Soho was loud, proud and very much alive tonight as Ask for Clive brought its Out For Pride UK Tour to the heart of London for a packed evening at Thirst Bar, Greek Street, featuring a special appearance from Bimini and supported by MOTH Drinks.
Bringing together the LGBTQ+ community, nightlife operators, campaigners and some of the people fighting hardest for the future of Soho, the event delivered a simple message: Pride doesn’t stop when the flags come down, and neither does the fight to protect the places where our communities come together.
Against the backdrop of an increasingly heated debate about the future of London’s West End, the night was both celebration and call to action.
Recent weeks have seen national attention turn to Westminster City Council’s draft licensing policy, including proposals to discourage “high volume vertical drinking” and encourage greater use of seating and table service. The proposals have prompted criticism from hospitality operators and the Mayor of London, while Westminster has strongly rejected suggestions that it intends to ban standing in pubs, saying its objective is to manage overcrowding and excessive drinking rather than diminish nightlife.
At Thirst, the people who actually make nightlife happen brought the conversation back to what is at stake: Soho’s identity.
Speakers reflected on Soho’s extraordinary history as a home for LGBTQ+ people, independent venues, hospitality, music, creativity, outsiders and subcultures — and warned against allowing one of the world’s most famous nightlife districts to slowly lose the very qualities that made it special.
The message from the room wasn’t that Soho should stand still. It was that its future must be built with the communities, workers and businesses that give the area its life.
The debate is particularly timely. Earlier this summer, controversy also followed a decision by the Soho Society to adopt a more restrictive position on new and extended hospitality licences, while operators have increasingly warned that London’s licensing environment risks squeezing the life out of its night-time economy.
But if the recent headlines have painted a picture of a Soho at risk of becoming quieter and more sanitised, Tuesday night’s event offered a powerful alternative vision.
- A Soho that evolves without erasing itself.
- A Soho where residents, venues and visitors can coexist.
- A Soho that remains queer, creative, independent, surprising — and occasionally a little bit naughty.
The atmosphere shifted seamlessly between serious conversation and celebration, culminating in a standout appearance from Bimini, whose presence embodied the unapologetic individuality, creativity and freedom that have long made Soho a magnet for LGBTQ+ communities.
With MOTH Drinks supporting the evening, the event demonstrated what can happen when campaigners, hospitality, brands and communities work together not simply to talk about inclusion, but to create spaces where everyone genuinely feels welcome.
Ask for Clive’s Out For Pride campaign takes that principle beyond Pride month itself. Its message to venues is deliberately straightforward: visible allyship matters all year round, and LGBTQ+ customers should know that when they walk through the door, they belong.
The Soho event was planned as a 25 August stop on the Out For Pride campaign, with Thirst Bar, Bimini and MOTH brought together around the message that “Pride doesn’t stop when the flags come down.”
Silvana Kill Chair Ask For Clive / COO NTIA said:
“Tonight showed exactly why places like Soho matter. These aren’t simply streets full of bars, clubs and restaurants. They’re places where people find community, where culture is created and where generations of LGBTQ+ people have found the freedom to be themselves.
“Of course Soho has to work for everybody who lives, works and spends time here. But managing a successful night-time district cannot mean slowly removing everything that makes it a night-time district in the first place.
“The answer isn’t to sanitise Soho. It’s to work together to make it safer, stronger, more inclusive and sustainable while fiercely protecting the character that makes people from all over the world want to come here.”
The discussion also reflected a point increasingly heard across London’s hospitality sector: nightlife is not an inconvenience attached to Soho, it is part of Soho’s cultural and economic infrastructure. That argument has also featured in London’s wider policy debate, with CEO NTIA Michael Kill telling the London Assembly earlier this year that Soho should be regarded as an area of strategic importance for nightlife.
And the need to balance competing interests is real. Westminster’s own recent after-dark stakeholder work recorded calls for better dialogue between residents and businesses alongside the view from participants that Soho is fundamentally a nightlife hub and should remain one.
For Ask for Clive, that balance begins with recognising what is worth protecting.
Tuesday night provided the evidence in one packed Soho basement: people talking, laughing, meeting, debating, drinking, celebrating and finding community.
Not a problem to be designed out. A culture worth fighting for.
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The auction evening will be a night to remember, with welcome drinks on arrival and a rotating roster of world-famous bartenders serving up bespoke cocktails (sponsored by Diageo) for guests to purchase. The bartenders include: Chelsie Bailey (ex-The American Bar at The Savoy); globally renowned, Dre Masso (Altos Tequila and Nusa Cana); and Happiness Forget’s own Benedetta Paris; with more to be confirmed soon. Luxury canapes, crafted by celebrity chef, Jay Morjaria (BBC2/Netflix’s Million Pound Menu) will also circulate throughout the evening, keeping guests well sated as they secure their winning lots.
The ever-charming drinks consultant and presenter, Jack Sotti (Archive & Myth, Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch), will be hosting as the event’s auctioneer, showcasing the array of rare, collectible spirits and casks, as well as unique luxury experiences, whilst encouraging bidding to raise funds for Equal Measures UK, all against the stunning backdrop of Nancy’s wraparound skyline.
The ticketed event will run alongside an online auction (open to international bidding) run by Whisky.Auction from 23rd August to 1st September. The final auction lots will be streamed live at the event, with bidding taking place throughout the evening via VIP access, complimentary for all guests.
