Nightclubs across British towns and cities have been declining steadily over recent years, with 65 closures this year alone. The Covid pandemic has been a big factor as 480 nightclubs shut their doors between June 2020 and June 2024.

Here, six people share memories of their favourite clubs in their 90s and 00s heydays.

‘Friday nights were all about the Fatsurfer’

As an Essex teen on the cusp of London in the mid-2000s, our Friday nights were all about the Fatsurfer, an alt night at a working men’s club in Grays. It was an amazing space for local bands. The people who ran it were nicknamed Surfer Steve and Soundman Jim.

It was one of the first places that the local bands in my school year played; my boyfriend was in a band called My Own Enemy. I could also get hold of a double spirit and mixer or WKD Blue there. When ID scanning and stricter measures came in, it felt like that was the start of the death of the venue. I’d already moved away to London by the time it closed.
Hannah McCormack, 37, Cornwall

‘I danced nonstop from 11pm until 9am’

The gay club Tin Tins in Birmingham closed in 1997, but I still daydream about it. I was 16 in late 1995 when I first walked through those big wooden doors. The crowd was welcoming, glamorous and bizarre. One of the first things I saw was a man dressed in a black mini dress and one of those fake boob sets, similar to the one Paul Gascoigne wore when he arrived in England after Italia 90. There was a cage filled with drag queens, all beautiful. People had really made an effort. The house music carried on through until 9am. I saw the late, great Tony De Vit play there a few times.

I danced nonstop, from 11pm until 9am. I was soaked through with sweat. I never stopped smiling. And people smiled back. I remember dancing out on to the steps on the street outside to be confronted by early morning shoppers wondering what on earth was going on. It was a brilliant period of my life. I still listen to the classic house music. Great days.
Russ, 45, Birmingham

‘The carpeted dancefloor was as sticky as you’d expect’

I went to university in Brighton and regularly went to a seafront club named Digital. Digital had a Funktion-One sound system and as pretentious students we waxed lyrical on the quality of the bass at various dubstep nights. (It was 2009.) The carpeted dancefloor was as disgusting and sticky as you would expect. The toilets smelled of cat pee. You’d fall out of the club at 2am, maybe sit on the freezing cold beach for a bit while a friend decided to go swimming, and then head to the bus stop, ears ringing.

By my third year I’d worked out that live indie music in pubs was more my scene. But it’s strange to think that the sites of multiple formative student experiences no longer exist. I wonder what happened to that sound system.
Nyika Suttie, 33, Somerset

‘The room was bouncing so much that the records jumped’

The Gallery in Leeds was insane in the early 90s. The sun shining through the huge glass roof in the morning made it feel like a mini Ibiza. I believe it was voted second best club in Europe by Mixmag at one point. It should have been number one. My favourite memory would be when Carl Cox played on three decks. The room was bouncing so much that the records kept jumping, but that didn’t stop him.

Any night with the resident Steve Luigi was also amazing. His nights with MC DMO were legendary. Steve is still going strong on the northern soul scene and the odd old-school rave night. It’s important to note that after attending on so many weekends, I never witnessed any trouble in there. Just everyone on the same, loved-up vibe. Rich, 50, social worker, York

‘Toilets were assembled from breeze blocks’

Glasgow had a thriving nightlife during my late teens and early 20s in the new millennium. Some of the less legitimate venues were most memorable. One of these was known only as “the warehouse”, which went on to become the SWG3 venue.

Unofficial club nights featured there sporadically and relied on word of mouth. You generally knew if there was a night on within a few minutes’ walk as the echo of the soft beats would become audible on the relatively quiet Kelvinhaugh Street.

Especially memorable were the Hogmanay nights. Parties would start in the early evening at home, before the warehouse warmed up at 1am or 2am. Toilets were assembled from breeze blocks and lit by those mini floodlights on tripods that you’d find on a building site. I told an older colleague of mine at the time about the parties, who asked, “Do you not get a lot of trouble at a place like that?”, and it had never even occurred to me.

I do wonder whether this is a bygone era or if in some random pockets of Glasgow anything similar still exists.
Mike Macpherson, 42, Glasgow

‘It feels like a dream now’

The UK club scene from 1992 to 2002 feels like a dream now. I recently bought a copy of Time Out from December 1995, just to make sure that I hadn’t been imagining it all. Flicking to the club listings, it was all there. You could go out every night of the week and see the world’s best DJs playing the best music to the best crowds. The Cross and the End were my weekend playgrounds where I met lifelong friends and had the time of my life.

I went to the Cross most weeks from 1994 to 1997. It was a taste of Ibiza in grotty King’s Cross. The crowd was incredible. I remember one night speaking to the actor Jonny Lee Miller, who was there with Angelina Jolie. Matt LeBlanc was also there once. How could such places close? They were so good! I’m happy to say I have only one photo of this era (above) and I don’t even know who took it – we were too busy dancing, chatting and making friends.
Neil J Smith, 52, South Shields