The Works

The Works is located on St. James Street Kingston, very near all the shops and the Kingston Pubs. It costs £5 to enter through the door, unless you have membership. The club is open 7 nights a week, 9pm – 3am.

There are several theme nights at the Works. Wednesday and Monday are student nights at the works with Mainline spirits at 1.50. Recently there have been theme nights such as, Faliraki night (Bikini’s etc), Back to School Nights and Doctor and Nurse’s evening. All these evenings come with appropriate promotional offers on drinks.

The Works Bar is a recent addition to the club. It is open all day as a bar serving food and drink, but the bit I love about it is that if you want to go to the club you can enter the bar (for free) until about 9.30pm when the bar gets full. The bouncers then close the door and at about 10.15 – 10.30 the doors linking the bar to the club open and you can go through. Bouncers are very friendly however they will id everyone who looks under the age of thirty, especially on a weekend.

There are two main rooms in the Works. The main club and the Cheese Room. The music in the Works is mainly garage or house on the main floor and Cheese in the Cheese Room. The Cheese music consists of recent pop songs, and seventies and eighties classics. The cheese room is a sanctuary for those who don’t like garage. They also have a lot of PA’s (Personal Appearances) as well.For example, ShyFX of “Shake Your Body” fame were in there one Monday during May. The main dance floor is HUGE. It fills up fairly quickly though, and if there is a famous DJ or MC you cannot actually move on it by about 12.30am.

Some advice, queues for the bars usually become about three foot deep. If you want to avoid them then you should go to the bar in the Works Bar because once the doors open the bar becomes part of the club, but not that many people stay in the Works Bar section.

Dress is smart/casual. They do let people in with trainers, but only if they are smartly dressed. The general consensus is no hats, and no sportswear. There is a well organised cloakroom service there which I have not had any trouble with. It costs £1 per item to leave coats and things there.

The design if the club is cool. It’s based on some type of works (like oil works, coal, works)Suspended over the dance floor are 3 massive cogs which are lit up and have flashing lights on. The bars are all given a name fitting for the theme of the cub, like the Control Room or the Laboratory. The Works Bar is designed like any normal wine bar, it is completely different to the design of the club. The Cheese Room, apart from the two bars actually inside the Cheese room, is also very different to the club. It has light panels, verisimilar to a 70’s style disco. There are also a lot of seats in this room to allow those who have been dancing all night to grab some rest!!

There is an onsite burger restaurant, however due to the prices I suggest it would be better if you waited until you left and got a Kebab from round the corner or chips from Chic-o-land across the road. The best idea is to have half the group begin to queue for a cab and the other half go and sort out everyone else’s food!

The prices however are criminal. For a bottle of Smirnoff Ice, expect to pay £4.35 for a bottle. The best thing to do is go to the Kings Tun beforehand and drink as much as you can in there as it is a Wetherspoon’s pub. The only thing that is free in the Works is tap water. So if you want water do not pay the rip off prices for the bottled mineral kind, just get it free!

Another benefit is the organised cab rank outside the Works, which means you do not have to worry about ordering a cab, or walking to the black cab rank round the corner in the dark. The works work in conjunction with Kingston Cars, and the guy working the cab rank can even get you a people carrier with large groups very quickly.

The club does have a membership scheme, which also allows you reduced entry not only to the Works in Kingston but lots of other clubs over the Uk. They send you promotional offers through the post advertising theme nights which often include discounts.