Examples of the 50 or so auction lots (online and event) include:
- GlenAllachie 1990, 35-year-old Cask Strength Single Malt Scotch Whisky
- Signed Limited Edition E&A Scheer 250th Anniversary Rum Bottling (never before sold), accompanied by a handwritten card from Master Blender Carsten E. Vlierboom
- The sold-out Chichibu Single Cask TWE Exclusive 20th Anniversary Whisky bottling
- A unique experience to bottle your own whisky cask: a 1996 Ardmore Single Malt Whisky Cask (42.3%; 42 bottles) with personalised bottling and label design, donated by Whisky Bottlers Ltd.
- The ultimate Islay experience: ownership of a Ferguson Whisky Islay Cask, an exclusive warehouse tasting with Founder David Ferguson, and a two-night stay in a beautiful four-bedroom house in Port Charlotte.
Vicky Ilankovan, Executive Director of Equal Measures UK says,
“This is a night that will showcase the very best of hospitality, raising funds to support those who have been marginalised within it. It won’t be a stuffy auction – it will be vibrant, energised, fun, and welcoming. Our community has rallied together to make this a prolific occasion promising exceptional spirits, fantastic cocktails, and an experience that will live on in the memory far after the last lot has been sold and the last drink poured. We live and breathe hospitality, and we can certainly throw a party – particularly one for such a good cause!”
Charlotte Barker (The Singleton BA) says of Diageo’s involvement:
“Sponsoring the cocktails for Equal Measures’ auction evening is almost the least we can do to support this incredible community and life-changing venture. Our team and brands stand behind the impact the group makes, championing through and across diverse voices in hospitality.”
Max Wolff, General Manager of Nancy’s adds:
“Being involved in Equal Measures’ Auction Evening is a huge point of pride for Nancy’s. We back their mission and love their execution of courses and trainings. Being a small part in the change they bring to the hospitality industry is an honour and we look forward to seeing what they and their beneficiaries next achievements are.”
]]>Is this somewhere I’ll feel comfortable? Will someone step in if something goes wrong? Will I be able to enjoy myself without constantly managing the behaviour of the people around me?
These aren’t abstract concerns. They’re practical decisions, made long before someone walks through the door, and they’re increasingly influencing where women choose to spend their time and money.
The hospitality industry has made genuine progress in recent years. Welfare teams, free water, anti-harassment campaigns, search procedures, safeguarding policies and visible security have all become more common. At the best venues, these measures make a real difference.
But infrastructure and experience are not the same thing.
For women, the gap between the two is often where trust is either built or lost.
What our data consistently shows is that safety scores aren’t usually brought down because a venue lacks policies. They’re brought down by what happens when those policies are tested.
Harassment on the dancefloor.
An inconsistent response when an incident is reported.
Welfare teams visible at the entrance but absent where guests actually need them.
The poster on the wall doesn’t intervene. People do.
One review in our data captures this perfectly. A woman described being repeatedly approached and leered at throughout the evening. Her group asked the men involved to leave them alone. At one point, a member of staff behaved in exactly the same way as the people they were trying to get away from.
The anti-harassment messaging was everywhere.
It made no difference in that moment because the people responsible for enforcing it weren’t.
Another review tells a quieter story, but one that’s just as important. A young woman became separated from her friends outside a venue late at night in an unfamiliar city. She approached security for help but was met with rigidity rather than reassurance.
Nothing criminal happened. There was no assault or theft.
Yet the word she chose to describe her experience was “unsafe.”
Sometimes emotional safety isn’t lost because something terrible happens. It’s lost because someone who needed support didn’t feel they received it. These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re patterns. And they point to something the industry often overlooks. For women, safety isn’t only an operational issue. It’s an emotional one.
A venue can have excellent procedures on paper and still leave guests feeling vulnerable if the people responsible for those procedures apply them inconsistently.
There is another factor that appears repeatedly in the data: the crowd itself.
Where reviews describe an environment as heavily male-skewed, tourist-heavy or image-focused rather than music-focused, safety scores for women tend to decline.
The composition of a crowd shapes behaviour.
A venue can have excellent policies and still create an environment where harassment becomes more likely simply because of who it’s attracting and how that crowd behaves.
Safety management and crowd curation aren’t separate conversations.
They’re part of the same one. Perhaps the most interesting finding is what isn’t always said. Women who felt uncomfortable don’t necessarily describe their experience as a safety issue. Instead, they talk about the atmosphere. The vibe. The crowd. They say something “felt off.” That means the true scale of the issue is almost certainly larger than review data alone suggests.
The signals are there. You just have to know where to look.
This isn’t simply a safeguarding issue. It’s a commercial one. Women don’t just decide where they go. They often decide where groups go. They organise birthdays, book tables, suggest restaurants, recommend venues and decide where friends meet after work. Their perception of a venue influences far more than one customer. When women trust a venue, they bring other people with them. When they don’t, they rarely make a fuss. They simply choose somewhere else.
There is another conversation the industry has been slow to have, and it involves all of us. Creating safer spaces shouldn’t be seen as something for women to think about or for venues to enforce alone. Staff can’t be everywhere. Culture is created by everyone in the room.
Most people want hospitality to be welcoming, respectful and enjoyable for everyone. Encouraging people to step in, challenge inappropriate behaviour and look out for one another is just as important as any policy or campaign. Real culture isn’t created by posters. It’s created by people. Trust has become one of hospitality’s most valuable assets.
