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Nightclubs in fiction are always much cooler, bigger, and cleaner than the ones you find in the downtown of your town (unless your town happens to be New York City, Atlanta, Tokyo, Berlin, Ibiza or London). Expect to see a line around the block to get in whether the club is full or not, though some people need only wink at the Bouncer or have a spot on the guest list and in they go (this seldom includes the main protagonist unless it's a sexy woman). And, as with the High-School Dance, expect everybody in attendance to be dancing around and having a great time (whereas, in Real Life, you are likely to see a lot of Mood Dissonance among the attendees and more than a few people who just want to go home). There might even be Dancing Royalty clearing the dance-floor with their amazing dance moves or leading a Flash Mob-esque dance sequence.

Clubs in fiction also seem to be packed no matter what night of the week it is, and the bouncers seem to have no problem letting teenagers in the front doors (again, except the main characters). Furthermore, everyone of relevance to the plot will hang out at the same one. Despite the crowds, you can hold an extended conversation in a normal speaking voice and have no problem being heard.

Often a Bad Guy Bar and rarely a Good-Guy Bar, because Evil Is Cool - always remember that Vampires Own Night Clubs.

See also Where Everybody Knows Your Flame, for the gay version. The Wacky Startup Workplace often tries to evoke a fun, club-like atmosphere.

For cool "clubs" in the other sense of the word, see Carry a Big Stick.


Examples:

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    Anime 
  • In Serial Experiments Lain there is Cyberia, where Lain and her friends often go at night. It's so cool that not only teenagers, but also children go there.
    • The name of the club references Douglas Rushkoff's book Cyberia, published in 1994. It revolved, quite fittingly for Lain, around themes of technology, drugs and club subcultures.
    • Additionally, it's probably no coincidence that one of the real world's first internet cafes was also called Cyberia.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman: In Gotham City, this is the case of the Iceberg Lounge which the Penguin runs as a legit front to cover his illegal activities. As a gimmick it is quite literally cool.
  • The club/bar where the criminal element makes its home in The Crow is an excellent example, with far more people than a run-down dive like that place would expect, and much better live acts...though that could be explained by its being the home base of the city's criminal kingpin.
  • Adam Warren's Dirty Pair has an interesting justification for nightclubs populated solely by attractive people; they have "hotness scanners" that compare incomers' bodies to a stored "aesthetic profile of body somatotype and facial symmetry", and only permit entrance to those that are "sufficiently hot".
  • Scott Pilgrim: Chaos Theater. The owner may be one of the worst assholes ever, and Ramona's 7th Evil Ex, but his club was still a nice place, with video games, music, stage for concerts, and a planned, but scrapped by the author, skate park.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The Electric Psychedelic Pussycat Swingers Club in Austin Powers looks like a fun place to hang out.
  • The Devil's Earthly HQ is in one of these in the Bedazzled remake (slightly justified due to the club being in San Francisco). When Elliot is first brought there, he is excited to have every club patron cheering him and knowing his name, being a social outcast of sorts. Naturally, the Devil uses this as an extra push to get Elliot to sell his soul. When he visits the club at the end of the film, he sees that everybody is exhausted and bored, as if they can't leave.
  • The "House of Pain" in Blade II appeared to be a popular hangout for the young, beautiful Vampire crowd.
  • In The Breakup, Vince Vaughn's brother takes him to a super cool club, making him feel intimidated and out of his element.
  • The Kit-Kat Club in Cabaret. Christopher Isherwood, writer of the books the film was based on, said that if anything like that had existed in 1930s Berlin people would have been coming from all over Europe just to visit it.
  • In Cold Pursuit, drug dealer Speedo is based in what appears to be the the coolest club in Denver. It is full of young, beautiful people, which makes the late middle-aged, working class Nels Coxman stand out even more when he comes there seeking Speedo.
  • Fright Night (1985) has a set of scenes in Club Radio, where they let teens in, the place is hopping with good looking dance-happy people, and would not be out of place in LA, except that it's set in a small city in Iowa. The bouncers do try to protect young women from predators, though.
  • Hackers features Cyberdelia, an appropriate 'cyber-nightclub that has a full complement of skate ramps, a video game console about as large as a mid-sized room, and of course, techno music. It's also by invite only.
  • Cool clubs exist all over the James Bond franchise, with many also being casinos. One of the first scenes of the film series is a casino in 1962's Dr. No where Bond first utters his famous, trope-naming greeting. A good non-casino club is in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, which features Bond meeting—and practically talking shop with—Soviet agent Maj. Anya "Agent XXX" Amasova.
  • One of these appear in The Mask, the Coco Bongo club where Tina is a singer.
  • The Matrix: The club where Trinity first meets Neo face to face in the original, and the Merovingian's Hel Club in the sequels.
  • A Night at the Roxbury: Exit, which is dreamed up by the main characters, where the inside looks like the outside, and the outside looks like the inside.
  • In Reality (2012), Luciano sees Enzo in a club that fits the bill of this trope.
  • The "Retinal Fetish" club in Strange Days features live rock shows, performance art, sadomasochism games, mosh pits, crazy lights, smoke machines, and of course an upstairs lounge where villains and thugs hang out. Bonus points for acting like it's totally independent — housed in an abandoned building with exposed cabling everywhere and wire fencing for secure areas.
  • The club Xibalba located at the fictional city of Helverton, Colorado in Dee Snider's 1998 Strangeland. The club seems to be a metal/fetish club that features the band Snot, is packed full of dancers, still has other patrons waiting to get inside while on line outside in the rain carrying umbrellas (popular enough that it's not only packed, but has more patrons waiting to get in once some people inside decide to leave), and has onstage fetish acts and fire breathers as well as some patrons are being flogged in BDSM acts on the main floor of the club and seems to have a back area for certain "VIP" patrons to relax in silence. The depicted club was filmed in The Church nightclub of Denver, Colorado, which while the real club does have Gothic nights on Wednesday and Industrial/EBM nights on Sunday (and other themes on other days), it isn't nightly as this film portrays it and not as intense on a constant basis.
  • The unnamed club where John Travolta's character hung out in Swordfish appeared to be populated exclusively by gorgeous models.
  • The "End of Line Club" from TRON: Legacy. The name also doubles as a Call-Back.
  • Where Kat meets Phil in White Bird In A Blizzard. Subverted slightly by one of the other characters complaining that the DJ always plays the same songs in the same order.
  • The Ink & Paint Club in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a speakeasy run by cartoon characters.
  • The titular club in Shortbus, an LGBTQ+ positive sex and kink club that the proprietress describes as being "A salon for the gifted and challenged."

