# The Great American Fun Shortage

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 17 Jul 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/02ad1a5b-1108-4564-98ae-b48a014e3ab9/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

There’s a historic mismatch between fun-supply and fun-demand in the US this summer. Americans are clamoring for places to relax and socialize. But the purveyors and conduits of fun — like airlines, theme parks, resorts, concert venues, camps and more — are all grappling with the same inflationary pressures as the rest of us — making fun more expensive and harder to access. On today’s Big Take podcast, host Sarah Holder talks to Bloomberg's Ben Steverman about why a fun shortage is a serious problem for society — and what can be done about it. Read more: The Fun Shortage Is Real, and It’s Making America Miserable We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for podcast listeners at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. Hosted by Sarah Holder; Produced by Laura Newcombe; Reported by Ben Steverman; Edited by Naomi Shavin. Fact-checking by Rachael Lewis-Krisky; Engineering by Sean Carter. Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Ben, Welcome to the studio.
[0:09] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[0:10] Speaker 1: Have you been having a fun summer far? I have
[0:12] Speaker 1: been an amazing summer, an amazing summer. What have you
[0:15] Speaker 1: been up to.
[0:16] Speaker 2: Well, last weekend I was at the beach with my family,
[0:19] Speaker 2: and then the weekends before that we had amazing Pride
[0:22] Speaker 2: weekend in New York, And then before that I was
[0:24] Speaker 2: on a boat on a dance party on a boat
[0:26] Speaker 2: in the Hudson River when the Knicks won the NBA Championship.
[0:30] Speaker 1: Electric that was the best.
[0:32] Speaker 2: Feeling stuff happening in the city.
[0:34] Speaker 1: Absolutely, I've honestly been having a really fun summer too.
[0:37] Speaker 1: I've been traveling a little bit, but mostly like enjoying
[0:39] Speaker 1: being in New York, going to the beach. Now I'm
[0:42] Speaker 1: watching a lot of soccer at bars in my neighborhood.
[0:45] Speaker 1: I've been having a lot of fun. But then you've
[0:47] Speaker 1: been reporting on this depressing reality that nationwide fun is
[0:50] Speaker 1: actually on the decline. Some of this fun we're having
[0:53] Speaker 1: is very hard one.
[0:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot over the
[0:59] Speaker 2: last few months and thinking about this summer as a
[1:02] Speaker 2: summer of scarcity. In some ways, fun is harder to find,
[1:07] Speaker 2: it's more expensive, it's less available. It's a depressing sense
[1:10] Speaker 2: that either you can't afford to do the things you
[1:14] Speaker 2: want to do, or it's just like you have to
[1:16] Speaker 2: think like way in advance and do a lot of planning.
[1:19] Speaker 2: And the roads are full, the parking lots are full,
[1:22] Speaker 2: the concerts sold out, like there's a lot of there's
[1:26] Speaker 2: a lot of angst about it, I think out there.
[1:28] Speaker 1: And that sucks at a personal level, But that can't
[1:30] Speaker 1: be good at a societal level either, right then, So
[1:34] Speaker 1: when you.
[1:34] Speaker 2: Look at happiness in America, like the United States is
[1:39] Speaker 2: like the place on the globe where their happiness has
[1:42] Speaker 2: gone down the most. The World Happiness Report is this
[1:46] Speaker 2: comprehensive look every year, and it really looked this year
[1:51] Speaker 2: at like why people in the United States are getting
[1:54] Speaker 2: less happy? Why are they less satisfied with their lives?
[1:57] Speaker 2: And it can't be the internet, because other countries are
[2:01] Speaker 2: at least as online as we are, But like, there's
[2:04] Speaker 2: something else going on with America, And I'm positing. I
[2:08] Speaker 2: believe that it is something to do with our availability
[2:11] Speaker 2: of fun and shared experiences.
[2:14] Speaker 1: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah
[2:17] Speaker 1: Holder today on the show in the US, there's a
[2:20] Speaker 1: mismatch between fund supply and fun demand. I talked to
[2:25] Speaker 1: Ben Steveerman, who covers economic and social trends for Bloomberg,
[2:28] Speaker 1: about what's driving the fun shortage in America and what
[2:32] Speaker 1: can be done about it. I'm wondering if we could
[2:37] Speaker 1: just start with a definition here what is fun?