A woman who has a bad experience, or who simply doesn’t trust that a venue will look after her, often won’t complain. She just won’t return. More importantly, she won’t recommend it. In an industry where reputations spread through WhatsApp groups, TikTok, Instagram and conversations between friends, trust is incredibly valuable.
Losing it is expensive. Earning it is one of the best investments a venue can make. Hospitality has always competed on atmosphere, music, service and value. Increasingly, it will compete on something else. How people feel. The venues that understand emotional safety won’t simply become safer places. They’ll become the venues people trust, recommend and return to. Because people rarely remember every drink they ordered or every song the DJ played. They remember how a place made them feel.
And that feeling is becoming hospitality’s biggest competitive advantage.
]]>One venue. Many different experiences.
Every operator wants people to leave feeling they’ve had a great night. Most work incredibly hard to make that happen. But our analysis consistently shows that different communities often experience the same venue very differently. Women may describe a space differently to men. Disabled guests often identify barriers that other customers never notice. Neurodivergent visitors may experience sensory challenges that are invisible to everyone around them.
LGBTQ+ guests frequently place greater emphasis on whether they feel welcome, respected and able to be themselves. First-time visitors often notice things that regular customers simply navigate without thinking.
None of those experiences are more valid than another.
They’re simply different. These aren’t niche audiences. Sometimes these conversations are framed as though we’re talking about a small minority of guests. We’re not.
Around one in four adults in the UK lives with a disability, while an estimated 15–20% of people are neurodivergent. Add women, LGBTQ+ communities, older audiences, younger audiences, tourists and
first-time visitors, and it quickly becomes clear there is no such thing as a “typical” guest. The question isn’t whether these communities are already coming through your doors. They are. The question is whether we truly understand how they’re experiencing our spaces.
Most barriers aren’t intentional. The vast majority of venues don’t set out to create barriers. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. Teams care deeply about their customers and work incredibly hard to create welcoming, enjoyable environments. The challenge is much simpler than that. If you don’t know a barrier exists, you can’t remove it. And many of the barriers different communities experience are surprisingly small. A confusing entrance. A difficult interaction with security. Poor signage. No information before arriving. Lighting that’s overwhelming. The absence of a quieter space. Individually they might seem insignificant. Together they shape whether someone decides to come back.
The patterns tell the story. Every venue receives the occasional negative review. That isn’t the problem. The real value comes from identifying recurring patterns. If multiple disabled guests mention navigating the venue is difficult, that’s a pattern. If LGBTQ+ visitors consistently describe feeling welcomed by staff, that’s a pattern. If younger audiences repeatedly mention queue management or communication, that’s
a pattern.
One review tells a story. Patterns tell operators where to act.
That’s where Audience Intelligence becomes different from traditional reporting. It isn’t about collecting more feedback. It’s about understanding what that feedback is trying to tell us. Better experiences benefit everyone One of the most encouraging things we’re seeing is that improvements made for one community often improve the experience for everyone. Clearer signage helps first-time visitors as much as disabled guests. Better communication reduces uncertainty for all audiences. Consistent security interactions build confidence across every demographic.
Improved accessibility usually creates a better experience for everyone, not just those who identify as disabled.
These aren’t separate conversations. Accessibility, safety, inclusion and guest experience are deeply connected. When one improves, many others improve too. From feedback to Audience Intelligence For years we’ve focused on collecting more feedback.
The next step is turning that feedback into meaningful intelligence. At UniteVerse, we’re building the Audience Intelligence layer for physical spaces – think Google Analytics for the physical world. Rather than looking at reviews in isolation, we’re identifying recurring patterns across audiences, venues and events to help operators understand not just what people experienced, but why, who experienced it differently and where improvements will have the greatest impact. Because when you can see the patterns, you can change them. Looking beyond the average
The venues, festivals and destinations that thrive over the next decade won’t simply be those collecting the most feedback. They’ll be the organisations that understand it best. They’ll recognise that one venue can create many different experiences. They’ll understand that accessibility, inclusion and safety aren’t separate initiatives – they’re different ways of improving the same guest journey. And they’ll stop asking, “How are our guests experiencing our venue?” and start asking, “Which guests aren’t experiencing it in the same way as everyone else, and what can we learn from that?” Because different communities experience spaces differently. Understanding those differences isn’t just good for those communities.
It’s good for every guest who walks through the door.
And that’s what the data has been trying to tell us all along.
]]>It appeared in a national newspaper article about a father’s sexual abuse of his teenage daughter, in a case that ended with that young girl taking her own life. I found myself reading the headline twice because I genuinely could not understand how anyone could look at that article and decide that was the right word to use.
“Romping” belongs to a completely different context. It suggests playfulness, mutual attraction and consent between adults. Placing it anywhere near child sexual abuse does more than sound careless; it risks softening the reality of what happened and changing how readers understand the crime.
Sadly, this is not an isolated example. We have seen rape reduced to a “sex scandal”, grooming described as an “affair”, and strangulation framed through the language of passion or toxic love. Individually, these examples may be dismissed as poor editorial judgment, but together they reveal a much deeper problem: violence against women and girls is still too often made more palatable by the words used to describe it.
Language matters because it influences the first impression people form before they have even reached the details of an article. It can make abuse sound mutual, violence sound romantic, and coercion sound like complicated desire. Once that framing is in place, the public conversation has already been nudged away from accountability and towards ambiguity.
