The first Club Health conference was held in Liverpool in 1997. Although conceived as a national conference, it immediately attracted an international audience. So just two years later the first international Club Health Conference was launched in Amsterdam. The conference has moved around the globe attracting different audiences, examining different nightlife health issues, and offering delegates a taste of nightlife in different cities and countries. Some subjects such as alcohol, drugs, violence and sexual health remain staples of the conference programme. Others such as bar design, nightlife medicine, staff training and behavioural ‘nudges’ like free lollipops for noise control are further reminders of constant innovation in nightlife settings. Arguably, however we are now in a period of revolution in how and where we socialise leading to new threats and opportunities in nightlife health. The metaverse, social media, designer drugs, post-pandemic concerns over communicable disease control, gender identify, and sustainability are just a few of the emergent issues that have already begun to alter nightlife and will continue to do so over coming decades.

This talk will consider some of these issues that have changed nightlife health over the two decades since the first Club Health conference and reflect on what we might consider from a health perspective when considering the next 20 years.