[2:42] Speaker 2: This is a little bit my own definition, but I
[2:44] Speaker 2: think this is based on real happiness research that I've
[2:48] Speaker 2: talked to scholars about. The fun that really makes a
[2:51] Speaker 2: difference in our lives is shared fun. If you just
[2:54] Speaker 2: look scrolling through TikTok, like, okay, that's like amusing, but
[2:58] Speaker 2: it's not fun. My definition of fun is shared experiences
[3:02] Speaker 2: that get you out in the world with other people,
[3:04] Speaker 2: whether that's going on vacation with your family, going out
[3:09] Speaker 2: to night life, or a concert with your friends, even
[3:12] Speaker 2: like small talk with a stranger in your community, like
[3:15] Speaker 2: that is also fun.
[3:19] Speaker 1: And what did you find in your reporting that show
[3:21] Speaker 1: that those kinds of fun, those collective shared fun experiences
[3:25] Speaker 1: are getting harder to come by.
[3:26] Speaker 2: Well when you ask people, and the Bureau of Labor
[3:29] Speaker 2: Statistics actually does an annual study of how Americans spend
[3:33] Speaker 2: their time. We are spending a lot less time communicating
[3:37] Speaker 2: face to face over the last twenty years, and we're
[3:41] Speaker 2: spending a lot more time interfacing with screens and computers.
[3:45] Speaker 2: We're spending a lot more time at home rather than
[3:48] Speaker 2: getting out, and in the world, we're seeing fewer arts
[3:53] Speaker 2: and entertainment programs or seeing less sports. The walls are
[3:56] Speaker 2: kind of closing in on us, and we feel like
[3:58] Speaker 2: we can't get out. Trying to figure out what is
[4:01] Speaker 2: the barrier that's preventing people from going out and having
[4:04] Speaker 2: more fun.
[4:05] Speaker 1: One of the factors that you identified is that the
[4:07] Speaker 1: number of venues for having fun has been declining. What's
[4:12] Speaker 1: behind this scarcity.
[4:14] Speaker 2: One thing that's happening here is that the US population
[4:17] Speaker 2: has gone up, and the places to have fun have not.
[4:21] Speaker 2: In some cases, they've gone down. Like it is so
[4:24] Speaker 2: hard to open a new nightclub or bar in America
[4:28] Speaker 2: because of a lot of local regulations, because of rising costs,
[4:33] Speaker 2: the sort of geographic constraints in a lot of popular destinations.
[4:37] Speaker 2: So we basically haven't kept up with population, we haven't
[4:42] Speaker 2: kept up with demand, and it just makes it harder
[4:45] Speaker 2: to get tea time at a golf course, or the
[4:48] Speaker 2: waiting list that your local country club is even longer
[4:50] Speaker 2: because everybody wants to join. Sort of everywhere you turn,
[4:54] Speaker 2: there's just less available for you.
[4:55] Speaker 1: Does any of this have to do with the long
[4:57] Speaker 1: tail of COVID where a lot of spaces for irl
[5:00] Speaker 1: gathering closed down? Or is something else going on here?
[5:04] Speaker 2: I think that's absolutely the case when you think about
[5:06] Speaker 2: like local nightlife or local live music venues. That was
[5:10] Speaker 2: like a really challenging time. The other thing that happened,
[5:13] Speaker 2: I think is that recession during COVID meant that we
[5:17] Speaker 2: kind of stopped building new stuff in that in that
[5:20] Speaker 2: period of time, and now demand as we're back and
[5:25] Speaker 2: those places aren't available.
[5:27] Speaker 1: An important point that you write about is that not
[5:30] Speaker 1: everyone is experiencing this fun shortage in the same way. Right,
[5:34] Speaker 1: How does income inequality exacerbate the ways that people are
[5:39] Speaker 1: having a harder time accessing fun.
[5:41] Speaker 2: If you look at what's happened with the stock market,
[5:44] Speaker 2: it's we've gone up so much. What happens is some
[5:48] Speaker 2: people can afford to bid up the prices of that
[5:52] Speaker 2: vacation rental. Other people were stuck making a salary. We're
[5:55] Speaker 2: still saving for retirement we can't afford it, and like
[5:59] Speaker 2: a huge second, men of the middle class and even
[6:01] Speaker 2: the upper middle class can feel locked out of these
[6:04] Speaker 2: experiences that they used to do.
[6:06] Speaker 1: How new is that dynamic? Though?
[6:08] Speaker 2: I think that the wealth creation over the last decade
[6:12] Speaker 2: in the United States is really significant, Like it's really
[6:16] Speaker 2: record breaking, especially at that higher end, and so that
[6:20] Speaker 2: enables people to spend more. The other thing is that
[6:24] Speaker 2: it coincides with this lack of supply and those these
[6:28] Speaker 2: things are coming together.