For victims and survivors, that is not abstract. Imagine carrying the trauma of abuse and then seeing it described in words that make it sound smaller, messier or less serious than it was. Imagine wanting to speak, but knowing your experience might be questioned, diluted or turned into something easier for others to consume. That fear is one of the reasons so many people remain silent.
This is also why awareness alone is not enough. We now have more VAWG training, sexual harassment training, safeguarding policies, posters, campaigns and reporting routes than ever before, and all of that has value. But if people leave a training session and return to a culture where harmful comments are laughed off, warnings are ignored, and powerful individuals are protected, then the training has not gone deep enough.
Most people do not harass, abuse or exploit because they have never read a policy. They do it because the environment around them has taught them what will be tolerated. They have seen the joke go unchallenged, the complaint disappear, the victim labelled difficult, and the perpetrator quietly protected because they were useful, popular or commercially valuable.
This is especially uncomfortable in industries like ours, where nightlife, music, hospitality and events are built around people, trust, access and reputation. We rightly celebrate the joy, creativity and freedom these spaces bring, but we also have to be honest about the workplace behind the experience. There are young workers, freelancers, artists, promoters, bar teams, security teams and managers all trying to navigate environments where power can be informal, influence can travel quickly and speaking up can feel risky.
That is why proper warnings, evidence-based concerns and safe routes to raise issues matter. Not gossip, not rumours and not personal vendettas, but responsible truth-telling when patterns of behaviour present a risk to others. An industry cannot claim to care about safeguarding while quietly allowing harmful people to move from one opportunity to the next because they are connected, profitable, popular or inconvenient to challenge.
Real prevention starts in those everyday moments where culture is either challenged or reinforced. It is the manager who listens properly the first time, the colleague who steps in before behaviour escalates, the friend who refuses to laugh along, the employer who takes warning signs seriously, and the newsroom that chooses accuracy over clickbait.
The same principle applies whether we are writing headlines, delivering training, managing teams or deciding whether to raise a concern. We all contribute to the conditions in which other people have to live and work. If we keep softening abuse through language, dismissing warnings as gossip or treating those who raise concerns as troublemakers, we should not be surprised when victims decide that silence feels safer than speaking up.
Changing the culture around violence against women and girls will not happen through one campaign, one awareness day or one online module. It will happen when we become more honest about the language we use, more willing to challenge behaviour that has become normalised and more determined to create environments where truth is valued above comfort.
Because if we cannot describe abuse accurately, we cannot expect society to respond to it properly.
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Guest experience data is only useful when we understand it
Most venues already have more data than they realise: ratings, reviews, surveys, ticket sales, social media comments and feedback forms. The challenge is no longer collecting information. The challenge is understanding what that information is actually telling us.
This is where UniteVerse, our guest experience and audience insight partner, is helping to shift the conversation. Through its work across nightlife, hospitality and live events, UniteVerse is looking beyond headline ratings to understand how different audiences experience venues in practice.
One of the clearest findings is also one of the most important: there is no such thing as the “average guest”.
The average guest is a myth
A venue can be safe and unsafe at the same time, welcoming and unwelcoming, accessible and inaccessible. It depends entirely on who is experiencing it.
On paper, the numbers can look strong. A venue may have positive reviews, a loyal customer base and a healthy overall rating. From the dashboard, everything appears to be working. But when UniteVerse looks beneath the headline score, a more complex picture often emerges.
Women may describe the space differently to men. Disabled guests may identify barriers other customers never notice. First time visitors may struggle with things regulars navigate without thinking. LGBTQ+ customers, neurodivergent guests, older customers, younger customers, tourists and local communities may all experience the same venue in different ways.
None of that is always visible in the average. And that is the problem.
Averages can hide the biggest risks and opportunities
Averages flatten reality. They can make different experiences look the same, when in truth the biggest risks, opportunities and blind spots are often sitting just beneath the surface.
In an initial sample of established UK nightlife venues analysed by UniteVerse, entertainment and atmosphere emerged as some of the strongest-performing areas. Entertainment averaged 85 out of 100, while atmosphere averaged 82 out of 100.
However, the same sample showed much lower scores across areas that directly influence customer confidence and inclusion. Safety averaged 34 out of 100, accessibility averaged 38 out of 100 and inclusivity averaged 37 out of 100.
In other words, venues may be highly successful at creating memorable experiences, while still having work to do around safety, accessibility and inclusion. Across this sample, entertainment scores were approximately 150% higher than safety scores.
That is not a criticism of operators. It is the reality of running complex spaces for diverse audiences.
Loved venues can still have hidden gaps
Some of the venues that create the strongest emotional connection with audiences are not necessarily perfect across every part of the guest experience. In fact, some of the most loved venues still show clear gaps in how different groups experience safety, accessibility, inclusivity, communication and service.
Most operators care deeply about their customers and work incredibly hard to create positive, safe and memorable experiences. But no team can fix what they cannot see. If all the data shows is an overall satisfaction score, then important differences between guest experiences can remain hidden for years.
Once those differences become visible, they become manageable.
Safety, accessibility and inclusion shape customer confidence
For years, organisations have been encouraged to focus on overall performance. What is our rating? What is our satisfaction score? What is our Net Promoter Score?
