What does your favourite LCR floor say about you?

No matter who you are or what you study, if you are a UEA student then it’s automatically assumed that you’re an LCR regular. But as every seasoned attendee knows, where you you spend your night once inside the confines of the LCR is crucial and the ultimate tell-tale of you are as a person.

Everyone’s there – freshers, rugby lads, drama nerds, cheer (dance and stunt), unfriendly post-grads, girls that drink their feelings, girls that don’t drink anything, desperate wannabes, pill-heads, sexually active gym twats trying to complete one of the five Ls, the greatest people you will ever meet, and the worst… beware of the sober people.

The stairs (which surprisingly no one ever seems to fall down) between upstairs and blue bar are like the Berlin wall of the LCR: the divide is quite clear. Granted, everyone in there loves a classic 2 for £4 VK, but your favorite floor is what differentiates you from each other.

Main Stage LCR 

You’re only here because Propaganda isn’t open on Tuesdays. When ‘Chelsea Dagger’ starts playing then you know you’re gonna have a good night, reminiscing about the time you saw The Fratellis at Brixton Academy. You’ve got a VK in each hand, your song’s just come on; you’re ready to dance. Be sure to avoid accidentally touching someone or even smiling in the wrong direction or you’ll either get into a fight or pull (and knowing your luck you’ll realise when the lights come up that you’ve actually got two seminars with them).

Sharpening your elbows will help you before going into the pit. You’ve paid a whole £3.80 for entry so you can relive your primary school disco days, and you’re not going to let the fact that you cannot psychically move stop you from dabbing to every cheesy banger that comes on – even if it does mean accidentally punching someone in the face in the process.

When you’re so drunk you think your awkward pose looks sexy af

There are only two reasons why you’d be upstairs:

1. You’re dying to get a cheeky pic on the Damn Good Facebook page so you can update your Instagram and show everyone at home just how much fun you’re having at uni.

2. You’re here for the pure cheese – maybe a whip, a nay nay, and a trusty ‘Mr Brightside’ before it’s time to head home via the hatch for your curly fries. You’re boring, you’re predictable, you’ve got your Tuesday night formula down, and no one is going to fuck it up for you. Bless you, I hope for your girlfriend’s sake that your sex life has more variety than your nights out.

Blue Bar

Alright Darrell, it was funny the first time you tried to use the arcade dance machine but now it’s just annoying.

You walk in and are immediately hit with a waft of testosterone, insecurity and vast overcompensation. Ah yes, the football and rugby lads must be here. You’re on a sports team, you probably study-, actually no, it doesn’t really matter what you study because you put way more effort into your societies and sports anyway. But it doesn’t really matter what you play, because Blue Bar on an LCR night is a completely different ball game.

You think just because Sports Night is held in Blue Bar that it’s yours by right, but instead of claiming it by territorial pissing as would occur in the animal kindgom (only a single step below your current surroundings on the scale of civilisation), you’ve just got with every girl down here. At the beginning of the semester the dance floor is packed 50/50 with guys and girls, but once it gets to about week 5 all the girls realise that the football boys aren’t allowed out the night before their Wednesday matches and suddenly female numbers start to dwindle.

You met in Blue Bar? That’s one to tell the grandkids

Being from Kent but saying you’re from London because you just love Grime so much, your Nike T-shirt, fresh Adidas NMDs and your overall appropriation of a working class subculture doesn’t hide the fact that you’re still a middle class kid that gets everything handed to you. You may think you’re the next Giggs but the truth is you’re just Glen – that guy whose parents pay for his accommodation.

Momentarily leaving the dance floor for a little breather, you can be sure you’ll find a congregation of girls either in the toilets or the smoking area having the world’s loudest “private” conversation. “Tom says he really likes me but he only talks to me when he’s trying to have sex with me I’m so confused”. Good luck with that one, he sounds like a keeper.

After 20 minutes of crying to a group of strangers, you’ll then find her working it on the dance floor to Fetty Wap, grinding on the first boy she sees, with Tom already appearing to be a thing of the past.

The Hive

Trying to avoid someone in the LCR? Spend your night in The Hive. No one will ever be in there. Ever.

Either that or you’re looking for that boy you’re trying to pull. You clocked him in the queue. Navy Blue T-shirt, black jeans, vans, nice beard. The Hive is probably the best place to start searching for him, after all, it’s the most vacant of spaces so you’ve got a better chance of spying him – especially if he looks like the kind of R&B loving sex machine that actually enjoys the music they play in here. You know you’ll regret this in the morning but how can you let this opportunity pass you by? Right?

The Smoking Area

You paid for entry yet you have voluntarily placed yourself outside in the freezing cold all night, without dancing or hearing any music. Wow. You’re so cool (/cold). But to be fair, it is the area entirely dedicated to where people can talk rather than mime words or point the entire night. And besides, how else are you gonna show off that Barbour jacket you would boil to death wearing inside?

Who doesn’t love the moment that refreshing blast of cool air mingles with the putrid reek of a hundred half-smoked cigarettes? Yeah the music could be better, and your dancing is just about passable, but honestly, the whole point of going to a club is not to spend the night rolling increasingly poor quality fags and desperately asking around for a “spare” one just so you have an excuse to talk to the girl you fancy.

You only asked for a lighter, but you are now 20 minutes deep into a lengthy descriptive run-down of someone’s love life. “Oh did he babe? Did he?” did not ask love. I’m listening intently. I really am. Half an hour into their life story and you’ll look down and notice you’ve not actually lit your fag yet. I won’t ask you for a lighter again. I won’t ever ask anyone for a lighter again.