I was reading through a facebook group for clubbing in my area (suffolk/uk), and the general feeling was that it needs a gatecrasher type event to spice things up a little from the normal run of the mill chart/party/garage/hip hop crap that is played ALL the time here. but to be honest, i can't see it happening. i think promoters are too scared to take a risk following a closure of a club due to numerous shootings and stabbings that took place for fear it will attract the 'wrong crowd' plus the people here are seemingly too stuck in their ways to try something other than the usual dross they get fed.
on a rare clubbing night about 8 months ago in my town, the only tracks that could be considered close to trance were PPK - Resurrection and Tiesto - Adagio For Strings, again tracks that people are familiar with having been fed it by mtv dance. you never hear a trance tune thats been produced in the last year or two. i left when they started playing party rubbish like timewarp, which is exactly where this area is stuck in.
i think this is how a promoter here works...
1. play the tracks to get the justin timberlake/mtv dance loving girls in
2. put on drinks deals to get the guys in (£1.50 a bottle all night etc etc)
1+2=£ a winning formula thats working, if its not broke, why fix it. business sense i guess.
now this is why i don't like clubbing in my town, because its full of drunken guys trying to get it on with any girl that seems interested or getting overly aggressive and causing fights. the atmosphere isnt that pleasing from my point of view.
however, everytime i have been to turnmills in london on a friday night its always been a pleasurable experience, because im surrounded by people that enjoy the music and thats what brought them to the club.....the music. i don't travel further than london that much, but places such as Sheffield, Coalville, Birmingham are the places i know generally have some form of trance event each month, there may well be more too, i just can't think of any more of the top of my head.
As for trance popularity on the whole, i find it hard to gauge personally, due to the fact that i wasnt really listening to trance consistantly enough (or any other edm for that matter) until 2003. however i believe the internet has made it much more accessible than it has been in the past. you would never hear a trance show every night on a major FM station in the UK primetime, whereas on the internet there is a whole host of shows and stations such as here that can fulfill peoples needs.