Those metrics still matter, but they usually tell us what happened. They rarely tell us why.
The more useful question is: who is not having the same experience as everyone else?
This is where the UniteVerse analysis becomes particularly useful. Safety, accessibility and inclusivity frequently score significantly lower than entertainment and atmosphere, even at highly rated and well-established venues. That gap matters because these areas directly influence whether customers feel confident, welcome and respected.
Security interactions also appear to have a disproportionate impact on overall audience perception. A single interaction at the door, inside the venue or during an incident can strongly influence how safe, welcome and respected a customer feels.
The insight is often in the gaps
A venue might be performing well for most guests while unintentionally creating barriers for a smaller group of customers. Not because anybody meant to exclude them. Not because anybody does not care. But because traditional feedback systems are not always designed to show the differences that matter.
The most valuable insight often comes from the gaps: the gap between how safe different groups feel, how easy different guests find it to move through a space, what regulars understand compared with first time visitors, and what leadership believes is happening compared with what customers are actually experiencing.
These gaps are where better decisions begin.
Accessibility is not only about physical infrastructure
One of the broader observations emerging from UniteVerse’s work is that accessibility challenges are often linked to communication, information and customer confidence, not just physical infrastructure.
This matters because many venues think about accessibility purely in terms of ramps, toilets, lifts or physical access. While those things are essential, the guest experience starts much earlier.
Can customers find the information they need before they arrive? Do they know what to expect at the door? Is accessibility information clear online? Are staff confident in how to respond to questions? Do guests feel reassured enough to attend in the first place?
When communication improves, confidence improves. And when confidence improves, more people feel able to participate.
Inclusion is also shaped by food, value and everyday details
Audience feedback also shows that allergens and dietary requirements appear far more frequently than many operators might expect. For customers with allergies, intolerances, religious dietary needs or specific food requirements, confidence around food and drink can have a significant impact on whether a venue feels inclusive.
Pricing and value for money also play an important role. High overall ratings do not necessarily correlate with positive sentiment around pricing and value. A guest may love the atmosphere and entertainment, but still leave feeling that the experience did not represent good value.
These are not separate issues. They all contribute to whether someone feels considered, respected and included.
Guest experience issues are connected
One of the most important things UniteVerse is showing is that guest experience issues rarely sit in isolation. Accessibility can influence whether someone feels safe. Staff interaction can shape whether someone feels welcome. Crowd management can affect atmosphere, wellbeing and confidence. Pricing can influence whether guests feel valued. Communication can determine whether people feel included before they even arrive.
When operators can see those connections clearly, they can move from reacting to problems after they happen to identifying risks and opportunities before they escalate.
The future is better intelligence
That is where the future of guest experience is heading. Not more data for the sake of data, but better intelligence.
UniteVerse is helping venues, festivals and destinations better understand their audiences, identify blind spots and make practical improvements that benefit everyone.
Accessibility, inclusion, safety and guest experience are not separate conversations. They are part of the same conversation.
When communication improves, everyone benefits. When navigation improves, everyone benefits. When barriers are removed for one group, the experience often improves for many others too.
The venues, festivals and destinations that thrive over the next decade will not simply be the ones collecting the most feedback. They will be the ones that understand it best.
They will be the ones that look beyond the score and ask what sits underneath it.
Because the average guest was never really the customer.
Real people are.
And that is what the data is trying to tell us.
ABOUT THE “WHAT THE DATA SAYS” COLLABORATIVE SERIES
What The Data Says is a collaborative blog series between Ask For Clive and UniteVerse, written by Adrian Norman of UniteVerse.
The series explores what audience insight is really telling us about the future of nightlife, hospitality and live events. Looking beyond headline ratings and surface level feedback, it examines how different communities experience spaces differently, why emotional safety, accessibility and inclusion matter, and how better data can help venues identify blind spots before they become barriers.
Together, Ask For Clive and UniteVerse are using these insights to support a more informed, inclusive and preventative approach to guest experience, helping venues understand not just what people think, but how they actually feel.
]]>This is a featured article from “The Human Perspective” series. To stay tuned for future updates, subscribe to our newsletter.
Every year, when Pride comes around, someone asks whether we still need it. The same question is often asked about Pride, Black History Month, mental health, sexual violence, disability, women’s history, neurodiversity and other moments that ask society to stop, look around and pay attention.
I understand why some people question it. They see laws and public statements of support, and assume the work is done. But none of that means very much if we forget the human beings at the centre of it all.
Behind every movement is someone who was once made to feel invisible, unsafe, unwanted, unheard or ashamed. Before something becomes a campaign, it is a person carrying pain in silence: a young person frightened to say who they are, a survivor wondering if anyone will believe them, a disabled person navigating barriers others do not notice, a Black person exhausted by explaining racism again, or someone struggling with their mental health while pretending they are fine because the world has not always made space for the truth.
That is the human perspective we cannot afford to lose. Pride, Black History Month, mental health awareness, sexual violence awareness, Disability History Month and all the other moments we mark are not there to tick a box. They exist because people still need safety, dignity, access, visibility, justice, care and belonging, not just in law or policy, but in the reality of their lives.
These moments bring people back into the room after they have been turned into issues, statistics, arguments or policies. They remind us that equality is not just a framework, diversity is not just representation, and safeguarding is not just a procedure. At the heart of all of it is a person who needs to feel safe, respected, believed and able to exist without constantly preparing for harm.
