The social scene needs improving!!
So many airfields were busy with social activity 20-30 years ago and are dead now.
As I have written before in this and other threads on this topic, practically everybody who has enough money to actually fly in GA, is going to be in one of two groups
Also participation time is key. Of the young people, are mostly working Mon-Fri and are very focused on where they spend or waste their weekend. Women almost totally want a social scene, and the guys are not going to sit around all day if there are no girls!! You get exactly the same situation in sailing clubs. I used to do water-skiing many years ago (stopped mostly because the club lost access to the lake) and this situation was totally obvious.
There is a lower limit on how financially accessible (how cheap) you can make GA. The numbers have to add up somehow. If the DOC (direct operating cost) is say €100/hr then you have to recover this somehow. You can push club members’ annual time down to say 5-10 hrs/year (probably common in the French club scene, I am told) and that means they can participate for €500-1000 a year (plus some extras, depending on how the “club” deals with cross-subsidies taken from the higher time flyers 
) but then you will end up with pilots with so little currency they will never gain confidence to go anywhere, so they will drop out and will need to be continually replaced by newcomers.
Here’s a counterpoint:
When I joined our club about 7 years or so ago, the average age was in the high 50s / low 60s and we had an exit list (meaning people wanting to leave, but had to wait until someone bought their share).
Today the average age in the low-mid 40s, with the median probably in the high 30s. We also have a waitlist (membership is capped). So, what happened? Most of our new members work in the tech industry and have very nice salaries. That money has to go somewhere, and quite obviously GA is attractive. What is interesting, though, is the mission profile. When I joined, there were lots of long x-country flights, often several days. The newer members, however, prefer to stay close to base and don’t do much of what I would call ‘real’ x-country traveling.
What may also surprise some (most of all @Peter) is that we have no social scene to speak of. The only social event is the monthly membership meeting, and even that is sometimes done via Zoom.
So there – it’s not all doom and gloom!
I am completely prepared to believe that the US has a totally different dynamic. It has a population broadly similar to Europe but has about 5x the GA activity of Europe (numbers further back in this thread).
The near total lack of cost sharing discussion in US GA social media shows yet another aspect of it. It is a lot more affordable over there. It is cheaper to fly and people earn a lot more money.
IMO the social scene is very important, at least where I am. This can be demonstrated by the fact we have a dynamic, young and social gliding club, here at LFFK. And its membership is growing. Their age split goes from 14years old to 80years old.
Our club used to have a very vibrant social scene and we used to fly 4 SEPs ranging with about 1600hrs a year. Back in the 1990s we had 90 pilots who flew regularly.
Nowadays we are down to 1 SEP and 1 ULM. The DA40d is doing less than 400hrs a year. We have 9 or possibly 10 pilots who fly regularly. We try to attract young would be PPLs but in small town and with several other airfields serving larger towns, nearby this is not hugely successful these days. Despite the BIA and financial assistance offered to them.
When young potential pilots do join the club and gain their PPL they are at an age where they are just starting a career and many leave to work in larger towns and join an aeroclub nearer their work.
And although they remain members here and return to fly here in their vacations they are not able to take part in a regular social scene.
The ULM has this year, for the first time been flown more hours than the DA40.
This is not surprising at €80 an hour and with an increasing number of ULM fields in interesting locations, plus as @LeSving writes little regulation and an almost a get in and fly it, in that one can become a ULM pilot or at least solo at 14years old and you get your licence as soon as you can demonstrate you can fly the aircraft, safely.
The problem with the ULM crowd is that they tend to join, get their licence and then after a short while, buy their own ULM, allowing them to be more adventurous.
One young member I talked to is thinking of buying a Jodel D21 a homebuilt tricycle ULM from someone who has built and flown several Jodels. He is talking of an investment of around €20,000 but he wants to go places for days or weeks at a time.
All this leaves little or no time for an aeroclub social scene. There is also an owners club. Cheap membership, they help each other out with maintenance, mentoring advice and hangarage. This club has a super social scene but it is limited to once or twice a year and the occasional fly outs.
But for the aeroclub there is a steady decline in SEP hours flown, number of active members and less and less people turning up for social events. On the 3 latest social events we have had, if the gliding club members had not joined in there would have been very few people in attendance.
On a bright note at the beginning of the year we hosted one of Le Boutique’s breakfast fly ins and that was a great success with around 80 aircraft flying in from all over France to chat over coffee and viennoise (pain au chocolat, pain au raisin, croissant etc).
So we have tried many things to rejuvinate the club and I will be studying this thread intently for any new ideas. We are not yet ready to accept that the young people of today all just prefer other forms of leisure activity.
