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New Year’s Eve revellers welcoming 2025 at a 35-hour-long event will be the last to grace the dance floor at the Watergate club, an iconic Berlin venue that has become the latest victim of clubsterben — club death

But there are signs of hope for dance music. A study released by the International Music Summit, an annual conference held in Ibiza, found that the electronic music industry had grown by 17 per cent in 2023, reaching an annual revenue of $11.8bn.

Sunil Sharpe, a DJ and co-founder of Give Us the Night, said the stalling of a proposed law that would extend closing times to 6am had left the industry in limbo, with operators nervous to invest in new venues.

Across the 15 cities analysed by the FT using Resident Advisor event data, venues listing more than five events increased by 60 per cent in 2024 compared with a decade ago. More than 35,000 artists had been booked to play in those cities since 2014 — up 90 per cent over the same period.