Everything we do around safeguarding, equality and diversity has to be rooted in that human perspective, because without it, it becomes performative. It becomes words on a website, a logo in June, a statement after an incident, a policy no one understands and a culture that looks good from the outside but fails people in the moments that matter most.
Progress has never come from comfort. Society was not moulded by polite agreement alone; it was shaped by people coming together in streets, communities, workplaces, venues, music spaces and on dancefloors, often at great personal cost, because they knew silence would only protect the systems already failing them.
Those of us from hospitality, nightlife, music and the night time economy understand this deeply, because bars, clubs, basements, warehouses, fields and late night spaces have carried escape, identity, expression, resistance, release and belonging. We only have to look back to the late eighties and nineties rave movement to understand how quickly freedom can be challenged when people gather outside the lines.
Rave culture gave a generation something raw and collective, with young people creating their own world because traditional structures did not understand them or want them. Then came the backlash. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 became infamous in rave history for targeting gatherings linked to music described as being characterised by repetitive beats. The law passed, but it could not erase the feeling that had already taken hold. It could restrict gatherings, but it could not kill the human need to come together, to dance, to connect and to create spaces of freedom.
That is what movements do when they are rooted in human need; they find another way to breathe. Rave culture adapted and became part of British culture, shaping clubs, festivals, artists, communities, careers and the wider night time economy. What was once treated as a threat is now part of our cultural identity and social history.
Intersectionality matters because nobody lives as one neat category. A person can be Black and queer, disabled and trans, neurodivergent and a survivor, or rejected at home while also facing racism, poverty, disability or isolation. When we separate these issues too neatly, we separate people from the fullness of their lives.
The future cannot be built in silos. We cannot talk about Pride and ignore racism, women’s safety and ignore disabled women, Black women, trans women and survivors, mental health while ignoring poverty and trauma, or access while only thinking about ramps. Inclusion is not real if it only works for the easiest person to include.
Awareness months still matter because they force memory back into the room and remind us that progress was demanded by people who were grieving, exhausted, furious, hopeful and brave enough to keep going. The real test is what happens afterwards, when the month ends, the campaign is over and support is no longer visible, fashionable or convenient.
Humanity does not evolve on autopilot. It evolves when people keep pushing it forward, when communities refuse to let one another disappear, and when culture challenges control with enough courage to say that the world as it is cannot be the world we settle for. Every freedom we enjoy was once considered radical, and progress was never comfortable.
]]>This is a featured article from “The Human Perspective” series. To stay tuned for future updates, subscribe to our newsletter.
The recent conversation around the EHRC Code of Practice, single sex spaces, women’s safety and trans inclusion cannot be treated as something that only belongs in Parliament, in the courts or in the comment sections of social media. For those of us working in hospitality, nightlife, safety and inclusion, this lands directly on the ground.
It lands at the front door, in the toilets, at the bar, on the dancefloor, in beer gardens, in staff briefings and in those very real moments when a member of staff is expected to make a calm decision in a complicated situation.
It also lands with the person walking into a venue, wondering whether tonight they will be welcomed, watched, questioned, challenged or humiliated.
And for me, this is where we have to bring it back to the human perspective.
If you know what it feels like to stand on a front door and make decisions in real time, then you know how quickly harm can be done when people are left to act on assumptions, fear, pressure or personal bias.
One of the strongest points coming through from Not In Our Name (NION) Women and The Good Law Project is that targeting trans people does not make women safer. And I think we need to sit with that properly.
If we are serious about women’s safety, then we have to be honest about where harm is really coming from. Violence against women and girls, misogyny, harassment, abuse, coercion and exploitation are not solved by turning vulnerable communities against each other. They are not solved by encouraging suspicion. They are not solved by making people feel entitled to scrutinise someone else’s body, appearance or identity.
Protection should never mean policing people.
Because once we create a climate where people feel invited to question who belongs where, that does not just affect trans people. It affects women who do not look feminine enough for someone else’s comfort. It affects men who are perceived to be gay. It affects nonbinary people who already struggle to find safe and dignified spaces. It affects anyone who does not fit a narrow expectation of how gender or sexuality should look.
And we are already seeing this play out in real spaces.
Operators are trying to do the right thing, but many are unsure how to manage facilities, customer concerns and sensitive situations in a way that is lawful, calm and respectful. Staff are nervous too. They worry about saying the wrong thing, stepping in too soon, stepping in too late, or being left alone to manage something they have not been properly trained for.
At the same time, women are raising very real questions about privacy, dignity and safety. Trans and non binary people are telling us they feel more anxious in public spaces. Disabled people, neurodivergent people and people with intersecting identities are also carrying barriers that are too often missed when these conversations become too narrow.
That is why the Not In Our Name petition, women in support of the trans community, feels important. It is a reminder that this does not have to be framed as women against trans people. We can talk about women’s safety seriously without scapegoating another marginalised group. We can protect dignity without creating fear. We can recognise the needs of different people without allowing our venues and public spaces to become places of suspicion.
Consortium of LGBT+ Voluntary and Community Organisations‘ statement on the EHRC Code of Practice also makes an important point. The Code needs careful scrutiny, not just legally, but practically, because its impact will not be felt equally by everyone. LGBTQ+ organisations, community spaces, service providers, venues and frontline teams are all trying to understand what this means while still holding onto safety, dignity and equal participation.
