THE NIGHT-TIME ECONOMY


FOCUS FEATURE


Can theatres and cinemas help enhance the NTE reputation?


‘For something so diverse and important, it seems that the night- time economy gets stereotyped in an altogether negative way’


negative way. Terry Bevan himself has argued in an article for The Guardian that “the night-time industry is roughly the same size as tourism, which is seen as far more desirable”. A quick ‘night-time economy’ search on Google will


result in many ‘counting the cost of the night-time economy’-style reports and opinion pieces. You have to delve pretty deep into the search to find significant praise for an industry that contributes billions of pounds and employs millions of people. But is this a true reflection and is it fair for something so diverse to be regarded as such? Indeed, is it the concept of the NTE as an entity that creates the problem? It could be argued that we’re perhaps not viewing the NTE


as something that ‘covers a wide range of activity’ as characterised by the Civic Trust. Are we, from a media and society perspective, unfairly defining it as one predominantly of bars and nightclubs that simply facilitate trouble? If restaurants, cinemas, theatres and the like were as synonymous with the night-time economy, would its


The NTE is often characterised negatively


reputation be enhanced and would there be more of a desire for consumers of all ages and demographics to buy in to it? This is a particularly pertinent point given that, in our


patch, a Bassetlaw night-time economy strategy paper produced by Nottinghamshire County Council states that after consultation with the public “41% would like an increased police presence and 44% more ‘family friendly’ options” when it comes to the NTE. Equally revealing is that “fear of crime/anti-social


behaviour, other people’s behaviour and “yobbish” behaviour feature heavily as top responses as to what constitutes their avoidance/prevention of visiting the Towns with results of 63%, 67% and 85% respectively”. The impact of week-in-week-out trouble in our city and


town centres after dark and the strain this puts on a number of services such as the police and NHS – not to mention the costs involved to the taxpayer – mean that the bad and ugly side of the night-time economy often supersedes the undoubted good


business network June 2017 35


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