A recent student-led petition claims The Sugarhouse needs to stop treating nights out like a year 6 disco and update the cringeworthy music that has led to students no longer enjoying the experience of the club.
Although we all love to look back on childhood favourites, hearing ‘Harlem Shake’ for the fifth night out in a row is not a vibe. When the Lighting and Sound Technician agrees that “there are only so many times one can listen to ‘Runaway’ by Gatlantis before you feel the urge to electrocute yourself on the main breaker box,” you know you’re doing something wrong.
The Reform Sugar Protest began on the 14th March 2022 and has put forward a petition calling for the club to update its playlists. The petition has already received considerable support from the student community with the Reform Sugar Instagram page amassing over 500 followers and the petition already receiving over 200 signatures. Even student staff members have expressed their support for the petition with Sugarhouse staff member, Will Owens, saying that “while I love Sugar… when the truly awful songs come on my ears prick up. It would be nice to see a bit more diversity, maybe having nights which focus on playing genres and actually focus on it instead of three songs.”
Lighting and Sound Technician, Maxwell Holden Courtney-Lee, also felt frustrated by the lack of diversity in the Sugarhouse playlists. During an interview with SCAN, Courtney-Lee said that their station is up on stage beside the DJ himself so they have a fairly solid knowledge of the musical repertoire played and confirmed it’s essentially the same songs every week. They mentioned that there are request nights every so often, but felt that listening to what the students want should be the norm not a novelty.
SCAN interviewed Reform Sugar to find out more about the petition and the motives behind it. The admin behind the page were quick to announce that as third year students, they felt like they’d been hearing the same music on nights out to The Sugarhouse since they were Freshers.
“Please save our ears from ever having to hear ‘what does the fox say?’ bellowing from The Sugarhouse speakers.”
REFORM SUGAR PROTEST ADMIN
Reform Sugar felt that “outdated music has led to students no longer enjoying the experience of the club” and claimed that the “support we’ve seen is testament to how fed up Lancaster students are with the club.”
However, as well as the constant cringeworthy anthems, Reform Sugar also feel that The Sugarhouse playlists drastically lacks diversity. With the growth of music-oriented societies on campus, surely The Sugarhouse needs to start catering to more styles of music?
Reform Sugar agreed that Society Take-Over Nights where societies send in their own playlists would be an excellent idea and could possibly help improve Saturday nights.
“We believe these nights would be better utilised, by the potential introduction of Saturday Sugar Night Socials, which would attract more students to the nightclub, and hopefully prove to be a more profitable night for the Students’ Union.”
REFORM SUGAR PROTEST ADMIN
As well as the petition, Reform Sugar has also organised a ‘Sugar Boycott’ for Friday 18th March and urge students to show their support.
In response to the Reform Sugar Petition, a Students’ Union spokesperson has said that “we are listening to what students are saying to us on this. The VP Union Development and The Sugarhouse management will be contacting the organisers of the petition to work with them on a solution. We will respond with any news on this on The Sugarhouse social media.”
To sign the petition, follow the link here