And that is where our industry has to be careful.
The question cannot simply be, who is allowed where? The question has to be, how do we manage safety without stripping people of dignity? How do we give staff confidence without asking them to become legal adjudicators? How do we make sure customers are protected without allowing other customers to police appearance, identity or belonging?
This is where Ask for Clive has such an important role to play.
Ask For Clive is driving towards visible commitment backed by real culture, training and accountability. Not a sticker on its own. Not a slogan. Not a rainbow logo for Pride month. A genuine commitment that says, if you walk through our doors, you will be treated with respect. If something happens, we will listen. If staff need support, we will train them. If policies are unclear, we will review them. If people feel unsafe, we will not dismiss them.
This is not about pretending the legal landscape is simple. It is not. Venues need proper advice where policy decisions are concerned, especially around facilities and single sex spaces. But the human standard should not be complicated.
People should not be humiliated at the front door. Customers should not be allowed to interrogate other customers. Junior staff should not be left alone to manage sensitive situations without support. Banter should not be used as a cover for abuse. Inclusion should apply behind the bar as much as it does in front of it.
For me, Ask For Clive is about helping venues steady the room. It is about giving teams the confidence to respond with care rather than panic. It is about reminding businesses that safer spaces are not built through fear. They are built through leadership, listening, training and consistency.
We have to get this right for women, for trans and non binary people, for LGBTQ+ communities, for disabled people, for our customers, for our staff and for every person who walks through a door simply wanting to feel welcome, safe and respected.
Because hospitality should feel like hospitality for everyone.
]]>This is a featured article from “The Human Perspective” series. To stay tuned for future updates, subscribe to our newsletter.
From rape cases collapsing to family courts minimising abuse, women in England and Wales are still being asked to survive male violence and then survive the justice system too.
I keep returning to one unbearable thought: women are expected to survive male violence and then survive the system that responds to it. Not able to trust it. Unable to feel held by it. Just survive it. That is what sits beneath the outrage over the teenage rape case in Hampshire, the horror of the online “rape academy” investigation, and the endless testimony from women who say reporting abuse felt like being punished all over again.
The numbers are devastating, and they are not marginal. In England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics estimates that 25.6% of women have experienced sexual assault since the age of 16. Around 7.3% have experienced rape or attempted rape. In rape or assault by penetration cases, the most common perpetrator is a partner or ex-partner. This is not a story about rare monsters in dark alleys. It is a story about men that women know, men women live with, men whom women are expected to co-parent with, and institutions that still struggle to name what that means.
And still, only 14.7% of victims of rape or assault by penetration reported their most recent assault to police. We are often told that under-reporting is about shame, trauma or embarrassment, and of course it is. But it is also about informed distrust. Women know they may be disbelieved, delayed, or mined for private information. They know they may hand over their phone, their counselling notes, their medical history, and still be left with nothing that feels remotely like justice.
Look at what happens once rape enters the formal system. Police recorded 97,317 rape incidents and crimes in the year ending March 2025. Yet only 2.8% of rape offences recorded in that year had a charge or summons outcome when first published, and rape cases took a median average of 434 days to reach that point. Nearly half were closed because of evidential difficulties. The state calls this complexity. Women experience it as attrition. The Home Office notes that first-publication rape charge rates rise later as cases conclude, and that caveat matters. But so does the experience of waiting. Women live inside the delay long before the data are revised.
This is why Lisa Bell’s point about first response matters so much. In her LinkedIn post, she wrote that the first response after someone raises a concern often matters more than organisations realise, and that a dismissive or minimising reaction can shut someone down immediately. She was talking about workplaces. But it applies just as sharply to policing, prosecution and the courts. A system can say all the right things in policy documents and still communicate, in its first instinct, that a woman is a problem to be managed rather than a person to be heard.
The family court tells a version of the same story. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner found evidence of domestic abuse in 87% of case files reviewed and 73% of hearings observed, yet in more than half of the reviewed cases, unsupervised overnight contact was still ordered. Survivors said they were discouraged from raising abuse because they believed it would make no difference, or felt pressured to accept unsafe arrangements for fear of an even worse outcome. We tell women to leave abusive men, and then too often watch the state hand those men access back through the language of parental involvement.
And then there is the online world, which we are still encouraged to treat as though it were somehow separate from “real life”. Rape Crisis’ response to CNN’s investigation into an online “rape academy” said what many women felt instantly: this was not a freakish outlier but proof that rape culture is organised, encouraged and monetised. Ofcom now openly says women and girls face distinct online risks including misogynistic abuse, sexual violence, stalking, coercive control and intimate-image abuse. The internet did not invent misogyny. It has industrialised distribution, repetition and impunity.
Yes, there have been reforms. There are new rules around counselling notes. There are promises around family court change. Operation Soteria is trying to move rape investigations away from questioning the credibility of victims and towards the behaviour of suspects. All of that matters. But reform written down is not the same as safety felt by women in real life.
Women are still living in the space between what the system says it is doing and what they actually experience when they need it most. And this is where, for me, the Night Time Economy has to ask a very uncomfortable question.
Across late-night entertainment, hospitality, events, live music and electronic music, we are being asked to do more. Train more, notice more, and intervene earlier. Create safer spaces. Build welfare teams. Improve door policies. Support vulnerable customers. Challenge behaviour before it becomes harm.
