The pandemic has changed China’s nightclubs

GETTING INTO Zhao Dai, an underground nightclub in a fashionable part of Beijing, involves a little more faff than it once did. Party animals must prove that they have not travelled anywhere they might have picked up covid-19, by showing doormen a code generated by a government mobile app. Once inside, however, the smoke-filled basement is just as sweaty as usual. On a recent Saturday a hundred unmasked revellers bopped to techno tunes. No one bothered to maintain social distancing while dancing.

The pandemic posed an enormous threat to China’s fragile club scene. Nightspots in Beijing were forced to shut in January. They did not reopen properly until August. Yet many electronic-music clubs have weathered the disruption, in part because punters freed from lockdown have flocked back to them. A bouncer eyeing the crowd at Zhao Dai says it is as busy as it was before the closures. Michael Ohlsson, the American owner of Dada, another Beijing club, says his business will probably break even this year, despite being closed for much of its first half.