    Literature 
  • The Dresden Files has a club called 0, run by the White Court. Everywhere one looks, there are couples, threesomes, foursomes and nineteensomes, a variety of substances to snort, swallow or inject, and even biohazard bins to dispose of the syringes in. Just because they're a bunch of evil vampires doesn't mean they're irresponsible.
  • Masquerade of the Red Death: Prince Vargoss holds court in the "Members Only" section of one of these clubs.
  • Moon Over Soho has quite a variety of cool clubs, including the Real Life "Groucho Club", unfortunately they are all murder scenes due to the Monster Of The Book being a vampire that feeds off of Jazz musicians' brains (It Makes Sense in Context).
  • Wicked Lovely brings us the Rath and Ruins. If you have read the series, you want to go there. No exceptions.
  • The Witch of Knightcharm: Club Bacchus-Dionysus is depicted as this. It has a line out the door, is so popular that people try to sneak in, and is so packed on the inside that the protagonist Emily worries she won't be able to find her target Lauren in the limited time she has remaining before Lauren leaves.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In the fourth season of 24, terrorist leader Habib Marwan records a videotaped message in a nightclub that plays a remixed version of the show's title theme music, and is still open, even though the whole city was affected by a blackout from an EMP surge.
  • Used/parodied in an episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun, in which Tommy spends the entire episode trying to get past a bouncer and into a trendy new club. He succeeds near the end, immediately after which it is revealed that it lost its trendiness, and is practically deserted.
  • On Arrow Oliver spends most of season 1 converting an old warehouse into one of these. It's initially a subversion since he primarily wants it as a cover for his activities as a vigilante. He does not care that the construction drags on or that a crazed maniac set fire to it shortly before its opening. He even hired his best friend Tommy as the manager even though Tommy has no business experience. Surprisingly, Tommy managed to turn the club into a working business and it is revealed that the club's lost-and-found mostly consists of ladies' underwear.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • The Bronze has an unending lineup of top quality bands, and is full seven nights a week. It is literally the only club in town though. They managed to score Cibo Matto, which is nice. (How 90's can you get?)
    • Well, Mayor Wilkins spared no expense to make his town attractive to homeowners so the monsters could eat them. The problem is that it's still open several years after Buffy blows him up. Maybe Willow did it?
    • "Man, I hate playing vampire towns."
    • The spinoff, Angel, had a Season 1 episode set almost entirely at Diabolique. Lampshaded by Doyle, who dismissed it as one of those "terminally-stuck-in-the-eighties" places.
  • Burn Notice is Spy Fiction and set in Miami. For them not to toss this in—usually when dealing with The Cartel or The Mafia—would practically be blasphemy. Though unusually for this trope, Michael doesn't actually enjoy them all that much, he sees going to clubs as a strictly business affair, something that often annoys Fiona.
  • Castle seems to have one of these every other week. Granted they are in New York City but considering how elaborate and expensive looking a lot of these clubs seem, it's hard to believe that the main characters, both being locals, had never even heard of these places before they were on the case.
  • P3 from Charmed was a brilliant way for The WB to promote artists on the Time Warner label. One ep labeled Michelle Branch as a "Special Musical Guest" (WB shows her performing one of her songs, and then they show the three sisters talking at the club).
  • CSI-verse:
    • The original CSI, being set in Vegas, also had its share of memorable clubs, as did CSI: NY. Miami just uses the Coolest Club Ever formula more frequently then its sister shows.
    • CSI: Miami seems to have a new "coolest club ever" every third episode. The one of the more memorable is the club where hot men poured honey over hot women on stage (and the customers removed it using fruit).
  • Gossip Girl has the Chuck owned 'Victrola' and dozens of clubs all willing to let in any of the cast, despite them pretty much all being underage, often by half a decade or more.
  • Subverted (awesomely) in the How I Met Your Mother episode "Okay Awesome", wherein the main characters excitedly visit a cool, new, and exclusive club, only to find that they really hate it and can't enjoy themselves, with Ted, the main character, eventually determining that everything one is traditionally supposed to like actually sucks.
  • An episode of The Inbetweeners sees the lads travel up to London to attend one of these, hoping it will impress some girls they know. Naturally everything that could possibly go wrong, does.
  • An episode of Jake 2.0, Jake is sent to Berlin to infiltrate a hacker group as its leader DuMont, who's in NSA custody. Himself being a nerd, he fits in perfectly, especially since this is the first time the group has met (or even seen one another). After a brief hazing session (where the others pretend to be German cops and interrogate him until notices too many movie references), they take him to a club that fits this trope. Naturally, they are able to bypass the line by handing a bouncer a few large-denomination euro notes. After hanging out, they go under the club, where they have set up their temporary HQ for a major hack.
  • Lily Langtry's cub, "The Haven" in Kindred: The Embraced.
  • On The Nanny episode "Fran Lite", Fran and Val take Maxwell to a club, on the condition that he pretends he's gay and claims he doesn't know them, so that they can still meet guys. This backfires when he gets to go in (being a Broadway producer and all), and takes their advice literally and claims not to know them, leaving them in line.
  • The club on The O.C. has top-tier indie bands playing most nights of the week - mostly ignored by the cast. Justified by the location.
  • The Neolution nightclub in the first season (and flashback scenes in the fourth season) of Orphan Black.
  • Parks and Recreation has the Snakehole Lounge. It's apparently the coolest bar in Pawnee, which isn't particularly large praise. It's large, stylish, well-appointed and popular. The Bulge is also pretty nice and consistently packed, considering that it's a gay bar in rural Indiana.
  • The gay night club, The Babylon, from Queer as Folk (UK), as well as the American version.
  • Sex and the City uses this trope on an almost weekly basis, although perhaps due to the age of the central characters there's an equal tendency for them to hit supposedly amazing restaurants instead of bars and clubs. It's usually justified as Samantha, who works in PR, is usually promoting the club and is able to get her friends in for the opening.
  • Club Zer0 on Smallville, where Lex Luthor supposedly committed his first kill (they should erect a plaque), and Morgan Edge's nightclub in the Metropolis scenes of Season Three.
  • The Cirque du Soleil series Solstrom revealed in its Grand Finale that the sun creatures stopped on Earth on their way to a planet that houses the Coolest Club in the Galaxy, and the episode takes place there. The clientle, naturally, is mostly alien, but they have the same line at the door and the Running Gag of the episode has an "Inoffensive Crank" trying to get past the doorman and his robot bouncers.
  • Ben's aquatic-themed bar, The Deep, on Sunset Beach.
  • The disco in Kenosha on That '70s Show.
  • The downtown Baltimore nightspot where Stringer throws a welcome-home party for Avon after the latter gets paroled from jail early in season 3 of The Wire.

