Nightlife of the young Helsinki

Nightlife in Helsinki is diverse and emerging. Even though the doors won’t open for everyone…

My phone gets a notification from Facebook. It’s an invite to another club event on the same night. After looking at the info I’m actually tempted to go. It doesn’t really matter what day it is, I can go anywhere any night of the week. This is not like New York or some big metropolis, but we have it pretty good here in Helsinki.

All this social media promoting for example is, or at least for a while was, quite genius, not just from the youth perspective but from that of marketing also. Let’s give the youth the illusion of being “V.I.P.” by giving them a free entrance to the club. The fact that this tactic works is incredible. Meanwhile, the actual VIP-crowd is enjoying free drinks on the house, just for showing up. But the customer is catching on to this and that’s why this tactic is growing old and people mainly just ignore most of these invites now. So there’s never really a time for businesses to be patting themselves on the back with this stuff. Truthfully, it’s not easy to promote anything in Helsinki. A lot of things don’t need promoting.

We have many big clubs in Helsinki. We have bars and clubs styled for almost every genre and for many sub-genres. We have our “hipster neighbourhood” Kallio. If you’re not a huge clubgoer that’s where you will probably find yourself. We have LGBT-nightclubs and bars. We’ve had them for years.

But what’s really mind boggling is that in this “open minded” and progressive city of Helsinki the same kind of open mindedness doesn’t seem to apply to race, unfortunately. I’ve personally heard a gazillion stories of how certain clubs won’t let you in if you’re not white. They won’t say it but that’s what they’ll do. Thankfully it’s not very common, but I’ve heard about this happening with a couple of pretty big and popular clubs. Somehow the owners of these clubs have found lawful ways to appropriate this kind of behavior.

So this is our nightlife. And has it changed a lot through the decades? On the outside it has changed, but on the inside it’s the same. It’s still just people wanting to let loose, have fun, dance, drink, meet new people or something to that effect. And the youth seems to be the fuel to the fire.

We as the youth should not forget this kind of stuff and only should support places that are racially inclusive. The youth in the nightlife are the biggest group of customers that will bring in the money. By our choices and positions we are the ones who are deciding what kind of nightlife we want to have.

What makes the youth go out in Finland? Here’s the TOP 5 most popular reasons by Villey!

Number 1

People want to meet new, current or old friends.

Not surprising, but most of the youth make some of their friendships at bars and clubs. They may not go there alone to meet new friends but they can easily meet new friends through their current friends.

Number 2

Time to celebrate (Birthdays etc.)

This is a given.

Number 3

People want to find a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Date. Or just a one night stand.

Cute or not, this is almost the most motivating factor when it comes to going out. I shouldn’t say this, but if you want to have a good laugh, be sober at a nightclub at 2am and witness this awful flirting stuff happening everywhere around you. Or be the one who has to be the target of the beer-goggled flirter… Yikes!

Number 4

People go out to drink their feelings away.

Well, this is the evil part of the Finnish alcohol culture…

It really saddens me when I see so many young people, my own age and younger, drinking just because they can’t deal with being one weekend sober. It’s not unusual for older folks either but I just wish that some sort of shift would happen amongst the youth so this kind of thing would happen less.

Number 5

People just want to go dancing and listen to great DJ’s and music in general.

This almost seems like a revival of old traditions. To just go out and dance, and learn to dance. No drinks needed. Possibly a few but not necessarily. The youth even take dance lessons and learn new dance moves and styles so that they go and do them in the club completely sober. Because it’s fun.

Many of these young people are tired of the same old “Finnish alcohol culture” and its offerings. But this really is just a part of the social “awakening”, “evolution” and awareness that is happening. Or whatever you want to call it. The fact that you don’t want to get hammered and suffer hangovers should not be a reason to stay home.

Of course it’s not all black and white so moderation is a lovely thing!

Text: Ville “Villey” Lehtola, 24, Helsinki, Finland

Photo: Flickr / Plumage_Noir