REVIEW

PACHA, LONDON 15.11.03

"What a night!"
By Steve (Camberley On The Net)

OK, so where do we start!??? First of all a massive thank you to ALL OF YOU that supported us on the night, the London coach can only happen with everyone's help and input! (We are already planning our next excursion for next year, so watch this space!) We hope you enjoyed your night as much as we did and we hope you enjoy all of your Loot Bag contents! We are compiling some nice little feedbacks from you all so please let us know your praises, complaints or just mental rants by emailing us with this form!

"So where did it all start?"

We created a survey for this website way back to sometime last year in the days of Joe Bananas, remember Joe's? Anyway we thought is this ALL that Camberley has to offer us? After all there hasn't been a new club in Camberley in years. So where do we go now? That question had been playing on our minds for some time, so we thought, hey why don't we do some market research and actually find out if anyone was up for going to London once in a while. There were so many questions playing on our mind like, "Where can we go?" and "What should we charge?".

We got our survey up as soon as we could and had an amazing response with over 100 emails telling us your ideas (again thanks you everyone that filled out and emailed us the survey!) The results were very interesting and tended to follow patterns. Certain emails were very similar which didn't make it that difficult to decide on some of the answers unanimously. We continued to leave the form online to get as many peoples opinions as possible.

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Time passed by and then the news of Joe Bananas closing down for refurbishment, we thought don't fob us off with refurb crap. We have seen it before. A new lick of paint does not mean that you can label it a refurb. However this was different. The name was changing and millions of money was pumped into the complete overhaul of the venue. Exciting. Luckily the Utopia Express/Club Connexion was still in operation then so it wasn't like we had nowhere to go, after all there was always JW's :-\

"Zzzzzzz"

Anyway we want to get to the Pacha review so ill speed things up a bit.

Envy then opened and the focus was on "THE NEW" and we were not disappointed. Envy is still to this day the best club in Camberley, due to this, the London coach was put on the back burner for a while in case there was going to be trouble in getting people interested in going to London. In the mean time our potential "competition" would have been Utopia nightclub in Reading. but since Envy opening and the introduction of later pub licence's, things started to slow down.

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Then Utopia closed and there was even less choice. This could mean only one thing.... people may now be more inclined to go that little step further and try something different, namely.... showing their support for the London coach.

"Everything must happen for a reason..."

I'm sure its no coincidence that the coach is now here. There are things that happened that seemed to mean that people really did want to have the choice of traveling to London every so often. What do we mean. Well, Bar Square we believe was one of the most significant parts that helped with the coach. Situated near the Main Square entrance a new bar was being concocted. Finally a bar that deserves respect. Packed out every weekend and housing the look we have been screaming out for in Camberley for ages.

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None of the usual "wooden everything" / "Traditional Pub Look", we so needed a much more modern design and Bar Square definitely fitted the bill in that department. This then led to the contact of Camberley On The Net and Mark Edwards from Soulful House. After a long discussions we realised something is seriously about to kick the London Coach up the ass and finally bring it to the people of Camberley. We had the connection with the Camberley residents via the website and other promotion and Soulful House had access to the clubs and the coaches, not to mention their superb DJ's. This was the start of something that could run and run. Again we hope you can support us for future ventures!...

"...lets go for it"

So the question was. "Where do we go from here?". Well the answer was "lets go for it". At this time the date was 25th October, the next night we were able to get a coach for was Kinky Malinky @ Pacha on the 15th November. Meaning there was no time to beat around the bush! We pulled out all the stops and started the promotions! We printed flyers to give out to people in Camberley, printed posters to put in as many places as possible.

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Spoke to loads of people in Camberley itself. Did reciprocal link swaps with other website's, contacted local radio stations (to this day we are not sure if they did anything for us but who cares, we sold enough!) After 3 weeks of that, things started to take off. The tickets dribbled at the start then things started to come together towards the end with a total of 41 tickets sold! (that's 11 more than our target of 30!) A Huge buzzing crowd that were definitely up for a good night.

Now to the actual night! The coach left from outside Bar Square at 11pm and after a quick hand out of goodie bags and a piss stop on the way we arrived at Pacha. Jumped the queue and were straight in. Like many London clubs it hit you immediately you walked through the door, nicely air conditioned and a sound system that puts the local clubs to shame. OK the cost may not be for most peoples liking but remember it only cost £24 for Coach journey there, VIP Entry to Pacha and the journey back!

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The whole atmosphere was amazing, if you get bored of one room then you can go into the second room that is upstairs. So that's what we did. Trying to remember what time Mark Edwards set was we actually realised he was already playing. The crowd was lapping it up. At this point this room had more atmosphere than the main room downstairs! Bigup to Mark for doing a flawless and quality set! :-)

Its also very easy to lose track of time once you are in there. Everyone that was there seemed genuinely up for a good laugh (ok some of them may have been helped someway or another but they were leaving their attitudes at home!) As London normally is, there was a great mix of different people. Nice and refreshing from seeing the same faces every week, if not for a good night anyway the London coach is very useful to get away from the usual for a bit! Every couple or months is perfect for the moment until the word about the coach gets around.

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"So to summarise"

After a problem free evening and speedy return journey the outlook on the night was certainly a good one (we think the photo gallery here will help to prove that!). If it wasn't for everyone's support this couldn't have gone ahead so thanks to you all. We hope you join us on our next London outing, possibly Ministry of Sound or somewhere else along the Superclub lines. And if the next one is anywhere near as good as this one then we have many more fun nights out ahead!

"WHAT CAN I SAY?!"
Louise (Camberley On The Net)

"Our first london coach - and what can I say?! A HUGE thankyou to everyone who came, hope you all had a wkd night and enjoy your free cd. for those who didnt make it - we hope you will join us in the future. keep an eye on the site for all future events, we will be doing it all again soon!"

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What did it cost?

Just £24! Which included Journey to London, VIP entry to Pacha (normally £15!) and journey back to Camberley! CHEAP AS CHIPS!

What did the travellers receive?

The ultimate in hospitality, a "Loot Bag" (Goodie Bag!) Containing a feedback survey for people to fill in if they wanted, flyers for Camberley On The Net, Kinky Malinky DJ listing and information card, Bar Square flyer,a FREE CD courtesy of Mark Edwards from Soulful House, and some sweets and lollies to keep everyone occupied on the coach there and back!

THE FLYERS