Raising the Bar: Renovations at The Vic

The Old Vic, a centre of student nightlife in St Andrews, underwent renovations throughout January, re-launching on 22 January, 2024. Having been named Fife’s Best Bar of 2022 in the National Pub & Bar Awards, what was once The Vic’s main dance floor is now a restaurant filled with permanent booths. In order to host events late at night, the venue has preserved the smaller dance floor in a side room, named ‘The Social Club’. The club will be a space for ticketed events and the two areas open simultaneously each night.

A representative from The Old Vic commented on the club renovation “The decision to do that [renovate] is very much based on student trends around the UK. Students are a lot more responsible. They’re more aware of what they’re putting in their body and they’re taking it quite seriously. What that brings is earlier trading times. We didn’t want to keep all of our eggs in that basket between midnight and 3am.”

“If you were to ask anyone in St Andrews what The Vic is, they would associate it or describe it as the last place that they go [in the evening]. I think for us it’s really important to pivot now and change that narrative, so that we start being recognised as more of a day-time, early-evening venue with live entertainment to attract people earlier on in the evening.”

One of the popular events hosted in this space was BPM, a student-run music collective. The renovation of The Vic has, however, impacted their typical schedule.

A representative from BPM stated, “After seeing the Vic’s refurbishment, we decided to provisionally cancel some of our dates that we planned for this semester as we’re unsure if it will still feel like a BPM Tuesday given the new set-up no longer allowing us [sic] to do our usual boiler room set up.”

They also commented on the transition to hosting at Club 601. “Although our last event was a huge success, we are aware that we can’t just host events at 601 as often as we did at The Vic, given it’s such a big space to fill out and we want each one to feel special. So we will probably host our next one or two events there but there are probably going to be very few in total this semester.”

“As long as it’s a decent space, then it’s the vibe of the night that really brings people through the door and makes them stay.”

While some students expressed disappointment over the renovation, some have expressed excitement at events being moved into 601. One second-year student stated: “The social room is small, the vibes are not as good. It’s sad, I think. However, now other collectives are going to 601 and [are] doing their events there which I think is much better. It comes with pros and cons.”

Another second-year student commented, “I think my main thing for a night out is [that] if it’s busy, then I enjoy it, and the Union just is a bigger space [sic];, more people, so I had a good time.”

In response, The Vic representative stated: “This decision was not taken to penalise students. It was actually taken to try and adapt to new student behaviours, along with trying to capture the rest of the market.”