Will’s Word On Warwick: Is more Assembly required?

The Assembly Leamington is primarily known for its lack of card payments, fun events, weak circles, and freezing conditions – however, it is so much more than that. For instance, it serves as a cruel trick played on freshers, as the establishment uses ambitious marketing early in Term One to bamboozle their vulnerable young minds into thinking that Assembly is a valid option for a night of clubbing – shortly before the cold, harsh reality of the place sets in, driving them away forever.

With an entrance not unlike a fairground haunted house, a genuinely impressive and well-designed interior, temperatures so cold that your wee steams, and queues for the women’s toilet long enough to incite a fifth wave of feminism; Assembly is, undoubtedly, a true spectacle.

Events at Assembly include the widely acclaimed Bongo’s Bingo, the celebrated Warwick Fight Nights, and the recent Walk it Off Warwick – where you could watch sports personalities walk about for a bit on a stage in some clothes

Recently, Assembly hosted Rugby Auctions to the tune of roughly 20 attendees, despite having planned for at least quadruple that; thankfully, though, the fault does not seem to lie with Assembly. Instead, Rugby Union allegedly failed to market the event in any meaningful way. We can only assume they were too busy touching each other and being banned from the SU to put anything together in time.

Other slightly more successful events at Assembly include the widely acclaimed Bongo’s Bingo, the celebrated Warwick Fight Nights, and the recent Walk it Off Warwick – where you could watch sports personalities walk about for a bit on a stage in some clothes.

Fun facts about Assembly include that it used to be a ballroom and that Brian May, Lou Reed, and Billy Ocean have all performed there. I would argue that it’s possible that when Lou Reed sang Perfect Day, sometime in the 1960s probably, he was pre-empting a glorious time soon to be spent in Assembly Leamington. Whilst these guys are certainly no Disco Dave or Danny T, this fun fact is impressive, nonetheless.

In what was surely an ultimately unresolved La La Land-esque mix-up, Assembly won the Music Week Award for ‘Best Live Music Venue’ in 2010

Back in the year 2014, in what was presumably a parallel universe, a writer for The Boar said:

“If Disco Dave ever pulls a night as good as theirs, I’ll eat a copy of the Boar.”

This statement has not aged well, and I’ll be sure to mail over a copy of The Boar, featuring a delectably needle-pushing article about Skool Dayz, to the writer in question for her prompt consumption.

In 2015, another writer, who was presumably trapped in a similarly alternate world, described Assembly’s ‘Switch’ event as the biggest night in Leamington. Moreover, in what was surely an ultimately unresolved La La Land-esque mix-up, Assembly won the Music Week Award for ‘Best Live Music Venue’ in 2010, presumably beating out titans of the industry such as Bedford Street Jazz, Battle of the Bands, and TJ’s karaoke.

Ten years ago then, Assembly appeared to host the best night of the Warwick Week, an event supposedly better even than the mighty Kasbah Monday! Notably, however, ever since lockdown, the venue appears to have been in steady decline as a clubbing hotspot, which is sad to see since the décor and size of the place could make it a great night out.

Overall, from running one of Warwick’s premier events to becoming the world’s bleakest and weakest circling venue (outside of the horror show that is upstairs Kelsey’s) the fall-off has undoubtedly been generational. We can only hope that in ten years’ time, Assembly will have revived itself once more and that the upcoming Gen Alpha will be able to enjoy it just as much as our now, presumably dead, millennial forefathers did way back in the early 2010s.