I went to the one-hit wonder, Covid-friendly POP! and this is what you missed

No matter how much we love Disco Dave, we can all admit that virtual POP! just isn’t the same as the real thing. The circling, the costumes and the sweet smell of sweat in the air – what’s not to miss? Well, amazingly, POP! returned mid-pandemic to give us back our Wednesday nights and I of course had to go and investigate. Sadly, during the event, the news broke of Coventry going into Tier 2 lockdown – meaning that for the foreseeable future, this POP! was to be the one and only.

Circle theme – lockdown ‘fits

Whilst Disco Dave wouldn’t be on the decks until 8pm, doors opened at 6pm for circling. As we lined up at the entrance in a socially distanced queue by Whitefields (probably the first time many of us had been that close to Whitefields), I felt dubious: who goes to POP! – or indeed any night out – at 6pm? Usually at this point I’d be rushing around trying to concoct a costume that vaguely fit the circling theme. Luckily our circling theme was lockdown ‘fits- hence the tie-dye joggers, slides and sweatshirts.

Circle is now in session!

We signed in to track and trace, and were shown to our table (fancy) where we were told in no uncertain terms that we could NOT leave the table – unless going to the loo, in which case we needed to wear a mask.

Tickets for POP! were £18 for a table of maximum 6 people (£3 each), and on purchasing the ticket you had to specify the name of the Club/Soc and the names and student ID numbers of each person at the table. Each Club/Soc was only given 3 tables each, due to the Copper Room’s limited capacity and the tables of each society were deliberately spaced out to prevent people from moving around.

On each table there was a QR code to scan and order drinks (a pint of Purple was £2.50, Jaegers £2 and soft drinks £1.50). Of course after 30 minutes of getting in, the QR code stopped working and security guards had to run around with new ones.

Very quickly, the Purple began to flow and the sweet sounds of sexy Roman numerals could be heard throughout the Copper Rooms.

Ah how we’ve missed the tweet board of fame

On the main stage, the tweet screen was back, displaying drunken tweets with the hashtag #WarwickPOP. Highlights from this included Maths Soc trying to convince us all they were the “sexiest society” there (hah nice try), MULTIPLE tweets begging Dave to play WAP and an announcement from us that we’d broken our table during One Fat Frog.

The screw that fell out of the table… blame our dedication to the sesh

Before long, the man, the myth, the LEGEND Disco Dave appeared and started playing the tunes we were all desperate for i.e. WAP. Sadly as we couldn’t leave our seats or even stand up, we were denied the chance to see a mass WAP performance- but we did spot one brave lady from Womens’ Hockey who just couldn’t resist…

RIP our paper QR code xx

Sadly POP! (and all future events in the Copper Rooms) have been cancelled until further notice, so just like the Plan White Ts, Dexy’s Midnight Runners and Gotye, socially-distanced and Covid-friendly POP! was just another one hit wonder.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Coventry to move up to tier two restrictions from Friday

• Your three-step guide to reducing your carbon footprint on campus right now

• Notices telling Warwick students to self isolate have been put on the WRONG SIDE of halls doors