Tough times for experience economy?

Less clearcut are the future prospects for the wider ‘experience economy’ into which events like St Patrick’s Festival fit. This ranges from hospitality, food and drink to cultural, sporting and heritage, and provides employment for some 300,000 people here, with seasonal and regional opportunities filling gaps other sectors can’t reach.

All about experience

Data from the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (Ibec) suggests that the sector matters as much to Irish people as visitors from abroad. Consumers here spend €1 in every €3 within the experience economy, compared with an average €1 in every €4 in other EU countries. Despite notoriously unreliable weather, outdoor events – from the National Ploughing Championships and Bloom to stadium-filling gigs and weekend music festivals – are at the heart of this.

A 2024 PWC report highlighted the recovery of the live music sector since Covid; returning revenues of €243m in 2023, up 23.5% on 2022, and set to rise to €279m in 2028. Music-industry author and academic Michael Murphy sees little to be surprised about in these figures. ‘Irish people have always been happy to attend collective events. Part of the current upward trend is that Irish festival goers have been relatively price insensitive. Irish festivals also tend to be well-run and innovative; even smaller independent festivals are generally run to a high standard,’ he says.

Night-time concerns

Behind the good vibes, however, there are worries. Ibec highlights issues such as the cost of labour, inflation, increased regulation and cybersecurity as major business risks concerning many operating in the experience economy.

And while a proliferation of music festivals is a welcome signal of recovery, ongoing decline in the country’s night-time economy tells another story. More than 600 restaurants reportedly shut down here between late 2023 and late 2024 while the number of nightclubs has been on a long-term downward spiral, from around 500 at the start of the century to just over 80 now.

Even the country’s most iconic hospitality export, the Irish pub, is no longer feeling the love, with some 2,000 closures across the country in the past 20 years. Campaign group Give Us The Night says government inaction has played a part in this. ‘The UK values its night-time economy at £66bn per year,’ it says. ‘It is impossible, however, to measure the night-time economy’s worth in Ireland, given the heavy restrictions placed on night-time businesses.’

Proposals for change

A 2021 government-led taskforce set out recommendations to address the issues, notably calling for liberalisation of the country’s antiquated opening hours for bars and clubs, a proposal that won the support of the Licensed Vintners Association and the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland.

Four years later, while the planning continues – Dublin City Council recently launched its Night-time Economy Strategy – there is less evidence of actual progress. Pressed on licensing law reform last year, former justice minister Helen McEntee said that ‘there’s a huge amount of change that’s needed and required across quite a number of different systems’.

It’s a view Murphy has some sympathy with. ‘The idea of a licensing law is more complex than some people appreciate. It’s not just about allowing people to stay out drinking for longer. The bigger issue is providing spaces for young people where they can do what they like,’ he says.

Complicating matters are changing attitudes to socialising. A study in the UK linked the downturn in nightclubs there to reduced interest among Gen Zers, born between 1997 and 2012. There are many theories about why this might be so but an increased focus on health and wellbeing and an environment where connections can be made online would seem to be at the heart of it.

‘There are key differences between Gen Z and previous generations,’ Murphy says. ‘Research indicates that Gen Z has a higher number of non-drinkers, and we are seeing more demand for spaces to socialise where alcohol is not the complete focus. Bars with board games are one growth area.’ Gen Xers and Millennials, meanwhile, haven’t given up the ghost on revelry but are changing the parameters. ‘Day fever’, a recent event at Dublin’s Academy Theatre, forms part of a growing international trend for daytime clubbing.

Demands for action

These more diverse expectations are also informing new strategies (see box on key changes planned in the capital), and Ray O’Donoghue, night-time economy adviser for Dublin city, says the end result will be cities that are ‘safer, more inclusive, and culturally vibrant’. For organisations such as Give Us The Night, legislative change remains imperative. Spokesman Sunil Sharpe recently told RTE that allowing nightclubs to open until 5am ‘would transform the capital’s night-time economy. At the moment, we have the earliest closing times in Europe. Even after we change that, we’ll still be the earliest.’

Plans to lower the VAT rate for food services and entertainment in the next Budget will be welcomed as a shot in the arm across the sector, while there is also talk of introducing ‘night mayors’, an idea borrowed from Amsterdam, to ‘pull all the pieces of the [night time] jigsaw together coherently’, according to the 2021 government taskforce report. Growing concerns around personal safety and anti-social activity are among the thornier issues that will need addressing, whatever the approach; a 2023 survey found 47% of respondents saying they felt unsafe in Dublin at night, compared with 21% in 2020.

For all the challenges, Ireland’s ingrained sociability means that the experience economy is likely at a point of inflection rather than real threat. ‘What we’re very good at in Ireland is innovation with very few resources,’ Murphy says. ‘Attractions don’t need to be infrastructural, but we need to find ways for people to enjoy themselves without harming the life of their neighbours.’