A local Saturday Arena experience

It seemed rather bizarre to me when a friend suggested, for her 21^st, that we try a local Saturday night instead of the sanctity of the Lemmy.

“But WHERE?!” I hear you cry in disgust. Well, we were told by several other students who (only just) survived a local Saturday evening in Exeter that, unless we wanted to be stabbed, Timepiece was out of the question. A non-Dirty Sexy People Arena it was then.

Having come to terms with the decision, a friend and I organised a booth and some champagne, in a Facebook message to Arena, prior to the event. Or so we thought. On arrival we were presented with silver VIP bands and escorted to our sectioned off (and bouncer guarded) booth. The royal treatment so far.

The barman, locally famous for his appearance on the BBC Three show ‘Unsafe Sex and the City’, approached with a champagne bucket and bottle opener.

Even in my drunken haze, I was a little confused as to why we were being given a bottle opener, as it’s not required when opening a champagne bottle, irrelevant of the price or brand.

I soon found out why – there was no champagne. But, joy! We had been presented with an array of VKs in a champagne bucket! God forbid they give us any ice.

The famous barman working his magic

I can only assume that this was outstanding VIP treatment to the locals, as our booth soon found itself under the prying eyes of the 30 others that occupied the club. Having finally surrendered the VK booth to the local vultures, we hit the rather sparsely populated dance floor.

Although there was plenty of room for us all to dance freely, a group of middle-aged, balding men seemed to take quite a liking to the female members of our party – free VKs were clearly not all they were after.

A local busting some terrifying moves on the floor

Even our rather ridiculous fancy dress costumes didn’t put them off – in fact it only seemed to encourage them to ‘bond’ with us more.

A male student pest is hard enough for any girl to get rid of. A tattoo ridden local is a WHOLE other mountain to climb – one that we all, eventually (and thankfully) managed to overcome.

So a word of advice: if you enjoy being smeared in the sweat of local balding males, love to indulge in lukewarm VKs and get your kicks from being uncertain about your personal safety then by all means, I encourage you to attend a local Saturday night out in Exeter!

If you do however, value your welfare, social status and enjoy something other than an alcopop to drink, then please – just stick to the Lemmy.