Sorry, but that article is stale. Fact is, there is actually a re-boot raging in the small-sized party scene. Daddy said it a long time ago, no one is even looking for that factory club experience now, except B&T and tourists.
I think a lot of Brits try to expect something out of the Rave era and it just shows, far from being in the know, their expectations are as middle class as the party scene they want to be dissapointed with.
In the last month I've been at parties with people fucking in the banquettes, vending 'do you need enything' from the 'ticket booth', running past 6AM, etc. Some nights there are as many as four or five preferred parties on the schedule and I just give up trying to get to more than one.
It's like there are two New York's happening now, the Rudiani/Puff Puff Bloomberg version of corporatebottlebar for the bitchy socialite airport set, and the pros who know how to pull off a real party on the right scale -or no scale.
Yes NYC ain't what it used to be but what it used to be also got just as good or better, and that to me seems to be as about New York City as it gets.
And as for a financial survey of artists here, puhleez -art in Europe has a very different status than it does in the US and the only common ground is the 'capital intensive industry.' Anyone who has practiced their art here knows from their own delight at experiencing how they are regarded when they go to Europe that here an artist is basically a tollerated low-life kept around by people with money as a kind of midget dog that does quaint tricks people will pay for, sometimes, while in Europe your abilities are just as much seen as an important contribution to social discourse.
5,000 artists make less than 80 grand a year even with a college education, shit, there are millions of artists here who do not make anything near even a poverty level income or living even when the economy is fat.