I’d rather stay in than go to Thompsons

For those of you lucky souls out there that don’t know this nightclub, it’s found right beside Belfast City Hall, up a narrow alleyway. Sounds delightful doesn’t it? Well, its not.

As you walk in through the doors the smell of bleach hits you immediately – it’s the only way to cleanse the place of the sins from the night before. The putrid smell should be your first indicator that this is going to be a strange night. Thompsons is open every night of the week, and whether it’s disguised as Hideout, Electric Playground, Funkarama, or Switch, it’s still Thompsons, and it’s really, really shit.

When the dress code is non-existent you should start to question what sort of people you will be mingling with for the next four hours. Although, the unspoken dress code seems to be anything smick, with Adidas and snapbacks taking the majority, you wonder if you’ve accidentally landed in an under 18’s disco.

You would swear someone was standing outside the doors paying people on the sly to wear Adidas to promote the business as it slowly dies and goes to merchandise heaven.

He knows the craic

When you see the dance offs you’ll have the sudden realisation you’ve just entered a den for all the smicks of Belfast. These dances offs are shockingly cringe worthy, while sometimes on rare occasions you see some pretty amazing stuff – let’s underline the rare part of that statement. Most of the time it’s just guys in their trusty snapbacks and skinny bottoms whose aspirations of making it big with dancing to house music slowly becomes a dying dream on Thompsons dance floor.

The key word of advice from fellow goers is to get wasted, you’re not going to like it if you’re not absolutely pissed. And there you have the epitome of the situation – with doubles going for £6, you’re going to have to spend a fair amount of those precious pennies for this night to be a success.

Let’s not forget how the night club is structured. A mezzanine above the dance floor which on a nightly occurrence some startlingly smart member of society thinks it would be a bloody great idea to chuck their £6 drink from the great height on top of the unwitting victims dancing below. Cheers. Now for the rest of the night I will be living in constant fear of a glass being thrown down from above. It puts a dampener on the night.

Everyone here is hating their lives

When the inevitable happens and you do chance this place, the smoking area is your best bet of a good night. It is your refuge where you can almost forget what you’ve gotten yourself into, and where everyone else is thinking the exact same thing – get me the fuck out of here.

Don’t get me wrong, you can apparently have a good night there, so I’m told. Just be warned you need to have plenty of pre-drinks before to enable you to stay blocked the whole night and probably post drinks after to cleanse your soul of what you’ve witnessed that night.