Why is going out in Leeds so expensive?

As soon as our student loans come in we run to buy tickets for High Rise at Beaver Works or Stormzy at Canal Mills, before treating ourselves to a new bucket hat which will really set us apart on the night and a shit-tonne of glitter. So is it any wonder when we realise all our money has disappeared?

Semester after semester, clubs and events are promoting “the biggest night in Leeds” or the “cheapest drink in Leeds”. This causes a chain reaction of every edgy student  waiting with suspense at 7:59pm, refreshing the page on the Leeds Tickets website to ensure we don’t miss out.

Or on the other hand, you may be one of those that is frantically begging on Facebook a few hours before for ‘”ONE TICKET FOR WAREHOUSE TONIGHT PLS, I’LL PAY YOUR STUDENT LOAN, YOUR RENT, I’LL GIVE YOU MY SOUL”. You’ll probably do anything just to get a ticket for an event that ultimately will be repeated in a couple of weeks. 

So what makes us return to these places? What makes us want to allow our bank accounts to be exploited for a sweaty night surrounded by vintage jumpers and bucket hats? FOMO?

Or is it the promise we hear of cheap drink deals? You realise it isn’t when you get there and realise the waiting time for a drink is the same as an arts students’ weekly contact hours – and when you’ve finally bought the drink, you realise you’ve been dragged into your overdraft. 

Is it the excitement of going somewhere you can’t walk to?  For some reason these expensive events manage to price themselves out of the typical comfort zone of Call Lane. Instead, they insist on you pre-booking an Amber hours in advance to make sure you get there on time.

Perhaps it’s the ridiculously small space you manage to acquire in the club that you’re paying for.  Who doesn’t love paying £25 to share the sweat of hundreds of other people in a random warehouse? Why not experience the occasional dampening from a passerby’s vodka orange that leaves a bad enough smell in your top to make you throw up the following morning?

So, “maybe it’s the artist that’s playing at the event?” you tell yourself. At the end of the day did anyone even know if it was really Chase & Status at Canal Mills?  For all we know, it could just be a stranger playing their songs on their own sticker-covered Macbook.

Or, it could be the themes of the events that we’re enticed by. Any excuse to wear glitter and bindis eh?  Will we ever know what we’re actually paying for?  Looks like our money at Control went towards a belly dancer and a snake.

Realistically, it’s probably the Flames chicken box deal that you look forward to most, as you stumble back at 4am while questioning where your student loan really went. 

While you may momentarily now question if all of those nights really deserved your money, you’ll no doubt be spotted at next month’s Beaver Works.  So really we should be taking our hats off to the Leeds nightlife: for single-handedly draining our student loans, yet always keeping us coming back for more.