    Music 
  • Almost every dance-pop song about partying by anyone, ever, will have a video full of this.
  • About half of all dance-pop songs and maybe a quarter of all hip-hop tracks feature lyrics about dancing in a club with the opposite gender.
  • Kesha's "Take It Off" is about one of these places, and the second video takes this to an extreme by showing a club made up entirely of 80s video cliches.
  • Elton John's "Club At The End Of The Street" and the B-52's "Love Shack" also come to mind.
  • Subverted by The Smiths' "How Soon is Now?" The singer is told "there's a club if you'd like to go / You could meet somebody who really loves you ..." But what actually happens is:
    So you go on your own
    And you leave on your own
    And you go home and you cry
    And you want to die

    Tabletop Games 
  • Shadowrun is of course overrun with examples of this, being a cyberpunk game, but the most prominent one in Seattle has to be Dante's Inferno. A nine-level night club (including Limbo, for the posers), with the ninth level meant for only to most exclusive crowds. Noted to be something of a franchise nightclub, to the point that you can purchase VR memberships and attend their parties virtually.
  • Polyhymnia in Transhuman Space. It's so exclusive that it doesn't have a Wannabe Line, because the Wannabes never know where it is. It's constantly moving, and constantly changing who it's aimed at, but clever memetics ensure that the "right" people get drawn to it seemingly by coincidence.
  • The World of Darkness loves this trope. Super-cool nightclubs are popular hangouts for all sorts of supernatural creatures, perhaps most notoriously vampires. Vampire: The Masquerade has the Succubus Club in Chicago, probably the most famous and coolest club in the setting.

