I went last night and whilst I cannot blame a venue for the behaviour of customers, I feel that it's important to share. There were a lot of creepy men and last night, and the majority of my group got creeped on in one way or another. My male friend had a man put his arm over his shoulder and was asking questions about me, not letting him go and making him uncomfortable. Another one of my friends was danced on even after moving away. When I went to the toilets, there was a girl crying because a man had made her so uncomfortable. My friends had to intervene when another man came over to try to encourage me to down my drink when I went to an empty table near the bar, and they were on guard all night when we should've been having fun. It really sucked and made the place feel horrible - I heard that it was a group of five men causing issues. I feel like the venue has more of these types of people now than they used to (I've been going for a couple of years).

As I said, I'm aware that the venue cannot see everything and it's hard to detect creeps - I have worked in a pub / club myself and I get that there is only so much that can be done. However, I really think that the bouncers could be placed in better positions (for example if there is one on the dance floor, these things may be less likely to happen). There were two bouncers outside on the street / entrance and one next to the smoking area. I feel like if they had more of an obvious presence this kind of behaviour might occur less often.

There were two bouncers though that came to check on me in the bathroom as I had run up the stairs quite quickly, so some of the bouncers are really good.

On top of this, something that really surprised me was that at the end of the night, I had accidentally left my phone in the venue. I had been outside speaking to the bouncer about the men, so it went past closing time. I then went back in to collect my jacket and I missed my phone. I was not allowed to re-enter to collect my phone. As someone who has worked in a club I totally understand not wanting to doss around waiting for drunk people to collect their things, but considering the context I feel like at the very least the bouncers could have done a quick sweep. There were so many bouncers just congregated at the door, and not one of them offered to have a quick look. Instead my friend was told very bluntly "it'll be in lost property tomorrow". I've worked in a club before, and we would at the very least always offer to check the venue if a customer had lost something at the end of the night, and if we ever didn't, we certainly wouldn't have spoken to them like that. If the place hasn't been cleared, lights are still on etc. (the DJ was still there) and it makes no difference, I don't see how it's so much trouble. It felt like some kind of power trip.

I know objectively it was past closing time, people want to go home, but it would have taken 30 seconds. When I pointed out that it was partly down to me having spoken to the bouncer and the conversation spilling over, the bouncer in question literally turned his back on me and walked away. Some of the bouncers are just rude and unwilling to help.

Luckily I did get my phone back because Pete the DJ saw my phone ringing, picked up and returned it. The bouncers were super friendly when we were all coming in, but at the end of the night their attitude just completely switched (I get that, it is grinding), and I feel like if you can't take an extra 30 seconds you definitely have a bare minimum approach to your role. I would have understood being told to come back the next day if they had quickly checked and not been able to find it anywhere, but to not even offer to send one person out of how many of them there were to have a look seemed as though the bouncer had said no just because he could.