YUSU drops Fibbers from new timetable

YUSU’s official clubbing timetable has been announced, with the number of official nights reduced from four to three.

For the second year running, the new official calendar sees a change to the clubbing week. While clubs Salvation, Tokyo and Revolution have kept their prominent spaces on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday respectively, Monday nights at Fibbers have been dropped.

Fibbers on a Monday was a new addition last year after new owners spent £250,000 on refurbishments. However, throughout the year, Fibbers Mondays have been rebranded multiple times, including attempts at a dubstep night and a cheesy pop night, each with little success. The summer term ended with the venue closed on Monday nights for the last few weeks.

Last term outgoing YUSU Democracy and Services Officer Dan Walker had hinted that Fibbers was likely to be dropped from the calendar after a number of complaints about the quality of the night. Second-year Economics student Bertie Baker-Smith told Vision: “I’m glad to see the end of Fibbers. It was clearly unsuccessful and should probably have been sorted out sooner. I’m disappointed that it has not been replaced, although there isn’t that much else to choose from in York.”

Nonetheless, this year unofficial events have at times proved popular, as shown in particular by swing and blues night Itchy Feet, held at the Duchess, while Viking Raid’s unofficial rival Carnage was also well attended. Fibbers itself is seen as very successful on Friday and Saturday nights, and continues to be one of York’s premier live-music venues.

A number of students had voiced hopes of a return to nights at The Gallery nightclub after they were excluded from the 2010/11 timetable. However, this has not been catered for. Walker was reported to have claimed he would have liked to bring in Gallery for Monday nights, but it was not feasible, as York St John already occupy it as an official night.

YUSU president Tim Ellis indicated that the change was a preference of quality over quantity, saying in a blog post that the move was based “on the success of last year and on feedback that was collected in the Summer Term.” Ellis added, “We are really happy to be working with Salvation, Tokyo and Vodka Revolution again. All three provided some great nights last year and proved to be good partners for YUSU. This year I’m hoping they will up their game even more and ensure that York students continue to get the best nights out possible.”

With Salvation, Tokyo and Revolution coming close to capacity on their respective official nights almost every week last year, the new timetable is a tried and tested list of successful club nights and few would expect the failures of Fibbers to be repeated this year.