    Video Games 
  • Online virtual world vSide had some awesome clubs and even a hidden disco rooftop where you could dance with your avatar. vSide was originally called "The PCD Lounge" and was meant to be a promotional virtual space for Pussycat Dolls, but it later expanded. The virtual world had three cities you could visit and they were loosely based in real locations such as New York, Tokyo and Hispanic countries. The aforementioned lounge was the most popular spot in the game. There was a spin-off called "vLES" that was actually based on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and was created for MTV. The admins would play music of different genres, and sometimes you'd have celebrities appearing on vSide to promote something. There were also virtual bouncers and bartenders, all of which were bots, and you could order drinks that would expire after some time. It was also Always Night, so it made sense for such things to exist.
  • The clubs in 2027 are where you gain the majority of your missions.
  • ANNO: Mutationem: At Noctis City, there's Nocturne Maze, a cyber club full of virtual lights and artificial dancers to favor the crowd with their never-ending rhythms.
  • Club Solar in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Being located on Colossus, a floating city in the Cayman Islands and the wealthiest city in the world (Mason casually mentions that it would cost Harper more than he makes "in a year" for a weekend there), it's big and clean and features plenty of hallways and lounges before you even reach the dance floor. Skrillex is blaring throughout the entire place.
  • Call of Juarez: The Cartel has two- the Panorama and the El Dorado.
  • Cyberpunk 2077 has Afterlife — a bar with a dance floor that is known as the hub for the most lucrative (and dangerous) mercenary work in the Night City. Starting out as small-fry street punks, Jackie and V are not even allowed inside at the start of the game — only after they are officially sponsored by the legendary fixer Dexter DeShawn does the bouncer let them in. After that, V can enter it whenever, which gives them access to Rogue Amendiares, the Queen of Fixers, who runs and operates out of Afterlife. In the "Path of Glory" ending, V can even end up taking over Afterlife from her.
  • Dark has the Sanctuary, which is a massive homage to the Old World of Darkness' Succubus Club.
  • Deus Ex Universe:
    • Deus Ex: Club La Porte de l'Enfer in Paris, and Lucky Money in Hong Kong.
    • The Hive in Deus Ex: Human Revolution which isn't very big but is apparently the go-to place in Hengsha with even the city elite visiting it in the slums. Oh and if you don't have a membership card it costs 1000 credits to get in, each time. For reference, a fully-automatic combat rifle costs 1250 credits, and a sidequest found inside to collect a year's worth of debt adds up to 5000. In the spin-off, Nightshades Club in Panama.
  • The Devil's Dalliance in DmC: Devil May Cry. It also serves as a front for the demons to seduce the clientele into becoming their Quislings. After Dante gets inside (by punching the Bouncer out and "adding" his name to the list), the interior winds up transforming into a Design Student's Gladiatorial Arena to entertain the demonic VIPs.
  • Not really a club, more like a lounge, but The Fringe in Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is a bit like this. In the first game, Fringe Café was a rundown bar where April Ryan worked. In the sequel, Dreamfall, it looks like a nice, cozy place where trendy people would hang out. The decoration is sort of futuristic combined with Japanese items (there's even a bonsai tree), and the background music that plays when you're visiting is not bad, either.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Final Fantasy XIII features the NORA house, a popular beach bar which also functions as the base of operations for the anti-establishment "NORA" gang led by Snow Villiers.
    • In Final Fantasy XIII-2, "NORA" builds an identical bar in the town of New Bodhum since the original town was rendered uninhabitable due to the Purge and later the fall of Cocoon.
  • Grand Theft Auto:
    • The Malibu in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the most expensive property up for sale. It's a pretty swanky place, apart from the Village People tribute band on stage.
    • Jizzy's Pleasure Domes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Not a club per se, it's an illegal brothel sitting at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge (or its gaming equivalent, the Gant). Regardless, this is one of the posher interiors in the game, with a three-story dance floor and mezzanine. There are also a dance club to entertain dates in all three cities.
    • Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony stars the bouncer, Luis, and the owner, Gay Tony, of the hottest nightclub in Liberty City: Maisonette 9. Most of the game revolves around Luis and Tony trying to pay off loan sharks so they can keep the club open. Gay Tony also owns Hercules, the hottest gay nightclub in Liberty City.
  • Habbo: Habbo Hotel is another virtual world with interesting places to visit. Until around 2010 you could go to public rooms that were created by the game admins, and a few these rooms had dancefloors. One was restricted to players who spent real money on membership, so it was fancy. Another was slightly futuristic looking, with a big aquarium. The most visited one was Club Massiva, which also looked pretty cool. And there are, of course, player created hangouts, so you can unleash your creativity and make your own Coolest Club Ever if you want to.
  • Club Errera in Halo: Reach. As a an Easter Egg, you can find a hidden switch and start up a Covenant dance party.
  • Hitman:
