Analysis of UK's nightclub industry and creativity within

Abstract

The problem motivating this research is the author's belief that nightclubs have a great deal of unused potential which can be unleashed by entrepreneurial creativity. Therefore the general idea behind the research was to find out what can entrepreneurs do in order to successfully start or improve such enterprise through effective management, marketing techniques and, most importantly, creative and innovative approach. In spite of that, the primary aim of this research was to analyze current situation of the nightclub industry and creativity in the UK, along with the factors affecting both. As the night time economy constantly changes and new trends emerge frequently, clubs, in order to satisfy their customers, need to adopt their service accordingly to these changes. Therefore, to identify the latest trends, it ls essential to analyze the market constantly. The industry is experiencing serious difficulties due to issues such as increasing competition within the leisure sector (oversupply and price cutting), rising drugs usage and alcohol consumption (binge drinking and bad publicity) and shortage in professional doorstaff (safety) and management (quality of service provided). All these problems result in lack of investments in the industry and low customer satisfaction. They also seriously affect the way nightclubs are being perceived nowadays. Yet, there are still many challenges awaiting the market, including impending changes in legislation. To identify possible ways of improving nightclubs situation, a research involving collection of secondary and primary data, was carried out. The secondary data analyzed, highlighted the most important issues affecting clubs and creativity in UK, providing good background tor the study. Primary data, obtained from interviewing numerous nightclub managers and surveying potential clubbers, provided the research with valuable information on how the recent industry problems could be solved. The analysis of collected primary and secondary data results, showed that in order to overcome recent market difficulties, effectively cope with the new legislation, improve the image and attract more customers, nightclubs should concentrate on differentiating themselves from competition, creating new USPs, investing in new technologies and conducting frequent market research. Furthermore, more attention should be paid to advertisement and promotion techniques, to avoid strong dependency on word of mouth. Finally, creativity was identified as a possible solution to all of the above problems. However its appliance still remains an issue, due to misconceptions predominant in the society. Conclusions drawn indicated that examined market is very hard to predict and therefore must be constantly analyzed. Recommendations were also made, advising operators and government to face the current problems immediately, without underestimating their gravity.