One of the big areas of focus the past two years has been the shift in consumption from the “COVID winners" to "COVID losers” including the shift from goods to in-person experiences and entertainment. High inflation’s impact on overall real consumer expenditures has been another.
To better understand consumer activity related to in-person, we've created a Nightlife Activity custom chain, which includes 23 “neighborhoods” around the U.S. that draw a lot of locals to restaurants, bars, and clubs. Our Nightlife Activity index includes West Williamsburg in Brooklyn, 2nd Street in Long Beach, the North Loop in Minneapolis, and many others. To isolate for nightlife activity, we filter for visits on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday between the hours of 6:00 PM-12:00 AM, and lasting more than 60 minutes in dwell time. The “activity” measured per weekend is about 1.25M visits, as such, it’s a pretty large sample of activity and consumer expenditures.
The below two figures show the pace of activity for each year compared to 2019. As shown, by July 2021, activity was back to 2019 levels, but then it receded as COVID strains blossomed and other matters weighed. Activity went back to 2019’s level by May 2022 and danced around 2019’s levels for the remainder of the year. For 2023, activity also danced at that level, until Labor Day when things substantially slowed. But activity popped again mid-October and has remained above 2019 and 2022 since then. That activity cadence also aligns with other data that we have reviewed and with company commentary. What do we expect going forward? Hopefully, more of the same “normal.”
