If you’ve been around Vancouver’s nightlife for any amount of time, then you know that the downtown nightlife is on life support, to say the least.

Ever since the pandemic, it feels like the bar and nightclub scene downtown has been shrinking by the day, both in terms of attendance and in terms of actual places to go that seem like fun to go to. Some places have closed due to lacking business and other places have literally burned down.

It also doesn’t help that the prices at some of these places are outrageous and hard to quantify or justify especially when you could get a bottle of the same drink for less at your local BC Liquor Store. This is unfortunate because there are a lot of really nice places to go to downtown. There’s the Commadore Ball Room, ENZO, Harbor Event Centre, the Roxy, and more.

Studio Nightclub Sign on Granville (Credit: Thomas Hawk via Flickr)

Before the pandemic, Gastown was also a lot different. Now if you go late at night, you don’t always feel super safe. There’s a lot more open use of illegal substances, and the popular places that were there are no longer there.

What can we do to fix that though? There are lots of local performances that happen, and lots of local DJs that play every night, but it feels like they don’t always get the attention that big artists do, or the same amount of promotion. Sometimes just spreading by word of mouth isn’t enough, and spreading more through social media is needed, as well as from local promoters and writers as well.

What we can do as regular every day people is get the word out more. Spread the word about local artists doing shows, or events around certain themed events. Like if you were born in 2000 and want to experience a 2010’s night, it’s hard to find out about it unless you know someone that knows about all the events more often.

If there’s a way to spread the word about it, do it. Help increase the knowledge of our local music scene, a scene that has given birth to artists like Bryan Adams, Michael Bublé, and more. Who knows what will come out of our city next, but we won’t know until we give those artists the time of day.

For now, spread the word about local performances, bring your friends to local shows, and support local artists.