Omicron kills…the nightlife industry

The Covid hype is on the rise, and whilst safety is always our top concern, so far, no decisions have been made by the UK Government. Just veiled rumours, threats of two-week ‘circuit breakers’ and a lot of ifs and buts and coconuts. 

The nightlife and hospitality industry are taking hits with every cancellation, and we’re expecting to see it worsen over the festive period. 

No one’s reimposing mandatory lip-gloss ruining face masks or any tougher restrictions, yet city centres are getting hit the worst and it looks like it might be getting worse as the days go on. It feels like every day, we’re signing on for the next 8pm blow to the nightlife industry and have been on tenterhooks for the last few weeks…preparing ourselves for that one final well-aimed blow. 

We want there to be an industry left when this all blows over, with minimal casualties, and to do that we need people to keep going out and living normal lives until those normal boundaries are genuinely restricted. 

December’s usually the best month for venues and students alike to go out and have the best time with less exam worries, less time restrictions and this Christmas in particular we have bags of bank holidays spread across the festive weekends… plenty of time to party and recover before going back to our normal lives. 

How often do we get bank holidays four days in a row?! These are less common than catching an eclipse. And 20 times less common than gazing upon a blood moon. 

We’re already clocking early signs that people are staying away from UK hospitality and events. In London alone, there’s already a 25% surge in Christmas bookings being cancelled altogether and work do’s turning to Friday night takeaways on Zoom…

The Government have turned their backs on nightlife and won’t be lending a helping hand this time around. They’re encouraging people to stay at home, work from home and people are calling off their events left, right and centre. 

The head of UK hospitality, Kate Nicholls, has clarified that UK venues were the safest place to socialise at Christmas because of strict hygiene and ventilation measures… something you won’t get an alternative events, deemed more ‘intimate and safe’.

Old Boris is planning a vote this week to introduce Covid passports, so a lot of it’s out of our hands. There are plenty of backbenchers with powerful votes who’ve never voted against harsher Covid measures who are making it really clear they will be voting against these initiatives this time. Citing that the prime minister’s behaviour after all the most recent scandals had ‘galvanised more of us to no longer blindly follow the orders cooked up by whips’. 

We don’t doubt the seriousness of Covid but we don’t like living in this Covid-limbo. It’s starting to look a lot more like we’re losing more livelihoods than lives, so whilst we keep our eye on the spread of this new variant, we’re also more conscious of keeping our events safer than ever for all our customers. 

We’ve been preparing for safe re-entry into nightlife since March 2020 and we have mastered how to keep people as safe as possible without putting everyone into hazmat suits. We aren’t a ‘papers please’ nation, and we hope that no stricter measures are put into place. 

And whilst we’re just starting to get our heads around the sometimes work/sometimes lateral flow tests and on-set of Covid passports… now we give you… a potential ‘two-week circuit breaker’ to curb this Omicron spread. The easiest way to explain this new brain-fart   would be to say the Government’s proposing a possible ban on any/all indoor mixing. And yes, this decision came off the back of three (yes just THREE) days of numbers. 

The breakdown of this breaker would mean the banning of meeting others indoors except for work and limiting restaurants and pubs to outdoor service only. Sounds delicious. Definitely the weather for it! 

We are expecting a plan C, plan D… who knows – plan A, B, C, D, E, F, G… and we’ll keep you updated but for now, we’re still here to plan the best nights out in your area and we aren’t going anywhere until they force our hands!

The show must go on and we all deserve a big New Years Eve celebration! You can get your New Years Eve tickets here.

So get booking, follow the rules (as right now, there are hardly any) and we’ll do our best to keep that party-hating scarecrow at bay so you can have the best Chrimbo possible!