    • Hitman 3 has Club Hölle, situated in a decommissioned nuclear power plant on the outskirts of Berlin and where 47 faces off against an entire ICA kill squad. It was clearly inspired by Berghain (see Real Life).
    • Hitman: Contracts: The Sturrock Bros. meat packing plant (literally named Polio according to the trucks) doubles as a fetish club in celebration of the elder brother's acquittal on murder charges. Sturrock can be found reclining with his molls in a loft above his go-go cages. The second target, the lawyer, is busying himself in the opium den next to the bar.
  • The Mile High Club in Just Cause 2. It's a yacht-like high-class nightclub, floating thousands of feet above ground via zeppelins! It even has its own mini-runway and helipad.
  • L.A. Noire invokes this trope with a surprisingly realistic twist, combining actual cultural tropes of the day to make up what would genuinely be the coolest club in a coolest city (at the time). It's an ultra-suave music hall in the heart of Hollywood that features its own imported German chanteuse, a band of the hottest black jazzmen of the day who have just discovered both bebop and heroin, is protected by the chief of the local Vice department itself and caters exclusively to the clientele comprised of movie stars, fat cats and corrupt government officials. And has a French-Caribbean Negro butler.
  • Mario Kart 8: Electrodrome is an absolutely enormous one which serves as one of the game's racecourses, with upbeat rave music playing from every wall of speakers, multiple crowded dance floors, and a giant disco ball with the Mario Kart logo on it.
  • Mass Effect:
    • Afterlife in Mass Effect 2 isn't particularly big or glamorous and because of the game engines limitations neither very crowded nor is the line outside very long (but it does have one, including people complaining to the bouncers), but it's probably the Coolest Club In Video Games Ever. It's in fact so cool that the big crime boss of the sector has her office on a balcony over the main floor where she receives visitors surrounded by her enforcers and hitmen. Since the entire decor is very industrial and low tech, lots of people keep repeating that someone should build that place for real, including the game's creators.
    • Afterlife is fairly exclusive, but it's peanuts to its VIP section, which even Commander Shepard can't get in, even considering that s/he knows Aria herself. In this case, the VIP section's relatively few customers and small space makes sense, as it is extremely exclusive.
    • Mass Effect 3 brings us Purgatory, which like Afterlife, is run by Aria. Given that it is designed to better fit the Citadel's sensibilities than Omega's, and more importantly that she only has a club on the Citadel because she was forced to abandon Omega by Cerberus, Aria considers it her own personal hell.
  • Max Payne and Max Payne 2 had Ragnarock (pun intended), a goth bar later bought by Vlad and turned into a Russian-themed restaurant. Max Payne 3 opens the game at Club Moderno, featuring techno music by the real-life DJ collective Trouble and Bass.
  • Messiah has Club Kyd, a colorful club where Fear Factory music plays and scantily clad girls serve food and dance on tables. It also happens to have a VIP section which connects directly to a top secret military base.
  • Mother: A frequent location that's visited in each game; The Live House, Chaos Theater, and Club Titiboo.
  • Club Planetarium in No Straight Roads, although it is somewhat undermined by the fact that its owner, DJ Subatomic Supernova, happens to be a Jerkass Lazy Bum who'd much rather lounge about than actually play the music that his audience paid to listen to (at least, until Bunk Bed Junction show up). In fact, it's mentioned that his "One Night Only!" rave has been going on for three years by the time the story begins, with him not even bothering to change the poster outside and taking advantage of its loose constraints to duck out of having to actually perform. Also, it was once an observatory before he converted it into what it is now.
  • Club Shangri-La in Orangeblood is this, being owned by one of the playable characters (Machiko), though by the time Vanilla arrives it's been taken over by a rival gang. After clearing the gang out, it becomes a Trauma Inn for the party to use as well as serving as their base of operations. In the end, it manages to get clones of Jesus Christ, Buddha and Eazy-E as headliners, cranking its coolness factor up a notch.
  • Club Zodiac plays host to a dungeon in Persona 2. In the first game, Lady Scorpio hangs her hat here along with the rest of the Masquerade doomsday cult. The club was converted into a mob-owned casino in the second chapter.
  • Sleeping Dogs (2012) has Club Bam Bam in North Point, which becomes your gang's Bad Guy Bar after you shakedown the manager, seduce the head hostess and beat the everloving crap out of both the bouncers and the Triad goons from the club's previous protection racket. Later missions have K-bar in Soho fulfill the same purpose.
  • The Asylum is a wonderfully enjoyable club in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines but it's dwarfed by the (human-run) Confession, which is a converted Gothic Church.
  • One of the few games to take place entirely in one, Virtual Nightclub is set in Cyberspace and has multiple attractions with real-life musicians performing, from an art gallery and planetarium, to an inner Hip-hop dance club sponsored by Def Jam Recordings, and a bar and stage featuring Verve. It's not all cool though, as the main plot involves a singer who was presumably murdered on-stage, and some of the patrons aren't exactly friendly.
  • Cochise visits two of these during his prowl through Harlem in The Warriors. The level boss, Big Moe, is fought in a discotheque as the onlookers toss you health.

