Scotland’s biggest nightclub halves opening hours due to cost of living crisis

28 June, 2024

Ty Dolla $ign performs at The Garage. Credit: Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns

One of the most iconic nightclubs in Scotland has announced that it will be reducing opening hours as a result of the cost of living crisis.

The Garage in Glasgow, which has been open since 1994, previously prided itself on running 365 days a year, including Christmas. Now, however, they’ve had to reduce their operating hours to only Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Club owner Donald MacLeod said that they will make exceptions for special events, including planned concerts, and that this will only be a precautionary measure throughout the summer. The Garage has previously hosted gigs for likes of One Direction, Ty Dolla $ign, and Prince.

“At this time of the year, we’ve got the students going away, folk going on summer holidays and 200,000 Scots going to the Euros,” he said. “Midweek has been terrible for the whole of Glasgow. Footfall in the city centre is down 400,000 people compared to the same period last year.”

MacLeod blamed the cost of living crisis impacting punters behaviour: “There is a massive change in habits – if you’ve no money, you can’t go out,” he said. “If you can only afford to go out one day a week, then you’ll pick the weekend.”

MacLeod also pointed out that infrasturcture within Glasgow is impacting the city’s nightlife sector. “The cost of living crisis is having a horrendous impact on the city and it’s not being helped by the LEZ, applied parking charges, and the roadworks,” he said. “It is a safety thing as well – you want to know you can get a taxi home and there are more taxis being taken off the road.”

In February, the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) revealed that 31 per cent of nightclubs in the UK were forced to close last year, with 396 nightclubs closing permanently between March 2020 and December 2023 alone.

The NTIA previously suggested that the UK government were “intentionally shutting down dancefloors,”. In a statement released in March 2023, the organisation claimed that, unlike other countries across Europe, the UK sees the nightlife sector as “a burden on policing and local government”, and has put forward numerous measures leading to one nightclub being closed every three days since 2019.

“Nightclubs and venues across the UK have been one of the hardest hit by crises,” said NTIA. “These businesses contribute billions in tax to HMRC and local authorities in taxation, but have seen very little support from the Government in return. Every one of these businesses has an important part in the recovery of the local economy and has a great importance within communities beyond the dance floor.”

It’s not only clubs that are suffering — grassroots music venues across the UK are feeling the impact of the ongoing cost of living crisis. Last year, Music Venue Trust, which represents almost 1,000 UK grassroots music venues, said that the country’s small venues were “going over a cliff” thanks to the financial crisis and a lack of pipeline support from the wider music industry.

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