‘By 8pm it is time to head home’: whatever happened to the big night out?

This week, the chief executive of a major bar group suggested 3pm is the new 9pm. Why have we stopped drinking and dancing the night away on a Friday and Saturday night?

The atmosphere in the club is friendly, people generally aren’t drunk, and since it’s dark inside, it could just as well be 4am instead of 4pm. Welcome to the daytime rave, where you can dance, meet people and still be curled up on the sofa afterwards in time for Newsnight. It’s a home from home for Joyce Harper, who says she has been “a big clubber my whole life. In the 1990s, I used to go religiously twice a month and we’d stay up all night. We were knocked out for days and always felt terrible. I realised, as I’ve got older and wiser, the importance of sleep.”

Last week she was at a day rave at the London club Fabric, and the week before that at Ministry of Sound. “I am aiming to do two a month at the moment,” says Harper, who is professor of reproductive science at University College London, as well as a podcaster and author. She’s 61 but, she adds, “For any age, staying up all night has so many disadvantages – obviously all the effects on sleep, but also things like getting home, having to wait for the first train.”

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‘By 8pm it is time to head home’: whatever happened to the big night out?

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