How much does each night out in Cardiff cost you?

Glam or Barcelona?

8 years ago

Would you rather be spending your money on overpriced drinks in Przym, or be on a coach to Amsterdam?

Why queue for hours on end in the freezing cold for Tiger Tiger where you will only stay for an hour, when you could be walking the sunny streets of a brand new city?

We’ve sourced the alternative ways that you could be spending your student loan, or hard-earned cash, rather than drinking it down the drain.

We could all be on the Cornish coastline instead of here

Monday: Glam

It’s the beginning of the week and time to meet with your society. After spending who knows how much on yet another fancy dress costume, you head to Glam for the Fest. The night could be relatively cheap, but as you see your friends getting more and more drunk it goes without saying you need to do the same.

Fifteen pounds later, and the dance floor isn’t feeling annoyingly sticky any more and you can kind of tolerate the group behind you constantly dropping their drinks down the back of your new shirt. You reward yourself for spending so long in Glam with a nice hot batch of cheesy chips.

Estimated cost of night at Glam: £20
Where £20 could take you: Either 100 Freddos, or 20 packets of Cadbury Chocolate Fingers from Tesco (that is 480 fingers)

Ballers

Tuesday: Revs

It’s the place to go to lose your friends on the dance floor, or the place to just get lost in an attempt to find the toilet. A good night out with every vodka flavour you can think of, it’s time to dress up and end Tuesday in style.

By the time you have paid about £6 for entry, as well as helping a friend out because “they only have card”, you are already strapped for cash. Within the hour you have spent another £10 on some speciality drinks that still taste like vodka lemonade, and at the end of the night you’ll end up getting more cash out for the taxi home, as Revs is nowhere near Cathays.

Estimated cost of night at Revolution: £30
Where £30 could take you: One night stay at Great Western Hotel in exotic Newquay

Shots shot shots

Wednesday : Retros

90s themed Retros make their prices ridiculously cheap on a Wednesday night to please us students, 99p shots anyone? As the generation born in the 90s, the likes of Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys coming on in a club will never get old. You just need to be dangerously drunk. And with drinks as cheap as £1 and £2 you can do that right? Wrong. Because of the unbelievable prices people are wrongly-convinced drinks are too weak or diluted, so with the placebo effect (or just because they are dirt cheap) we end up spending far too much.

Estimated cost of night at Retros: £15
Where £15 could take you: Approximately five goldfish for your house

Thursday: Walkabout

If you’re obsessed with taking selfies, Walkabout is the place for you. With the room for the toilet being the size of a lecture hall, that selfie with the best friends you just met at the bar can come to life. There is also the opportunity to get your photo taken with TV legends such as The Chuckle Brothers and Phil Mitchell.

There are a few cheap drinking offers here including the traditional two Jagerbombs for £5, so the Australian bar often tends to be a cheaper night out. However, the cheaper the drinks the more you buy. Plus Macdonalds and Chippy Lane are opposite.

Estimated cost of night at Walkabout: £25
Where £25 could take you: Depending on the band and line up, indulge in one or two tickets for a concert at Cardiff University’s Students’ Union

They weren’t this happy after spending £30

Friday: Pryzm

It’s the weekend which can only mean one thing – all the money you’ve saved during a hard week of uni can be splashed out in one expensive night at Pryzm. Two drinks per room can end up costing you up to £30. Despite the prices there is something for everyone in Pryzm – cheese, chart, hip-hop and house.

After three hours of solid dancing and putting up with the DJs running commentary in the Disco Room, it’s time to round up the friends perfecting the Beyonce shake and begin the long trip back to Cathays. Taxi anyone?

Estimated cost of night at Pryzm: £30
Where £30 could take you: Megabus return from Cardiff to Amsterdam

Saturday: Flux

Although YOLO offers free entry before 11:30, Flux does not, so that’s four on the door then another four pounds on your first drink which disappears in no time. About an hour later and the dance floor is packed with paralytic students in jeans and trainers, belting out every song. At this point the queue to get drinks is so long and slow, you probably won’t spend much more. If you can deal with half of hour of rugby lads pushing in or getting stomped on as people attempt to shuffle, you might be able to get one or two more drinks.

On leaving, you and your mates can’t resist the burger man and the smell of fried onion rings wafting in the breeze.

Estimated cost of night at Flux: £25
Where £25 could take you: A day out at Delta Force Paintballing with an additional 200 paintballs

So, imagine if you went to all of these nights in one week. That is approximately a whopping £155. Is it worth it, when £50 can get you a Megabus return ticket from Cardiff to Barcelona? Didn’t think so.

Gemma Gibson

Guides
CARDIFF