But how can we, as an industry, have real faith that our efforts to address violence against women and girls will be properly supported, when the wider system continues to fail the very women we are working so hard to protect?
Because our teams can do everything right on the night. But what happens after that?
If a woman leaves our space and then enters a system where she is delayed, doubted, exposed, retraumatised or left feeling like she is the one on trial, then we have to be honest. That does not strengthen the work being done on the ground. It undermines it.
The Night Time Economy cannot be expected to act as the front line of prevention while the justice system remains a place where too many women feel punished for speaking up.
We will keep doing the work. We will keep raising standards. We will keep training teams, challenging behaviour and building safer spaces. But we need a system behind us that shares the same urgency, compassion, and accountability.
Because women should not have to survive violence, then survive the venue response, then the police, the courts, and then survive the aftermath.
At some point, the system has to stop asking women to be endlessly resilient and start becoming worthy of their trust.
]]>This is a featured article from “The Human Perspective” series. To stay tuned for future updates, subscribe to our newsletter.
I have spent over 30 years working in the night-time economy, across HR, operations, security and licensing. For 25 of those years, I have also worked as a licensed door supervisor on front doors across the country. So when I talk about safety, inclusion and culture, it is not something I speak about from a distance.
I have stood on those doors. I have seen how quickly a night can change. I have seen staff trying to make difficult decisions in real time, often under pressure and often without enough support. I have seen customers arrive full of excitement, only to become anxious because of a look, a comment, a challenge, or the feeling that they are not welcome.
That is why Ask For Clive matters so much to me.
Because this is not just about a sticker in a window, it is about what sits behind that sticker. It is about whether someone can walk into a venue and feel safe enough to be themselves. It is about whether staff know what to do when someone is targeted, harassed or made to feel small. It is about whether our businesses are creating spaces that are not only commercially successful, but genuinely welcoming, respectful and human.
Hospitality should be about connection. It should be about joy, celebration, music, food, friendship, community and belonging. But for too many people, especially LGBTQ+ people and those who are perceived to be LGBTQ+, going out still comes with a quiet calculation.
Can I hold my partner’s hand? Can I dress how I want? Will I be stared at? Will I be questioned? Will the door team understand? Will anyone help if something happens?
No one should have to carry that to enjoy a night out.
And we have to be honest about what we are seeing. Discrimination is not always based on who someone is. Very often, it is based on who someone is assumed to be.
A woman may be challenged because someone thinks she is transgender. A man may be mocked or targeted because someone thinks he is gay. Someone may be treated differently because of how they dress, how they speak, how they move, who they arrive with, or because they do not fit someone else’s narrow expectation of gender or sexuality.
We are seeing more of this at the front door and inside our spaces. That matters because the front door sets the tone. If someone feels judged before they even get in, the space already feels unsafe.
This is where businesses need confidence, not fear.
We are in a difficult climate. Operators are trying to do the right thing, but many are unsure how to manage facilities, customer concerns and sensitive situations in a calm, lawful and respectful way. Staff are nervous too. They are worried about saying the wrong thing, stepping in too soon, stepping in too late, or being left alone to manage something complex without proper support.
At the same time, women are raising important questions about privacy, dignity and safety. Trans and non binary people are telling us they feel more anxious in public spaces. Disabled people are still facing barriers that mean they cannot always access, move through or enjoy venues with ease. And many people who sit across more than one identity are experiencing exclusion in ways that are often overlooked.
That is why intersectionality matters.
We cannot talk about inclusion as though everyone has the same experience. A Black queer woman, a disabled trans person, an older gay man, a neurodivergent young person, or someone from a faith or migrant background may all experience our spaces differently.
If we are serious about safer spaces, we have to keep asking: who still feels left out, who feels unable to speak up, and who quietly leaves and never comes back?
For businesses, getting this right is not just the right thing to do. It is good leadership.
It protects your customers. It supports your staff. It strengthens your reputation. It builds trust with communities. It helps teams respond consistently, rather than relying on one confident manager or one experienced door supervisor to hold everything together.
And for our workforce, this is vital.
We cannot expect staff to manage harassment, vulnerability, discrimination, conflict and safeguarding concerns if we do not train and support them properly. Inclusion has to apply behind the bar as much as it does in front of it.
Staff need to know they will be backed by management. They need clear reporting routes, proper briefings, practical training and a culture that says, “You do not have to deal with this alone.”
With employment rights and workplace expectations continuing to shift, businesses need to think not only about compliance, but about culture. A policy in a folder will not protect a team member who feels too frightened to report abuse. A statement on a website will not help a customer if no one on shift knows what to do.
Ask For Clive gives venues a way to start.
It opens the conversation. It gives visibility to the commitment. But more importantly, it helps build the training, confidence and care behind it.
For me, this work is about people. It is about making sure our venues are places where customers feel welcome, staff feel supported, and communities feel represented. It is about moving beyond good intentions and into practical action.
We will not get everything perfect overnight. But we can listen. We can learn. We can train. We can challenge poor behaviour. We can support our teams. We can look honestly at our front doors, our toilets, our policies, our accessibility, our reporting and our culture.
Because people should not have to prove who they are to be welcomed.
They should not have to look a certain way to feel safe.
They should not have to educate staff in the middle of a difficult moment.
They should be able to walk through our doors and feel that someone has thought about them.
That is why we have to get this right.
For our businesses. For our customers. For our workforce. And for the communities we are here to serve.
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