According to its own super-slick website, The Palace nightclub “offers over two floors of bars, light shows and dance areas, to enjoy and party the night away”. Surely there are only two floors unless they’re keeping one secret. Disappointing? Tip of the ice-berg.
Your night begins with a daunting but colourful queue, jam-packed with your favourite stereotypes – rugger buggers and their scrummies, tangoed goons sporting deliberately dishevelled blondeness and an abundance of Bambi-on-ice legs tottering about next to those of the “older professionals” out for a quiet prowl among Team England and an embarrassing amount of Trinity College’s student body. Having spent your introduction to palace among these little treats for what feels like hours you are then greeted with the delightful bouncers. Rough would indeed be an understatement. With your heart in your mouth hoping you’ve met all the requirements to be allowed in – 20 or over, “smokin’ hot” and damn lucky because regardless of your age or looks, you might just get rejected for no apparent reason or because you’re “too drunk”. And lets face it, if you’re actually going to Palace, you probably are. Or they could just let you in without so much as looking at you as a female friend of mine proved by getting in on her male friend’s ID.
Once inside you are greeted with the enticingly free downstairs with its banging vibe including the “traditional” side of Palace – pool tables. Original. People here are generally the ones who are too stingy to pay in upstairs, and I don’t blame them. €10 in, which has to be one of the most expensive entrance fees for a nightclub, and it is absolutely not worth it. Since your pockets have now been emptied from simply getting into the place, you need some cash to pay for a drink, and probably a hot one having frozen half to death in that godforsaken queue. Seeing as you cannot avail of the convenience of paying by laser because, no, that’s not allowed, you have to queue up at Palace’s special money machine which often only dispenses fifty euro notes. Not exactly a cheap night out considering its usually swamped with students. Two queues down, now to actually get that drink you wanted, oh, an hour ago. Another queue at the bar where you’ll shell out another arm or leg for an abomination of a drink, only to drink it at a rapid rate so you can get to dance-floor for your favourite song! Unless of course you have taste, in which case, this would not be your reaction to the Palace playlist which has been compared to that of Coppers. What an honour.
On asking various Palace Princes and Princesses what the appeal of this seemingly rubbish night out was, the responses were somewhat amusing. One girl, so orange I genuinely thought she had a disease, reported that it was “all the hot men buying me drinks!” while another insisted it was “the chandeliers! They’re so shiny…” However, the general consensus from the girls was that they enjoyed the cheesy tunes and splashing out on a few cocktails for the weekend. Fair enough. We can all understand the appeal of expensive drinks along to a good old sing-along to Abba. Can’t we? The boys had a very different attitude. One enormous, presumably rugby-orientated, bloke made an interesting observation that “Palace is huge.” I sensed he may have suffered from a size-complex so I questioned him no further. What is the appeal of a giant nightclub full of people, most of which you probably don’t know? Do people actually enjoy being surrounded by strangers… hoping that after the night one of them, or maybe two, would be strangers no more? Is Palace just a desperate attempt at finding love? Doubtful.
If the experience wasn’t enough, you can capture the moment thanks to the endlessly pestering women who will snap you with your man, swilling a pint or forking out another fifty (who’s counting?) and capture it forever in a signature Palace key-ring. Adorable.
The general opinion of those who attend Palace every Friday is that yes, it is tacky, overpriced and an obvious waste of time and energy, but that they love it. Why? “I dunno, I just do.” Probably because you’re all smashed. But, once everyone’s having a good time and not getting hurt (besides those who are “escorted” out by the bouncers), does it really matter that this festering hub of “luxury” exists? Once I never have to go again, I don’t really care.
