How do we measure a good night out? Is it by the post-club food, the culmination of side characters you bump into, or by the intensity of your hangover the next morning? In planning this article, I attempted to separate and examine all of the blurry memories from my Cambridge club nights. But I was instead faced by a familiar collage: sticky floors, sweaty men and the same rotating cycle of indistinguishable pop songs. My setting and environment rarely stood out. One blends into the next in a fluorescent haze, defined less by where you are and more by the fact you’ve ended up there – again.

The rotation of Revs to Mash to Kikis (and the occasional pilgrimage to Junction) was one of the first lessons I learned when arriving at university, committing myself to religiously and blindly obeying these divinely chosen rules, trusting that I was in the safe hands of the clubbing veterans who seemed to know exactly what nights were the best. This circuit however soon lost its novelty, as you stopped to take a look around you and realised you were surrounded by the same collection of faces on a weekly basis. I knew Cambridge was small, but the selection of people who are brave enough to face its clubbing scene seemed even smaller. And yet, there is something strangely reassuring about that familiarity. However chaotic the night becomes, you’re never far from someone you recognise – whether you want to see them or not, and whether you’re entirely sober enough to remember how you know them.

“The success of a night out relies on the people you arrive with, the people you find, and the people you eventually leave with”

It seems then that the destination of the night rarely changes the crowd it attracts – but this isn’t to say that I don’t have a favourite. Revs behaves as the central hub of the Cambridge scene, which definitely says a lot about the state of our clubs. You can see this from the condensation that drips from its windows and the slow, army-like crawl you have to make to wade through the sweating bodies in search of the toilets. In saying this, ‘Wevs’ holds a special place in the undergraduate heart and is almost guaranteed to produce a run-in with at least one of your campus celebrities. On the other hand, there’s Kikis. A place I have entered a solemn five times because of the unfathomable queue that it generates, leading to an inevitable one-in-one-out system that is bound to ruin even the most optimistic person’s night out before it has properly begun. Meanwhile, Junction behaves as a magical faraway land, promising an improved setlist but an expensive taxi journey, resulting in it acting as a once a term (or year) escape and a glimpse into what our nightlife could’ve been if we’d have gone to our insurance unis. Even La Raza remains, for now, slightly mythologised; as a meagre first year, I am yet to truly uncover it, but I hope that the older years’ gatekeeping is worth the hype, rather than another Bridgemas ball style disappointment.

“In the end, the ‘best’ club matters far less than who you happen to find when you’re there”

For those of you who are club educated, you may have realised that I have missed one out: Mash. As a proud ‘Frash’ fan, I am aware this is a controversial stance. But for me, Mash offers a less suffocating alternative to Revs – still cheesy, still chaotic, but with the added appeal of its queer nights and of course, a pretty fun name. When trying to defend Mash to my friends (in an attempt to attend ‘Woo Wednesday’), I realised my fondness for it has less to do with the club itself, and more with the people I end up there with. Although this might be an unsatisfying conclusion, it’s unavoidable. The success of a night out in Cambridge rarely relies on the venue but instead the people you arrive with, the people you find, and the people you eventually leave with.

For this reason, I find that the most memorable parts of the night rarely happen in the club at all. The pub, by contrast, offers something the clubs don’t – a place to actually communicate and bond. Conversations stretch, cards are played, and the night doesn’t require copious amounts of alcohol to feel sustainable. Nothing beats an overpriced pint in a pub garden with a table of friends (not even an end of term Revs).

So what makes a good night? I think I’ve found my conclusion. The best club is the one where your friends all unexpectedly put down their work and decide to leave college. The best club is where you bump into your course friends and make future plans to meet up (even if these are never executed). The best club is where you finish in Taco Bell with your college wife and a newfound group of strangers. Although Cambridge offers a limited rotation of venues, and a painstakingly repeated setlist, it is perhaps that very predictability that makes these moments possible. The nights themselves may blur together, but the people rarely do. In the end, the ‘best’ club matters far less than who you happen to find when you’re there.