You may have heard of it, you may have not, but the night time economy is being talked about by businesses and councils across the country in an effort to provide you with the most market driven, potential laden, vibrant yet safe night time environment.
It is easy to assume that this is simply referring to the vending of alcohol, this however is a mistake that is constantly being corrected by innovation. At the current standing the night time economy is equal to that of the tourism industry in Great Britain, and the reason why this may come as a surprise to you is because nightlife culture has been marginalized by local governments.
Due to the higher frequency in incidents of crime and emergency healthcare, late night drinking establishments have been under attack. Licensing power was transferred from magistrates to councils and now it only takes a single noise complaint from a property built a few weeks prior to warrant the revoking of a long standing and much loved nightclub’s license to exist.
If there’s one thing that bodies of government have been known to forget about its innovation, and while they can continue to stave the alcohol fuelled culture of night time activity the real winners are those with alternative solutions. London has been particularly impressive in its allure for the nocturnal, with the demand so high the market can only adjust and adapt. All night restaurants, 24 hour gyms and even sleepovers at the Natural History Museum; next people will be waking up early to have a rave before work, oh wait…
A trusted economic research consultancy from Newcastle called TBR were the first to give night time economics the insight that it deserved, and their findings were staggering. By their calculations the sector employs at least 1.3 million people and generates £66bn in revenue, it is believed that this represents 4% of the entire British economic output. This does not account for any of the growth that was forecast to happen between then and now, which officially certifies night time economics as a big deal.
Of course this comes from much more than the nightclubs that councils find so abhorrent. Interestingly enough their policies to deal with the problems of noise complaints, anti-social behaviour and strains on public spending that arise have not been properly evaluated. Policies such as venues paying tax towards the handling of negative side effects attributed to the night time economy have been suggested, but without a proper understanding of these effects, with a collated appraisal of the impact their actions to counter have achieved, it doesn’t quite seem justified to implement such proposals.
Meanwhile however, various different business types see themselves expanding ever further into the night without proclamation from the council, and void of any detriment to monetary costs, social discourse and the general well-being of the public.
With every conceivable night time activity from late night cinema viewings to music academies being on the rise, the government recognised there was a strong case for the famous Transport For London’s tube network to rock around the clock. This is a course of action that was being talked about and prepared for years ago, with a convincing and trustworthy report by Volterra Partners put forward two years ago giving a reasoned and compelling argument for this case. It must have reached such a cataclysm that there was now absolutely no risk involved for government investment in the 24 hour service of the tube lines.
The fact that London remains to be the most visited city in the world is entirely conducive of the investments put forward with this move, and as we have learnt the hard way with our nation’s budget deficits austerity is never the answer. Expanding the tubes into a 24 hour service propels the potential and breaks the levee on the indifferent and creature comfort seeking consumers who could not quite muster the keenness to see all that London has to offer them, and will see an instantaneous injection of spending in the night time hours.
Of course it is not all about the government’s investments and the consumer’s behavioural patterns, it is, as always, business that drives the market, and right now on demand services are driving the market very literally. On demand services have become a cornerstone for the ideal inner city lifestyle, and must also adjust to the growing custom of the early hours.
You have inevitably heard of the big contenders for the on demand throne; Uber changing the lives of traditional taxi drivers forever offering new jobs, and Deliveroo launching up to dizzying heights with controversial implications on their employee’s wages. These are not the only players in the on-demand game. There is a myriad of replica company’s, business extensions and of course partnerships that are pushing on demand services to their full extent.
So extraordinary is this new consumer habit of ordering what could not ever previously be ordered that even laundry services have begun picking up customer’s items, washing and returning them; with the number one competitive metric being how quickly they can achieve a flawless service. A good example of this is Laundryheap, who provide a promise that their service will take 24 hours regardless of any time constraints, extraneous variables and additional customer requests.
Deyan Dimitrov, founder of Laundryheap, spoke to me about their advancement into new night time business hours and explained to me that expanding operations into the night is nothing but an inevitability, attributing this to the customer traffic that occurs at the end of the day when customers have finished busying about and finally get a chance to kick back. They know this is when they will most likely be available the next day; this is the time they are least occupied enough to consider their laundry duties and most importantly they are feeling leisurely enough to decide that their worries and tasks can all be absolved at the push of a button, or a touch of a screen as is more accurate nowadays.
So it seems businesses really do have nowhere else to go. Evidence suggests that the social norms will begin to shift later and later… midnight will be a fine time for a romantic dinner, the best time to leave a club is when the sun is rising and afterwards should you find yourself trudging over to the nearest fooderie there should be no need to wait for it to open. For those who have had enough of late night stints there are multiple armies of loyal minions roaming the streets ready to hone into their address with any commodity, consumable or comprehensible service that they could imagine.
Now back to Government a little bit. The ripple effect has spread throughout many major cities of the world, exemplified by the emersion of a brand new and very important job role: the night time mayor. Holland has been quick to implement this position and Paris and Zurich have followed suite, while London has approached it slightly differently with a Night Time Commission.
Dublin have clearly become conscientious of the need to incur the adoption of night time economy principles and practices in local government despite their relatively quiet nightlife. Laundryheap is expanding their operations to include Dublin in a few weeks and the timing with the surge in night time economy seems to be a great incentive.
Deyan Dimitrov commented on this, insightfully stating “we can grow and we can spread physically as businesses have always done, but the night is half the day and we must use that time to alleviate pressure from the business in daytime and to accommodate our late night customers.” He may be slightly ahead of the curve, but it’s safe to assume he’s not the only one. When a market transition this big reaches its proper fruition then it will become a must for the modern methods of running a successful business.
