It was a sad irony that 2011 saw BCTC congratulate Fiction on being open for 5 years and then saw the club close a few months later. Keeping a club open in Cape Town is a tricky business and 5 years is not to be taken likely but sadly the club succumbed to the pressures of the business.
Luckily, lovers of the Fiction concept – a club based ONLY on alternative electronic music from passionate DJ’s – stood up and bought the club from the previous owners. The rennovations began but the owners fell prey to the building off season and the usual builders’ false promise of “6 weeks” for everything to be completed and the club remained closed far longer than anticipated.
Nearly 6 months later Fiction was about to reopen 10 days ago until the council cramped their style and kept the club closed for another few days. Happily, this Easter weekend saw Fiction rise from the dead!
On Thursday night the new Fiction opened its doors to a massive queue down Longstreet. Drum n bass, Fiction and Long Street lovers streamed the sidewalk in anticipation of It Came From The Jungle – Niskerone’s weekly drum n bass night, officially back home at Fiction 🙂
The club was extremely dusty and incomplete as a whole but the new renovations are awesome. NO MORE COMMUNAL TOILETS!!! Whoohoo! The loos are now upstairs whilst the “old bathroom” has been removed and the dance floor extended into that space. There were also bouncers upstairs which was cool cause it meant drunk guys toned it down, yay!
Downstairs, there are few electronics – no air con, few lights, no tv screens but this will all be added over the next few weeks. The outside bar has been removed as apparently it’s a safety hazard (blocking the fire escape) but a new bar is soon to be built on the Long Street corner side relieving the inside bar – thank goodness because the bar staff were super slow.
Although the barmen were working flat out they seemed inexperienced with software issues, no serving order and inefficient serving techniques: they poured every soft drink – I know cans must be opened to ensure the products aren’t removed or resold but with 60ppl waiting at the bar this was SUCH a time waster. They also had to swipe their staff card for EVERY transaction, a code would be quicker, they didn’t go down the line and the DJ’s had no preferential treatment.
The power also kept tripping which caused confusion and more pressure on the staff but I do believe the service will improve over time as the staff become more familiar with the systems.
Good luck to the new Fiction! Teething problems are completely normal and I have faith that it will all run smoothly in the near future. The party was crazy on Thursday and the club stayed packed until 4am so let the good times roll, round 2 ding ding!
P.S I’d love to share a video but it was too dark inside to capture anything of quality!