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For my birthday in April my sister, cousins and I planned a trip to the Sugarhut night club in Brentwood, Essex.

==Guestlist and tables==

We did actually enquire about booking a table or booth for my birthday so that we would be guaranteed somewhere to sit down but when they quoted us at £750 for a table for ten we almost fainted! This does include a magnum of champagne and a magnum of a spirit of your choice and mixers but even so this was way above our budget. Perhaps if there were ten of us and it was a more special occasion we would have done this but for my birthday it was a bit much.

We did however get on the guest list and to do this you need to contact the staff at Sugar Hut the Monday before you want to go and see if there is room to get on. I would advise calling them first thing in the morning on the Monday as although there is still a small queue on the guest list it is much smaller than the normal queue and you are let in a good hour before people on the other side. There is no guest list available for a Saturday night though.

==Opening times and entrance==

The doors open at around 9pm and it stays open until 2am. The website has lots of information on what happens on certain nights and whether the night may be over 18s or over 21s and so I would advise checking there before you plan a trip if you are a younger person.

Entrance was £10.00 on Good Friday which I thought was reasonable really considering some rubbish clubs up near me charge a fiver to get in! I believe the price varies depending on which night you go and so again I would check the website as most nights seem to be five pounds.

There is a dress code for every night at Sugar Hut which is pretty much smart dress, no trainers, caps and such like. Vans or plimsoll type shoes are only allowed on a Thursday and Sunday.

==The club ==

I have to say I found it quite mad that the Sugar Hut was just in the middle of Brentwood High Street with a McDonalds to the side and a Nando’s near by! You could certainly drive past and not notice it if you weren’t aware of where it is that is for sure!

There are two ropes to which you can stand behind. The one on the left of the building is for the guest list and the one on the right is for those who haven’t booked on the guest list. I would certainly advise arriving early to the venue as lots of people do want to get in and they can turn people away when it is full obviously. We arrived at around 8.45pm but went for a drink in a pub across the road before heading out and we were one of the first in the club then. There was various security staff working the door and checking peoples ID and if they were on the guest list or not. Once you get inside you have to give your ID to another staff member who scans it and it comes on a screen to the side of you, presumably to check for authenticity. You can then pay your entrance fee and head in to the bar. Inside the foyer there is a wall with the Sugar Hut logo on where you stand for the photographer to take your group picture for the website as well.

As we got in the club and began to wander around we realised it was nothing like we had expected it to be like. There are eight kinds of different zones with a different sort of ambience and so we first ended up in a red room with quite a quiet chilled out vibe but then stumbled across an area which despite being enclosed in the club is actually outside and all cobbled with loungers to sit on and a bar too. We soon realised that the club is a little bit like a maze with lots of small areas both downstairs and up and so we just wandered around for a little while.

The décor all around the Sugar Hut is quite amazing really. It is full of expensive looking Buddha statues, fancy mirrors and decorations and so it does look incredibly classy. All night we noticed that there are staffs employed to literally be there to mop up any spillages on the wooden floors and to make sure that no empty glasses are left lying around. The Sugar Hut has a reputation to live up to as a classy, high quality venue and I have to say it does not disappoint in this way at all. The toilets even live up to this with staff employed to be on hand should you need perfume, deodorant, straighteners for your hair and such like!

There are a lot of places in the Sugar Hut for VIP’s to sit as there are booths a plenty around but one thing that I found was lacking was places for Joe Normal to sit as well. We were stood up the bulk of the night dancing but it would have been nice to stay in the room we wanted to be in and rest our feet at points too as we all had heels on of course. We ended up leaving the room and walking to an area in between two rooms where a set of toilets are as there were some loungers there as well as a wall with the Sugar Hut logo on and so it was a perfect spot for photos as well. The VIP booths are all behind a rope in the room keeping them quite separate and of course there are girls flocking around Mick Norcross’s (the owner of the club) booth in the hope they may be asked to join him I guess.

The main room which people who watch the only way is Essex will recognise is actually really quite small! It is cleverly disguised by a massive mirror which fills one of the walls making it seem double the size though. Whilst it was tricky to move about in the centre of the room when the DJ got going and everyone was dancing we managed to find a spot near the door which was perfect for us to dance around in and because it was so busy it really helped create a brilliant atmosphere. There are bars in all of the rooms in the Sugar Hut but we only used the two in the main room. What I found amazing was when we ordered our first drinks the bar man must really have been paying attention as when we went for our second he remembered what we were having! That personal touch added to our experience I think too. Drinks aren’t cheap, a Malibu and coke was five pounds but to be honest we only had three drinks all night as we had a few drinks in the hotel before we went out and we didn’t really feel the need to drink loads as we were having fun and dancing.

Music is played in many of the areas of the Sugar Hut. The main room was what I would call clubby music so people were dancing with their hands in the air and what not. Towards the end of the night we discovered that a room to the side of the main room was playing more pop type tunes even including some Jackson Five and so we stopped in there a little while before heading out of the club. They do have famous DJ’s playing some nights but to my knowledge there wasn’t one on the night that we visited.

==Overall==

I can honestly say I have never been to a club like Sugar Hut before and I have been out in places such as Manchester and Liverpool before. The whole image of the club is of wealth and exclusivity but once you get in to the rooms you actually realise it is just a really good night. The fact that staff are on hand to sort out the plastic glasses and spillages before they make the place look messy I think is a really good touch and it is not something that I have really seen before.

I would have loved there to have been a room which played more current chart type music rather than the dancey stuff but this is just down to my and my personal preferences. We still had a great time even though the music wasn’t entirely my thing and I would certainly go back as well.


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