Clubbers of Brighton, here are your starter packs

When the Lord made Brighton, he was bountiful enough to bless us with an array of clubs for every kind: from Insta queens to junglists, freshers to “aren’t you too old for uni?”, there’s something for everyone to regret in the morning.

And here at The Sussex Tab, we love nothing more than to list these sub-cultural variances in the only form of social commentary we know: starter packs. Ladies and gents of Brighton, we give you the starter packs of Brighton’s nightclubs (it was only a matter of time).

Coalition

The Coalition crowd mean no harm. You love fairy lights and fishnet tights, and getting in at 3 am to kick back with a steaming cuppa. You’re here for every single theme loosely tied to some kind of religious holiday/cultural event. Changed your internet provider? Excellent, let’s make it a theme. You will have a great time, but not too great because your boyfriend is driving down tomorrow and you don’t want to be hungover at your two year anniversary dinner at Pizza Express. We all love to pretend we’re above Coalition, but deep down we just want to scream along to the Arctic Monkeys and re-live our angsty teenage years. A reminder of simpler times and good clean fun.

The Arch

A wise man once said if you put 500 student DJs in a room with a pair of Pioneers each, one of them will eventually come up with a banger. The other 499 will match you on Tinder and never speak to you unless they need you to follow their Soundcloud. If you frequent The Arch for long enough you’ll soon find that you’re entire life becomes scheduled around C U Next Tuesday. 9am seminar? Nah. Nan’s birthday? Nope. You will go all term until your mum picks you up three weeks early after she finds out you’ve stopped eating vegetables to fund your recreational habits. You couldn’t skip it if you tried, and besides, it’s the edgiest thing about you.

PRYZM

Are you there for the music? The intense colour scheme? The endless VKs? You can’t say for sure, but once again, you’ve found yourself in some vague form of fancy dress, desperately waving your phone in the air to find signal. You’ve already lost the friends you came to this social with, and it’s kind of hard to find them when everyone is dressed as [insert theme here]. Get another VK down you and hope they locate you soon.

Chalk

Chalk, the soothing bandage slapped on the gaping hole that The Haunt left in our hearts. Much like siblings that hate being told they look alike, Chalk could be described as the distant edgy cousin of Coalition. It’s likely you buy most of your clothes from Urban Outfitters, but you got that statement jacket off Depop in order to preserve your unique lewk. You’re in a minimum of four sports societies, but you’ve started to realise that your commitment to the socials far exceeds your commitment to training. So far, your uni experience has consisted mainly of seeing how many Jager bombs your body can physically ingest, which isn’t much at all like the many episodes of Skins and/or Fresh Meat you watched before coming to uni, and, to be honest, you’re a bit confused as to why that isn’t your exact life right now.

Shoosh

Who needs to physically remember the night when you can watch back your 30-minute Insta story? You won’t even bother deleting it the next morning because, let’s face it, you spent a lot of time contouring your face/neck/cleave and the people need to know. Besides, you’re just holding out on this degree lark until you become an influencer. You will tell people you’re from Brixton even though you’re technically from Kent, but SHOOSH, I won’t tell anyone 😉

Patterns

You consider yourself far too edgy to go to a pop night, and the evening will be an epic failure unless you get at least six compliments on your shoes from the other Wavey Depop Girls™ in the smoking area, because let’s face it, you spent a lot of your loan on those trainers and your mum will go absolutely mental if she finds out. You like to keep your social media presence minimal because you’re above the tribulations of the digital age, although you do have several private snap stories and a finsta of you mainly doing ketamine. You will go to Patterns every week in hope of a donut. You will not get a donut. You will try again exactly seven days later.

Revenge

You have to bring sunglasses, not to add to your outfit but to save your retina from the blinding disco lights. It could be the shiny wallpaper, or it could be the poppers you just sniffed, but you’re finding the blazing lights and pounding pop songs just a little bit intense, and for the next few days, you might find that your entire internal monologue has been replaced by Charli XCX tracks. A part of you, however, is glad of the incredibly loud music and blazing lighting, because that guy from Grindr over there has definitely spotted you and you really don’t want to make polite conversation. Just keep dancing and sashay away.

Casablanca’s

You pride yourself on your separatism from the riff-raff of the Brighton club scene. You’re not a silly fresher in your silly fresher ways; you saw basically the entire world in your gap yah, and have decided that this is where you should spend every night out in order to preserve your other-worldly-only-slightly-pretentious persona. You probably study the arts, but you’re taking an elective in Spanish because you think it will really give you the edge in the dating scene. Your Tinder bio is ‘Budding espresso martini enthusiast’ and at least one of your pictures is of you stroking an elephant. You frequent Casa’s in order to set yourself apart from the thumping drum and bass and overplayed pop tunes your acquaintances seem to love, but let’s face it, you’re here to get as shitfaced as everyone else.

Concorde 2

You spent an entire month curating the waviest possible outfit, only to be upstaged by the girl behind you in the queue. But by God, are you glad you wore those neon cycling shorts when you have to trek back along the seafront at 4 am. Everyone is wearing a pair of novelty sunglasses, ranging from ‘I go to day festivals’ to ‘I need medical attention’. You will make several plans to go to Boomtown with various strangers / new bffs you meet in the toilets. You will never see them again. The next day you will rinse your housemate’s Tropicana and vow to pay them back once you are able crawl out of bed.

Green Door Store

Your explanation of your incredibly niche music taste is far beyond the capacity of your Tinder bio, so you just put ‘synthy drum beats’, which is coincidentally your band name. Your band’s Instagram is really making waves, but it’s also a meme page. You’re vegan, except for when you’re stoned; you only smoke to expand your creativity, but also kind of because it has become the central core of your aesthetic. As an inhabitant of Green Door, you are more difficult to pin down – you love the eclectic mix of artists and genres, and maybe you are yet to establish a specific brand of taste, but you can say for sure it would sound better on vinyl.

Volks

You don’t know how you ended up here or when you’ll find your way out, so you just keep dancing until it closes at 7 am. You make frequent trips to the smoking area, but less because you need a cig and more because you need to check that the world still exists outside of this pounding drum and bass black hole. There is an older guy with dreads dancing in the corner. You’re pretty sure he’s having a great time but you’re too afraid to ask.