Great Suffolk Street Warehouse
Regression Sessions - New Years Eve 31 DECEMBER 2016
£40
New Year's eve is always a difficult one. Determined to have a good time and surround ourselves with as many people as we can , it can't help but feel superficial or forced at times. I personally love New Year's eve, however after a stressful and busy end to 2016 I hadn't put enough thought into what I was going to do. On top of that, none of my friends seemed to actually know what they were doing either. Everyone seemed to be going off their seperate ways, making plans with a few friends and ditching the whole 'as many people as possible' rule we'd abided by in previous years.
On the 23rd December, a week away from the night I decided that I needed to make some sort of plan. I'd been 'out out' to a club the year before in Sheffield, but I had never been clubbing in London for New Year's Eve. After having a look through the Resident Advisor Website I came across the Regression Sessions night on at Great Suffolk Street Warehouse. Having never been to a Regression Sessions night or the venue, it was a bit risky. Tickets were also up to £40... Originally starting at a mere tenner but justifiably a week before were on final release, and I was one of the sorry suckers dragging their tail between their legs and forking out the big bucks.
Great Suffolk Street Warehouse as a venue is colossal. Housed under some old disused railway arches it is a similar setting to the Vaults (also on this blog), although on a much larger scale. Made up of 5 arches Great Suffolk Street Warehouse boasts 2 dancefloors (both huge), a bar and 'chill out' area, an arch filled with portaloos and a last arch, which for the purposes of this night housed a bouncy castle and ball pit. Each dancefloor was around the size of your average club itself, and both were totally full but with an adequate amount of room to dance.
Having read beforehand that the queues at this event were awful, I was prepared for the worst, however was pleasantly surprised. There were bars in each dance-arch as well as the full arch which was purely for the purposes of being a bar. This meant that one rarely, if ever, had to que for more than a few minutes to get a drink. The portaloos were a similar situation: obviously no one likes portaloos a great deal, but given there were so many there was hardly any waiting time to go to the toilet either. I can only find one real criticism regarding my prior expectations and that is that the whole bouncy castle ball pit thing was bigged up quite a bit, meaning I thought they would have played a much larger role in the evening and not have been tiny and hidden away in the last and dimly lit arch.
Despite this small disappointment, the night was fantastic. I only went with one other friend which made the night effortlessly easy and the lack of queues and general agg which comes with a usual night out (especially on New Year's eve) meant that there wasn't really anything to distract us from simply having a really good time. The music was good, one room played more upbeat funky house tracks, whilst the other stuck to the deeper techno and heavy drum and bass stuff - both of which were fun, depending on what point of the night it was and what mood you were in.
Another great thing about the night is that everyone was so damn friendly. Maybe this is a New Year's Eve mentality, although I didn't experience this much friendliness the previous year in Sheffield, a city notorious for being a hella lot friendlier than London. I had read one review online which claimed they had never experienced any 'bad vibes' at one of these events before - no agg, no violence, no stress. At first, I found this really hard to believe - there's fights at clubs all the time, especially ones of this scale, regardless of the night. However, after experiencing these 'good vibes' for myself, I must agree with this review. It was one of the nicest atmospheres of a club I've ever experienced.
Overall, a very very fun night in an original and fantastic venue. Regression Sessions describes itself as an event "for people who like to let their hair down but don't take themselves too seriously" and I would honestly have to agree. I would recommend both Regression Sessions as a night (they tour the UK) and Great Suffolk Street Warehouse as a venue (hard to imagine it going wrong really). Top marks and New Year's Eve to remember - for all the right reasons.
OVERALL RATING: *****
http://regressionsessions.com/
http://www.wearewhse.co.uk/gss-great-suffolk-street/
