Students have criticised the queue for last week’s ABBA-themed club night organised by ATIK, with some calling the experience “extremely frightening”.
One student who queued for the event, which promised on its Facebook page that guests could “dress up and dance the night away”, recalled that a number of people began to experience panic attacks while waiting because of the pressure of the queue.
They told Cherwell: “I’ve been in the standing area at lots of concerts but the queue at Park End was much, much worse than any of them – bouncers were having to push against the metal barriers with all of the weight just to keep the crowd upright, otherwise we would have toppled sideways.
“It was an extremely frightening experience; several people were experiencing panic attacks. The only relief seemed to come when a few people gave up and climbed out of the queue.”
Some party-goers criticised the bouncers managing the queue. One told Cherwell: “One bouncer was being very unhelpful and laughing”.
An anonymous post on Oxfess said: “To the people who helped to stop the bouncer grabbing me when I had my hands up in surrender in Park End last night, a huge thank you.”
However, not all the blame was pinned on the nightclub staff. One student present said: “The staff there appeared to be trying their best, but I think more work needed to be done further back in the queue to prevent it getting so wide.
“The bottleneck when the sprawling queue reached the metal barriers was causing the problem.”
Atik did not respond to Cherwell’s request for comment.
