I’m not ashamed: I love Flares

It’s the place where dreams are made


One light up dance floor, too many VKs, three stages, four poles and the most successfully cheesy music in the North (if not the world). This is Flares, and it will provide you with more joy than you will ever fully understand.

Flares does not care if it’s Monday, Wednesday, Sunday or any other day of the week. Flares will sell you VK after VK, even though they aren’t really “your thing”. Flares will welcome you into it’s colourful, sweaty arms, and on top of all this most nights it is FREE.

Pure, unadulterated joy

Flares feels like a badly kept secret. A place you and your friends always go, even though it’s a bit shit. In reality, for everyone it is a place they and their friends go. It is ironic enough for the techno-heads, provides Bieber for the nu-wave of music, plays the Baywatch theme tune for the Agrics, it’s loose enough for sports teams, and is one of the places that Geordies and students co-exist in utter harmony.

Located right in the middle of everything, it is the perfect post-trebles, pre-Tup Tup or pre-Koos Complex stop-gap. Equally, Flares can be for an occasion where you’re broke and can’t afford a night out, but can manage a handful of VKs costing you less than a fiver. Just popping out for a quiet drink and a quick pole-dance on a Tuesday night. A short stumble to Bigg Market and you are showered with food choice: cheese, chips and gravy, kebabs and Maccies all on offer for any deservedly hungry Flares warrior.

This was on a sunday

You might end up going to the pub for £1 pints, have a couple too many and find yourself surrounded by the glorious, colourful swirling whirl that is flares. Or perhaps you’re out on a Wednesday, and the Agrics are at the final stop of their social. “Country roads” comes on, shirts come off, ties are secured firmly around their heads and a sea of men are swinging their chequered shirt around their head.

The next thing you know you have been hooked by the arm and you are being swung around in half-rotations before linking the arm of the your next dance partner, again and again. You really can’t find a club with an energy like it. There’s a reason it’s “Newcastle’s number one Hen and Stag destination” and also “Newcastle’s biggest student party bar”.

What epitomises the greatness of Flares is the lack of any expectation. It does not pretend to be anything it’s not, and when you turn up on a Sunday night and order a “Mega-Partini” cocktail, you just know that you are both having, and will continue to have, an amazing time.

It doesn’t have a fancy smoking area, there isn’t really seating, they don’t do “bottle service” and it can take long enough to get served sometimes to warrant buying more VKs than you can hold. “Oops” you think, happily.

The calibre of the music is unrivalled, even in the context of a city known to be at the forefront of the UK music scene. S Club, Britney, the Spice Girls, Usher, Cher and one hit wonders like “I’m walking on sunshine”. Your musical nostalgia will be satisfied again and again, and no, you won’t get bored of it.

If my words mean nothing, you only need to look at the reviews on Facebook to get an insight into the absurd beauty of the place:

On its website, Flares simply says it’s: “the ace place to show your face”. They also say: “Whether it be a birthday, a bar crawl, a Christmas party or just a great night out, you name it, we make it memorable”.

You have, Flares, and for that we will be eternally grateful.