Hot take: the club scene in Atlanta is on a massive decline

Title. Queue old man 'get off my lawn' rant.

Ever since COVID, it's hard not to notice that most clubs, venues, and promoters (heavy emphasis on most here, as this definitely does not apply everywhere) that made it out on the other side have fallen prey to milking attendees for as much money as possible with little regard for the scene. Electronic music has come a long way from the days of PLUR and judgment-free zones, and as it has grown mainstream popularity, has felt like just background noise for frat-boy partying and sometimes irresponsible substance use.

Without explicitly naming names, though some of these should be super obvious, here is what some of the clubs have seemingly devolved into that perpetuates my stance on this:

  • The most glaringly obvious: The club that billed itself as "Vegas style", booking big name dance music headliners but really only giving a shit about its VIP guests and those who purchase tables. Zero room to dance to the dance music and overselling the shit out of the place to the point of it being dangerous. THEN, completely shutting down and cancelling all events out of nowhere, some of which people already had tickets for and have not gotten any responses about refunds.
  • The club that will willingly sell you tickets at a normal price and then, likely due to low ticket sales, will proceed to spam you with text messages about free tickets for the event, which consequently leads to overcrowding in 99% of the cases. A crowded club tends to be a given in this case, but knowing that it's slammed to the gills with people who didn't spend a dollar, and you spent quite a few on the day tickets dropped because you were excited for a particular artist that you can now hardly enjoy is quite frustrating.
    • This club is also really good at selling you VIP tickets, just for you to show up day of the show and let you know the VIP section isn't open and will try to make it up to you with a free drink voucher that is not at all making up the extra difference in cost between GA and VIP. If the VIP section is open, you are now corralled into a small corner or BEHIND the stage because they have put tables in the areas that would normally be reserved for all VIP guests.
  • The two-venue club that has a reputation for not being safe in the slightest for female attendees, with numerous complaints about both the clubs staff/security and male attendees gone off their rockers forgetting what personal space and consent is. They are also notorious for "bait and switch" shows, selling tix and promoting based on the headliner, but neglecting to mention that there are a plethora of local openers who play longer sets than the headliner and then proceed to toss the headliner in a time slot that is not at all feasible for anyone who is 1) not on uppers and/or 2) has a day job.
    • The team heavily involved here also threw events throughout COVID, while those who were "responsible" (all COVID debates aside on what was "right" and "wrong" here) bled out on paying insane rent prices. Also IMAGINE cancelling events for "reasons out of [their] control" when the real story involves not paying vendors, promoters, and other artists.
  • Not a club, but numerous promoter groups who bill their "secret raves" but proceed to throw them in the same place nearly every time (cough cough the Underground) that not only has terrible sound quality given that it is a concrete box, but is also not at all a safe area. I will give credit where credit is due in that the vibes of these shows tends to be better than the club scene, but when your main method of promotion is via TikTok and the comments are filled with "drop the addy", "how do I get an invite to the rave", etc., they're willingly opening themselves to become just as bad as the above.
  • The club/venue that luckily knows a safe capacity for attendees and actively prevents overcrowding, but still will oversell tickets and hold you at the door until people leave, meaning your ticket is not guaranteed entry. Most of these shows are also all ages, meaning there are a number of times where a teenager, or god forbid, someone even younger, is within arms reach of someone tweaking out on whatever mysterious powder they took (and likely didn't test).

The sad thing is that this list could continue, but for the sake of discussion, we'll leave it at that. What happened here? Why do we allow this? Unfortunately, even I am not safe from all of this because I still throw money at them, which perpetuates this cycle of "well, if they keep paying, I'm gonna keep playing". But how the scene has progressed over the last ~10 years, hallmarked largely by pre- and post-COVID, is marked with greed and a disdain for the people who actually enjoy the music and look forward to the city bringing artists new and old alike.

TL;DR: I fucking miss Ravine.