I've just got home from Tight Laced at the Q club in Cambridge, an up and coming event with a seriously low entry price, and a good variety of music through the night.

This was the 8th event this lot have put on, and it seems to be coming along nicely. They started off with a natural advantage in that their venue is well known for weekly rock nights and goth nights, so there are quite a few people wearing black leather or PVC who know their way there! Entry is an absolutely bargain basement £2 if you turn up before 10:30, or an equally low £3 thereafter. The event runs from 9pm to 1am or slightly later.

The main thing I have to say for this club is that the people there were incredibly friendly. I turned up more than 10 minutes early, and by the time we were let in I had already made two new friends, who then proceeded to introduce me to about half of the other people who turned up - there's no way I'll remember most people's names, but particular thanks to Richard for making me feel so welcome (and congratulations on a stunning outfit!).

The dress code for the evening says it is strict, but really there were quite a few people there who wouldn't of made it into somewhere like Torture Garden or other established events. However, most of the people who weren't looking particularly fetish were at least dressed in black or alternative styles of clothing, and none of them seemed to be there just to stare at the scantily clad women (of which there were plenty by the way!). At the end of the day, clubs have to be sensible about how they apply their dress code while they are establishing a customer base - this one seems to be getting the balance about right, and I'm told there are more shiny people every time. I was suprised to see so many girls dressed in what basically amounted to black cocktail dresses - zero points for efforts ladies! There were more girls in relatively normal clothes than there were guys, I suppose that's preferable in a lot of ways. One of the promoters was telling me that they really tighten up on the dress code after 10:30pm, as otherwise they would have a lot of people rolling out of pubs and trying to get in when they heard the music.

Some of the people who had dressed up were really going for it - star outfits of the night were the really tall guy in lots of PVC (the afore-mentioned Richard), and the stunningly attractive girl wearing mostly chains, plus some underwear. There were plenty more who were well worth seeing too. This was a masked ball - most people seemed to turn up with a mask, and many people kept them on for most of the night (including one guy who figured out how to smoke cigarettes and drink a pint through the breather tube on his gas mask!), so the theme night thing was a real success here.

The music was a pleasant change, being a mix of styles at different times of the evening, instead of persistent dance music end to end. Starting off with some 'weird' stuff (I have no idea, but it was okay), then it moved generally in the direction of dance, with the main part of the night being the usual favourite of techno and hard house - however, there were more than a few industrial tracks thrown in for good measure, so I had lots of fun waving my hair round enthusiastically. The closing track for the evening was an Adam and the Ants number - class act!

The sound system was more than adequate for the small size of the venue, with plenty of volume and decent sound quality. Although the venue is small, the layout gives the promoters a lot of potential for splitting it up with sheets or putting dungeon furniture in various places, and they are currently looking into acquiring some bits and bobs for their guests to play on. The venue already has fairly 'alternative' decor, and there wasn't much scope for the promoters to add their own touches, but they did contribute some hanging dolls and put some weird films on the numerous televisions (I noticed Preaching to the Perverted at one point, and someone else noticed Barbarella later on).

Presently, there is no dungeon equipment, and no areas particular set aside for that kind of play, or for more sexual play... the girl in the chains was getting whipped for ages by several of the people she was with, while chained to the railing of the dancefloor - with people wanting to play this seriously, I think this club will make lots of friends when it does get some furniture in place, along with perhaps some slightly seperated areas for all kinds of play.

Overall, this event reminds me of two other 'startup' fetish clubs I have been to - the dress code is slightly slacker than an established venue, the music is slightly more varied, and it suffers slightly from feeling a bit like 'just another rock/goth night' sometimes - but with the dedication of its promoters and the more flamboyant of its customers, it should certainly go from strength to strength over the coming months... and of course, there is that seriously low entry price to encourage people to keep coming back month after month to see it develop.

I believe their next event is on the 9th of November (hopefully they'll send me a confirmed date shortly). Whenever it is, I'm planning to be there.