[6:33] Speaker 1: And the fun industry is contributing to this dynamic too. Right,
[6:36] Speaker 1: how are businesses and institutions designed to serve up fun
[6:41] Speaker 1: responding to the shortage?
[6:42] Speaker 2: Well, one way you would think to respond to this
[6:45] Speaker 2: is that you create more supply, You create new destinations,
[6:49] Speaker 2: new beachfront resorts, and there's a little bit of that,
[6:51] Speaker 2: but a lot of what's happening is that if you
[6:55] Speaker 2: are the major concert venue, if you are running a
[6:59] Speaker 2: major tour of an artist, like you're the only game
[7:03] Speaker 2: in town, you can charge more and more and more,
[7:08] Speaker 2: even if like the actual ticket, the sort of the
[7:10] Speaker 2: base ticket hasn't gone up that much. You create these experiences,
[7:15] Speaker 2: whether at a concert or at a theme park or
[7:17] Speaker 2: in an airplane or in a hotel where if you
[7:20] Speaker 2: want to have like the experience you used to have
[7:23] Speaker 2: a decade ago, you need to pay more and more
[7:25] Speaker 2: and more.
[7:26] Speaker 1: Now you mentioned this idea that it's not so easy
[7:28] Speaker 1: to just like open up a new concert venue, open
[7:30] Speaker 1: a new sleepway camp that that is expensive. Say more
[7:34] Speaker 1: about that, Like why aren't there new opportunities for entrepreneurial
[7:37] Speaker 1: fun makers to get into the business right now?
[7:39] Speaker 2: The cost of construction really soared. Tariffs haven't helped. Like
[7:45] Speaker 2: you look at summer camps for kids. One of the
[7:47] Speaker 2: main reasons is like building a new dining hall with
[7:50] Speaker 2: a brand new industrial kitchen, like and.
[7:53] Speaker 1: Buying all the food for all those mouths.
[7:54] Speaker 2: Buying all the food for all those mouths. That's the
[7:57] Speaker 2: important that's the expensive thing. You can put up a
[7:59] Speaker 2: cabin and put bunks in there. It's really about the infrastructure.
[8:03] Speaker 2: It's also about finding those special properties, like a lot
[8:06] Speaker 2: of those special properties where you might put a summer
[8:09] Speaker 2: camp or even a hotel or vacation resort, Like it's
[8:12] Speaker 2: already bought up by somebody else.
[8:15] Speaker 1: So the supply side of fun looks pretty bleak. After
[8:19] Speaker 1: the break, we'll talk more about the demand side, why
[8:22] Speaker 1: Americans still want to have fun, and how to address
[8:26] Speaker 1: the shortage that's next. So ben Unlike a shortage of
[8:40] Speaker 1: gas or food or housing, a shortage of fun sounds
[8:43] Speaker 1: like manageable for a society. Maybe fun is a nice
[8:46] Speaker 1: to have, not a need to have, but fun is
[8:48] Speaker 1: actually really important. Why is it so important that people
[8:52] Speaker 1: have fun?
[8:55] Speaker 2: I think it's why we're alive. It's sort of the
[8:57] Speaker 2: point of life in some ways. It's important to our mood,
[9:00] Speaker 2: it's important to how we feel about each other and
[9:03] Speaker 2: our politics. And it makes people incredibly unhappy if they
[9:10] Speaker 2: feel like the only thing they're doing is working and
[9:14] Speaker 2: staring at a screen. And in fact, like studies have
[9:16] Speaker 2: looked at like how do people feel about like digital
[9:20] Speaker 2: tools and using digitalols, and like what is it? And
[9:22] Speaker 2: it often makes people even more bored, Like you think
[9:25] Speaker 2: you're having fun, and like, actually the opposite is happening.
[9:29] Speaker 2: And it's not just boredom, although the boredom is really important,
[9:32] Speaker 2: it's also the fact that you're not connected with your
[9:34] Speaker 2: neighbor or your family or your friends. The consequences of
[9:39] Speaker 2: that are profound. People who are social isolated are much
[9:43] Speaker 2: more likely to die younger. And the other thing is
[9:46] Speaker 2: our politics. There's been really interesting studies coming out of
[9:51] Speaker 2: Europe looking at what happens when a local gathering spot
[9:55] Speaker 2: closes down. In the UK, they've looked at pubs. In France,
[10:00] Speaker 2: they looked at bartabox, which are like local sort of betting.
