Amsterdam Dance Event turned 30 last week, and it used the birthday to launch something the scene has never had: a shared way to measure what the night is worth as culture. The Nighttime Culture Index, produced by the research and advocacy agency VibeLab with ADE as founding partner and co-publisher, was presented at ADE Pro on 22 October.
What the Index is
Most studies about nightlife count money. The night-time economy is often described in jobs, taxes and tourism. The Index starts from the other side. In its own words, it measures what the night creates. It treats clubs, collectives, parties and the people behind them as culture, not only as a noise or licensing problem to be managed.
Its goal is to give everyone with a stake in nightlife, from grassroots scenes to the industry and city leaders, the same evidence to understand, strengthen and protect their night culture. “There is no business without culture,” said Jan-Willem van de Ven, Managing Director of ADE, when the partnership was announced. Jane Slingo, Director Asia Pacific at VibeLab, called it “evidence and a shared language” to understand and defend nighttime culture.
How big it is
The first edition is a baseline for six cities on six continents: Amsterdam, Lagos, New York, São Paulo, Seoul and Sydney. Each city is scored from 0 to 100 across six dimensions: Creative Ecology, Space & Infrastructure, Diversity & Representation, Community & Belonging, Policy & Civic Health, and Sustainability & Environment. Together they hold 30 indicators.
The evidence behind it is serious. According to the Index dashboard, the team analysed 12,664 event line-ups, assessed 3,073 venues, researched 29,727 non-music cultural events and studied 1,236 individual events. It also ran a public survey with 767 respondents, focus groups with 67 participants and 14 expert interviews. Every city was checked by local coordinators from its own scene, among them Tara Duvivier, a DJ and urban planner in New York, and Monique Dardenne in São Paulo, co-founder of Women’s Music Event, a platform for gender equity in music.
It is a three year project. After the 2026 baseline, more cities and indicators arrive in 2027, and from 2028 the scores will be tracked over time.
Three in ten
Here is the number that matters most to this magazine. Across the Index cities, female and gender-diverse artists make up only 27% to 32% of event line-ups, and they are booked for fewer events on average. The Index lists it among its key findings with two words: still lagging.
City by city, the dashboard shows how similar the picture is. Amsterdam sits at 31.2%, New York and São Paulo at 30.6%, Seoul at 30.0% and Sydney at 29.8%. Lagos is furthest behind, at 20.8%. Six very different scenes, and not one of them books women and gender-diverse artists for even a third of the line-up.
Not one city books women for even a third of the line-up.
Who runs the room
Visibility on stage is only half the story. The Index also looked at who owns and runs the venues, and the answer is familiar. Experts in five of the six cities rated the representation of women, LGBTQIA+ people and other marginalised communities in venue ownership and leadership as poor. Even where artists, collectives and frontline staff have become more diverse, venues are still mainly run by men. In Amsterdam, promoters told researchers that ownership remains concentrated among white Dutch men. Contributors in Amsterdam and Seoul went further and said representation behind the scenes is getting worse.
That matters for every DJane trying to get booked. The people who decide the line-up are the gatekeepers, and the Index shows the gate is still held by the same hands.
The same week, the ADE Pro programme put the question on stage. The Shrinking Gatekeep, a conversation between artists with Novah, SPFDJ and LYZZA, moderated by Connie Chow of FUGA, asked whether algorithmic booking widens access or repeats old biases, and what has actually opened doors beyond awareness campaigns.
The way home
Inside the venue, most people feel safe. Between 86% and 88% of respondents in Amsterdam, New York and Sydney said so, and around 75% in Lagos, São Paulo and Seoul. The street outside is another matter, and for women the trip home is where the night breaks down. In Amsterdam, only 28% of women said they feel safe on their journey home, compared with 61% of men. In Sydney the figures were 48% and 75%.
For female DJs this is not an abstract statistic. A DJane finishing a closing set at 5am is the woman on that journey home, often alone and carrying equipment.
28% of women feel safe getting home in Amsterdam. For men, it is 61%.
Who is leading the change
The Index also points to where progress comes from. Grassroots, alternative and queer scenes are pioneering diverse line-ups, care teams and inclusive space policies. The warning is that these same scenes are the most exposed to rising costs. A club ticket costs 1.13 hours of minimum wage work in Sydney, 9.16 in São Paulo and 24.76 in Lagos. Training is another barrier: nightlife career education exists in every city, but it often depends on being able to pay, and it does not always lead to paid work.
Put together, the findings describe the same circle we write about every week. Women are a minority on the line-up, booked less often, rarely in the rooms where decisions are made, less safe on the way home, and most supported by the small scenes that can least afford to keep going.
And the UAE?
Dubai and Abu Dhabi are not in the first edition, and no city in the Middle East is. The Index will add new cities in 2027 and 2028. We’re DJaneMag UAE, and we’ll still say it: the scene here is growing fast, and it deserves to be measured too. Until then, we keep counting, booking by booking, in our own way. As we showed in our editorial on the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix line-ups, the numbers only change when someone keeps asking.
Which city should the Index measure next? Tell us on our Instagram, @djanemaguae, and explore the full dashboard at nighttimecultureindex.org.