Located in the basement of the Viru Hotel tower, manager Tarmo Õmblus told Vikerhommik that while "there used to be parties at Amigo seven days a week, with performers getting stronger with each passing day, now it has gradually grown quieter and only Friday and Saturday remain. Yet the rent is still for seven days."

The decision to close Amigo, which opened in 1994, followed much soul-searching over several years, he added.

"Public interest never really picked up again following the coronavirus crisis. That's where the decline set in," Õmblus said.

Õmblus also noted the present-day Amigo clientele demographic defies stereotypes. "I'll bust one of the biggest urban legends. 'Amigo – that's the Finns.' It isn't. Statistics show that 7 to 8 percent of the audience are Finns; the rest are local people. The bands are local, the audience is local as well, so it has really been a place for city residents."

"The Amigo audience has [also] become more homely. In the past, we also had a VIP plan; a regular customer base who received information, but during the coronavirus period, that program was scrapped, so those people are no longer there either," he added.

Bands' fees are just the tip of the iceberg. "Behind that, there is also rent, energy costs, staff – all of that is growing," Õmblus said.

While big local acts like the bands Shanon or the Smilers, and singer Koit Toome, bring audiences in, they cannot play there every day. The result has been, Õmblus said, some acts getting semi-residencies, which meant "if you missed them one week, you knew that two or three weeks later they would be performing again," though he added attempts had been made to remedy this state of affairs too.

Whichever act is playing, audiences in more recent years have tended to come specifically for the gig, while the venue has been emptying out once the live music has ended, Amigo's management reported. The average spend per customer has also shrunk.

Shanon guitarist Janek Harik confirmed Amigo has not been as important a venue in the band's concert schedule as it was in pre-pandemic days. "There are simply fewer gigs there now, so in the bigger picture, nothing will change for us, and nature abhors a vacuum anyway. It is just sad that the city of Tallinn is devoid of concert venues. If you want to go somewhere, there's basically only a pub. There are no proper venues left, yet there are people who would want a place like that."

Along with general inflation, ticket prices and drinks prices have risen too, and the public perception sees it that "the clubs have become greedy," Harik added.

'Aktuaalne kaamera' reports from the dancefloor

Amigo's appeal was such that in 1995, just a year after it opened, ETV filmed a "Cafe Amigo" reality show there.

 When "Aktuaalne kaamera" visited the club over the weekend, far from being dead, the dancefloor was packed, the atmosphere charged.

"A place that will be closed immediately, but it shouldn't be closed — look how interesting the place really is! It's my first time, but the band is performing, Shanon is performing, so what's wrong here? Everyone is polite," said one visitor, Martin.

"The whole environment and society — actually everything that happens here is really cool. The music and the place itself are really cool. Of course, it's a shame that it's closing, because it's almost my home," said another, Are.

Veteran DJ and radio host Kristjan Hirmo noted that times change. "Young people have their own places and they have a completely different world. They organize their own parties, hang out with friends and DJ themselves. At the same time, so-called adults have a lot of different pop-up events in Tallinn. For example, at Kultuurikatla or Noblessner. When David Guetta or Armin Van Buren come to perform at the Song Festival Grounds, tens of thousands of people come there. I wouldn't say that this hunger for this music, dance music or parties has disappeared. It's just that things change over time."

This, in fact, works in favor of keeping Amigo open, however, he added. The closure seems drastic, as Estonian club culture is already practically non-existent compared with the situation in its neighbor to the north.

"In general, there's a very old club culture, for example, in Helsinki — there are some legendary clubs that have been operating for 50-60 years — or in Stockholm, that we don't have. Our culture is thin. In the 1990s, when this liberation took place, everything came to us with such great enthusiasm. We accepted everything that was offered; maybe there's a bit of a nostalgia moment here. I don't think it's quite right to stay behind and cry that this time will never come back," Hirmo said.

While Amigo is set to close its doors next month, Õmblus hinted that this need not spell the end of a club of some kind at the same venue.

"We're not rushing to tear down the stage and bars right now. Maybe it's a little phoenix and we'll rise from the ashes after all," he told "Aktuaalne kaamera."

Editor's note: This article was updated to include the "Aktuaalne kaamera" reportage.

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