Our Vic, Their Victory

Since returning from a year abroad, and being accustomed to the introduction: “Hi, my name’s Vic, like the Vic,” there was only one place I was particularly itching to get back to. When I was notified of the Vic’s demise as a late-night venue via a comment on TikTok, I was shocked and rather distraught. And so was, as I found out, the rest of St Andrews. 

The Vic Café on Market Street is owned by the Scotsman Group, a conglomerate that owns and operates 49 venues across Scotland, of which our soggy town hosts seven establishments – Mitchell’s, Forgan’s, The Vic Café, The Hide, The Bothy, Space Café, and Space Apartments. Such a number indicates a venue monopoly in St Andrews. Yet, despite all this space, late-night venues seem few and far between. 

At its peak, St Andrews hosted three “clubs” — the Union, now newly refurbished and no longer at risk of falling on us during a particularly passionate reaction to a Pitbull impersonator; the Rule, which “feels more like a sauna than a sports bar” according to one rather exasperated third year student; and the Vic, which struck the perfect balance of “the exact right capacity for DJ collectives” and the smoking area, which for many students, was the “best part of their night.” 

Why did the Scotsman Group alter one of the best venues around? “Profits,” explained their Head of Sales, Graham Urquhart. “When the Student Union reopened after refurbishments, we became a bit of a competitor to them.” It made for a better financial decision to “prioritise the golfers” and move the Vic on from its days as a nightclub, Urquhart explained. Citing the “challenges of the industry,” he described being “left with absolutely nothing” — an “empty venue” that would only be used by “promoter nights that wanted to capitalise on the students.”

“I really don’t know what he’s talking about,” one President of a music collective, admits. “These events are all student-run. We’re on the door, we’re DJing, we’re laughing and dancing. There’s no big shadow man raking in the profits we’re apparently making — it’s all reinvested back into our group and the community that helps us run things.” Urquhart retained his distinction, repeatedly assuring that “the students have not benefitted,” quickly followed with “we’ve not benefitted.”

The student body feels otherwise. “The appetite is there [for an alternate nightlife venue] — students just need the space,” explained a DJ for a collective most often seen playing at the Rule. 

“We need a club. We need a place that feels just the right amount of intimate and interesting, where I can listen to my friends DJ and, kind of, forget I’m in the equivalent of a medieval village,” one second-year explained. “There is nothing we want less than another pub which sells pints at double the price of the Whey Pat, or apartments which are just giving landlords another excuse to raise rents, while my friends and I have to live in Dundee. They think they’re helping the students? Yeah, helping the students, my a**.” 

While Urquhart pitched the supposedly never-ending list of alternative event spaces he most enthusiastically offers to students, this hole of the perfect late-night venue is seemingly staying unfilled. Forgan’s has been a recent addition, but Urquhart made clear his opposition to the hosting of late-night events in the restaurant, admitting that they’re “having to push back” on pressure to open up the full venue to DJ nights. 

“What we need and what we’re working hard on is for the promoters to identify themselves [as being] more than just a DJ,” he continued. “Glasgow’s venue works [as] the students prefer live music,” and that’s the path he’s leading the Vic towards. At the Vic, “students are loving the food, they’re loving it,” he said. “We refurbished it for them.” 

Urquhart insisted that neither the students nor the company had benefitted from the nightclub format. His message for mourners of the night-outs at the Vic — “We have given you something. Anybody that I’m speaking to [has] got so [many] positive messages to say ...] [They’re] thanking me for being honest, thanking me for making myself accessible.” For Urquhart, what the students need is a change of mindset. 

“Putting profits above people” was repeated by a number of Presidents I spoke to about the changes in venue spaces. “We’re students, and this is a student town; how can you dismiss our wishes yet praise your openness?” noted another DJ collective co-lead. 

The Scotsman Group’s clear focus this year is expanding their apartment complex. In a town already gripped by a housing crisis, Space is offering apartments to students who, simply, “are not loving [their] new accommodation” (taken from The Student Space’s website) starting at just £295 a week. That’s double the average rent price of a room in a two-bedroom flat in the centre of town. Such high rent prices are allowing for the opening up of a “bigger gym, yoga classes, tennis courts, padel courts, and so much extra,” listed Urquhart. 

Where the Scotsman Group’s ‘lack of funding’ starts and where it ends is unclear. However, the changes it has led to at the Vic have not all been negatively received. Another student DJ sees the refurbishment as an "opportunity for more experimental ideas,” and a chance for "societies to collab[orate].” With increased competition for fewer venues there may be a subsequent rise in the quality of the average student night out, but such will only be at the cost of the student. It’s a price that the Vic was willing to pay, but is it one we want to bear?

Illustration by Abigail Svaasand