[10:04] Speaker 2: You can kind of place a bet, buy a newspaper,
[10:06] Speaker 2: buy some tobacco, have a drink, coffee, whatever. Thousands of
[10:10] Speaker 2: these have closed down, and both of those phenomenon in
[10:15] Speaker 2: a small town predict voting for nationalist parties in those countries.
[10:20] Speaker 2: So I think that there's a reason to think that
[10:24] Speaker 2: a shortage of kind of community fun activities is shifting
[10:29] Speaker 2: politics to the right and also making people feel like
[10:33] Speaker 2: they're left behind, especially in small towns and places where
[10:36] Speaker 2: fun is less accessible.
[10:39] Speaker 1: And I mean, we were talking a lot about the
[10:40] Speaker 1: fact that fun is harder to access. It's also getting
[10:43] Speaker 1: more expensive, but still there's this demand in America for fun,
[10:47] Speaker 1: despite the rising cost of living, despite inflation, despite high
[10:51] Speaker 1: interest rates, Americans at least are spending on travel.
[10:55] Speaker 2: Why is that When we write about sometimes and I
[10:58] Speaker 2: think I've been guilty of this in the past, there's
[11:01] Speaker 2: a sense of like, Oh, Americans are addicted to their
[11:03] Speaker 2: phones and they like they were antisocial now nobody wants
[11:07] Speaker 2: to get out and do anything. And actually think the
[11:10] Speaker 2: opposite when you look at the evidence out there, like
[11:13] Speaker 2: people are desperate to get out. When we had gas
[11:17] Speaker 2: prices spike earlier this year because of the war with Iran,
[11:21] Speaker 2: it barely dent to travel demand. You look at number
[11:25] Speaker 2: of people passing through airports, you look at travel spending generally,
[11:30] Speaker 2: you look at National park visitors like we're at or
[11:34] Speaker 2: very near record levels. People are kind of desperate to
[11:38] Speaker 2: get off a screen. It's just sometimes you have no
[11:40] Speaker 2: alternative because you can't afford and do anything else.
[11:43] Speaker 1: Then are there efforts being made at a government level,
[11:47] Speaker 1: at a policy level to address this challenge? What can
[11:51] Speaker 1: be done?
[11:52] Speaker 2: One idea out there is making it easier to create
[11:55] Speaker 2: new places for people to gather and have fun. New
[11:58] Speaker 2: York State, for example, has very strict liquor laws, like
[12:02] Speaker 2: most of the country does. It's very hard to open
[12:04] Speaker 2: a new venue. A lot of those rules, though, have
[12:07] Speaker 2: been relaxed in the last few years. Same thing is
[12:10] Speaker 2: happening in Massachusetts. In Boston, They've made it much easier
[12:15] Speaker 2: to open new bars by just creating a bunch of
[12:18] Speaker 2: new liquor licenses. I think there's sort of a recognition,
[12:21] Speaker 2: at least on the nightlife side of things, that those
[12:25] Speaker 2: regulations were a little excessive. I think maybe there's a
[12:29] Speaker 2: recognition among elected officials that you need to create excitement
[12:33] Speaker 2: in places, and you need to give people a reason
[12:35] Speaker 2: to feel connected to their community, and that that's one
[12:38] Speaker 2: of the things that in nightlife can do. There's other
[12:42] Speaker 2: ways to sort of create fun for local communities, like
[12:46] Speaker 2: free events in parks. There's some groups in New York
[12:50] Speaker 2: where people get together and they sing together, and they
[12:53] Speaker 2: all study the music they connect on the internet beforehand,
[12:55] Speaker 2: but then they get together in some spot and they
[12:58] Speaker 2: all sing the same piece of music. I think things
[13:02] Speaker 2: like that are really cool because it's completely free except
[13:05] Speaker 2: for the time of the person who has to organize
[13:07] Speaker 2: those things, and that's a lot of work, but it
[13:10] Speaker 2: can be really satisfying to kind of create that kind
[13:12] Speaker 2: of fun collectively.
[13:14] Speaker 1: Maybe someone listening will create their own free fun.
[13:18] Speaker 2: In their community, let's hope.
[13:19] Speaker 1: So then, thank you so much.
[13:21] Speaker 2: You're welcome. This is fun.
[13:30] Speaker 1: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
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[14:07] Speaker 1: We'll be back on Monday.

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