Nobody ever chooses to go to Liquid Colchester

Liquid Colchester enjoys an enviable position as the only “proper” nightclub in Britain’s oldest recorded town, the sole traditional clubbing experience in a town centre filled with bars and pubs. Presumably it’s this monopoly on the nightlife scene that keeps the punters coming back because one visit to Liquid really is enough.

Growing up in Colchester meant going to Liquid once because a friend convinced you to, spending an hour there and never going back. Anyone with any sense would end their night literally anywhere else: Twisters, V Bar, even Yates. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t proper clubs because they’re still better than the alternative: three hours in a budget version of TOWIE, drinking cheap lager before the inevitable fight in the smoking area.

Because I learned quickly, I can’t claim to have been a regular Liquid attendee. Mostly because it was the one place on a night out in Colchester where you were guaranteed to bump into everyone you never want to see on a night out: the kid from primary school who was good at football, the guy you worked at the supermarket with who loved casual sexism and reading The Sun and worst of all the girl you kissed when you were 13 and thought her living in Greenstead made her dangerous in a sexy way.

If you can get past the company Liquid forces you to keep, you’ve then got to try and figure out how to spend your night. An evening on the dancefloor means being crammed into a weird space shaped almost like a rugby ball and ending up stuck against the plexiglass of the DJ booth all night, nobody’s idea of fun. Alternatively, you could stand around the sides but then you’re just one of those weirdos who watches other people dance and that’s not OK. It’s the kind of voyeurism you only normally see from the oddballs who spend the whole night sat down in Straws.

I can understand if you end up in Liquid because you’ve just moved to Colchester or you’re too drunk to care what you’re dancing to. But those really are the only reasons, unless you’re that keen to dance with Warren Fox from Hollyoaks. The chart music, cheap drinks and tacky decor are all available in plenty of other places, so why go here? You’d be better off spending your whole night in the Playhouse.

Unbelievably, Liquid Colchester isn’t winning this vote to find the most tragic hometown club in the country. To change that, vote for it here.