These photos take you back to the 90s and noughties, showing 16 of the most popular nightclubs of the time across the North West.
The much-missed nightspots featured range from vast venues, including one said to be the UK’s biggest at the time, to quirky indie clubs.
Among them is a beloved venue once named the world’s best nightclub, and another club where Take That famously made their TV debut on an iconic 90s show.
Some of these venues are still drawing in the punters, albeit under a different name, while others have been destroyed by fire or flattened to make way for flats and offices.
They may be gone but they are not forgotten, with former regulars remembering them as the ‘place to be’ and telling how they have ‘never danced the same way since’.
These retro photos will take you back to these much-loved clubs during their heyday, when the floors were sticky with spilt alcopops, and the smell of sweat and smoke machines mingled in the air with the aroma of CK One and Joop!
How many of these nightclubs do you remember, and what do you think was the best nightclub of the 90s or noughties?
If these nostalgic images have left you pining for the past, you might enjoy this photo gallery looking back at popular shopping centres in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
5. Feel
Feel was a popular Preston superclub based at the University of Central Lancashire Students' Union from 1994 to 2005 and renowned across the country. It is much-missed by the former regulars for its 'great' DJs and 'amazing' atmosphere. | National World
6. Posh
Posh nightclub was a beloved Burnley institution in the noughties, known for its inventive cocktails like Barnamint Baileys and Mr Skittles as much for the thumping sound of hip-hop and R&B that had the dancefloor rocking. | Submitted Photo: submitted
7. Le Bateau
Le Bateau on Liverpool's Duke Street was a legendary indie venue, with one fan calling it the 'place to be' in the early noughties. As well as the latest indie music, it was a popular place for Motown/funk lovers and drum and bass enthusiasts. | Google Photo: Google
8. Discotheque Royale
The Manchester landmark that is the Theatre Royal building on Peter Street went from staging operas to hosting one of the city's most seminal 90s nightclubs. Having been used as a cinema and a bingo hall, the grand 1840s building was reimagined in 1989 as the Discotheque Royale, better known by many clubbers simply as Royales. Its reincarnation paid homage to its former life, with its statues of cherubs and the lighting rig in the style of a chandelier making it one of the North West's most opulent nightspots. What theatre aficionados of old would have made of the thumping music, sticky dancefloor and lingering smell of sweat and CK One is anyone's guess, however. Discotheque Royale ran until the early noughties and famously hosted Take That's first TV performance, on cult music show The Hitman and Her, in 1990.Nights at Discotheque Royale are sadly a distant memory, with the grand building standing empty and boarded up since 2011. | Google Photo: Google