    Visual Novels 
  • Minotaur Hotel: If you picked Luke as your first employee, the hotel's restaurant will resemble a huge club complete with loud music and stripper poles.

    Web Animation 
  • Homestar Runner: Parodied in the Strong Bad Email "nightlife" with Club Technochocolate, where Strong Mad is the bouncer, the DJ is The Cheat and Bubs tends bar. Bubs's drink creations are, like the rest of his merchandise (and in keeping with the trope) ridiculously overpriced; the "Pink Elephant Pants" is an eyedropper full of green fluid which Strong Bad happily buys for $17.50. Entertainment involves dancing (or in Strong Sad's case, "not-dancing"), Coach Z trying (and failing) to freestyle, and Strong Bad losing his pants somehow and getting tossed out on his "leopard-print hinders".

    Web Comics 
  • The eponymous clubship from Lovelyss is a repurposed warship turned into a 24/7 interstellar nightclub where mercenary gangs, undercover cops, assassins and dancers mix. It also appears in the prequel Lovesyck, where it's referred to as Carrier 9.
  • In Opplopolis multi-person pop star Vesper Formicide takes Agnes to a secret club so cool that two other versions of herself were already there.
  • In Sunstone Harper's S&M club the characters visit (And Chris and Alan do commissions for) is pretty impressive in both size and furnishings with a stage and a VIP lounge; it also hosts frequent S&M performances. Word of God is that the series is set in New York so the club isn't implausible.
  • The Cerberus Dance Club in Wapsi Square is a rather cool place. Especially for Minnesota.

    Web Original 
  • The oxygen bar from Next Breed of Thief.
    As gaudy as I thought the neon of the streets was, especially at night, the oxygen bar was far worse. It was clean, but every surface was backlit. People giggled, their skin looking bright blue in the ambiance, while drones served drinks as bright as the lights. My oculars toned down the light, blocking harmful UVB and other rays, but cast everything in purple hues.
  • The club Phase takes Vox to in Miami, in the Whateley Universe. It has a ridiculously high cover charge, and so it's one of the only clubs around that can afford the insurance premiums to let mutants in.

    Web Videos 
  • CollegeHumor: Inverted for laughs in the "Dance Clubs Are the Worst" video. The guy has to bribe the bouncer to get in, way too many people are packed together in a small space, the drinks are overpriced, his coat is stolen, and he ends up hooking up with the wrong person because he was too drunk.

