big stadium shows to more intimate spaces. Yet for the moment, it is voluntary and has had a lower-than-expected uptake<\/a> by larger venues.<\/p>\n Changes might not come soon enough for Rafael Pesce, the founder of Spiritual Bar, a small folk and blues club in the Camden district of North London. Pesce said he had been inundated with noise complaints from a local resident for about two years. He said he had added a second door, bought equipment to measure sound levels and stopped booking very loud bands \u2014 but the complaints have continued.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it keeps going like that, I think I\u2019m going to go bust,\u201d Pesce said, adding: \u201cIf one person can destroy a 15-year-old business, there\u2019s something wrong with the system.\u201d<\/p>\n