Grime & Punishment queues fill Cellar alleyway to ‘dangerous’ level

If you like your clubs sweaty and cramped, then you’ve got plenty of choice in Oxford. If you like your clubs to be sweaty and cramped, well you’ve got Cellar.

Last night saw the aptly-named hole in the ground team up with The ISIS to create Grime & Punishment – a night of hip-hop, grime and garage to continue the post-collections celebrations. But it seems too many people were in the mood for Cellar’s classy tunes. Mayhem ensued before people even got into the club when according to Jason Ghaly, one of the unfortunate queuers: “people started jumping into the crowd from an elevated platform to the left of the line.”

Hugo O’Grady, a student at Teddy Hall, said: “There was little to no queuing system and people ended up cramming into the alleyway to the club. Cellar then closed their doors and it turned into a bit of crush – which was really quite irritating as I got separated from my mates and missed some good fun with them”.

The Purple Turtle was affected by Cellar crowds too – the sheer density of people was “quite possibly dangerous, but I’m such a slithery guy I managed to wriggle my way back on to Corn Market. I ended up in PT but there was no way anyone who wanted to get to it could have gotten in earlier.”

In a statement, posted on Facebook, the ISIS said “We were deeply concerned by the situation in the lane outside Cellar, where conditions for those queueing were unacceptable. Although we are not responsible for queue management, as Cellar is responsible for providing security and crowd control at all of their events, we are currently in communication with their management to prevent anything like this happening again.”

They also offered future compromises, such as advance ticketing and roped access for the PT alley. In regards to collaboration with Cellar, they said: “If our concerns and requests for further security in future are not taken into account, we will consider suspending any of our future events from being held at Cellar.”

Cellar were unavailable for comment.