    Western Animation 
  • Daria had The Zon, a large alternative club in Downtown Lawndale (according to the video game, located at Degas Street) that in addition to hosting Trent's band Mystik Spiral, has a large amount of Goth and Punk looking patrons, plays bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees over the PA, and does not appear to be cramped. Downplayed in that it's a very dirty club and Trent isn't succeeding as a band despite being brought back multiple nights.
  • One episode of MTV's Downtown featured the local dive under Alex's apartment being turned into a massively trendy, popular club. Chaka is thrilled, especially since it turns out she can sneak in through the back from within the apartment building. Alex, who has to sleep above the pounding techno music, is less so.
  • An episode of Family Guy featured Stewie converting Brian and Frank Sinatra Jr.'s old big band bar into one of these as "pLace" ("Little 'p', big 'l'"). Brian and Frank initially hate the new direction, but just as they start to enjoy it, Andy Dick shows up to party, causing everyone to run out screaming.
  • Spoofed in an episode of Mission Hill. Frustrated at a really popular club refusing to let them in, Andy and his friends engineer a fake club called The Meter Room and refuse to let in anybody who isn't in on the gag, with word of mouth turning The Meter Room into the most popular club in town. To wrap up their charade, they create an incident that makes it look like the club was destroyed in a fire, causing everyone who didn't go to talk about it wistfully, not knowing that there was no real club in the first place.
  • In one episode of Regular Show, Mordecai and Rigby get invited to a party club called 'Box'. However, they end up going to the wrong club when they assumed a similarly named club called 'The Box' was their destination.

    Real Life 
  • Studio 54. It was so cool it even had a movie made about it, years after it closed.
  • CBGB, another New York club, had a reputation as a landmark to punk fans. Unfortunately, it closed down after thirty years in 2007. CBGB was a squalid dive rather than a cool club, but this is punk we're talking about, so squalid = cool. Just like Studio 54, it too saw a film made about it.
  • Same goes for London's Slimelight, the longest-running alternative/goth/cyber club: It looks like a dingy warehouse, its dimly lit and everything appears worn down but it sets the atmosphere perfectly.
  • Londons' 100 club, Had its heyday either side of and throughout WWII, as a Jazz/Swing venue. Then had its second coming in the 1970s as a punk venue, and was still much unchanged when it closed in 2010. Also might be known for Northern Soul allnighters.
  • Other famous nightclubs include Space, Amnesia, Pacha (all Ibiza), Watergate, Berghain (both Berlin), Fabric, The End, the Ministry of Sound (all London), Womb (Tokyo), D-Edge (Sao Paulo).
  • Manchester has the Warehouse Project, the largest club in Europe, built from a converted World War II air raid shelter. During the "Madchester" scene, it also had the ridiculously famous Hacienda.
  • The DNA Lounge of San Francisco is like something out of a '90s cyberpunk movie. It's got kickass wi-fi (formerly public computers running Fedora), has been played by some of the best-known Industrial bands out there, is an epicenter of drag culture (many, many famous drag queens and kings have gotten their start at Trannyshack), and is frequently getting into trouble with the city for raunchy behavior. It's even run by a famous retired hacker.
  • While the place isn't exactly the nicest, most New Englanders tend to view Ralph's Rock Diner in Worcester, Massachusetts as this. The best way to describe it would be to say that it is something akin to an amalgamation of a Bad Guy Bar and a kitsch museum; the exterior of the building has a huge Narragansett Brewing Company logo (complete with iconic "Hi, Neighbor! Have a 'Gansett" banner) airbrushed on the side, and the upstairs (where shows take place) is covered in thousands of band stickers, the stairwell has a collection of Narragansett cans from throughout the years, the support columns have wooden palm fronds attached, and the posh-looking stage is contrasted with mannequin legs jutting from the walls, motorcycles affixed to the ceiling, and the infamous neon-light "TIME TO FUCK" signs sitting above both the upstairs and downstairs bars. It has to be seen to be believed, and it's world-famous in spite of its small size for a reason.

 
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Blade

The opening scene has vampires dancing in a night club, complete with late-90's techno music.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (5 votes)

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Main / CoolestClubEver

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