My first ever night out to a night club and i ended up going into Jumpin' Jaks at their Wigan site. I was instantly hooked on the club. It's cheesie music, bar staff dancing on the bar's, live entertainment on the stage and some of the best party songs ever played, made sure that everyone who was in there really knew it was the best party in town.
That was until i threw up on the bar and had to be removed from the building, but that's for another story.
Over the years i kept on returning to this club and began to notice when change was happening, and i didn't like it. Infact, for about 2 weeks i worked behind the bar in the Wigan site and as fun as that was... it really wasn't for me, i was better off to remain as a customer, although i did have fun working there don't get me wrong.
Let me tell you about the Wigan site when i first started going....
You had 3 main entertainers, Loopy Lindsey, who was an ex-red coat and always got the party started and kept the hundreds of people partying away until the small hours when the club closed... and you were always gutted when the party was over. Caino, a travelling scotsman who was making his way though the UK and got a job in the club, quickly became a really good entertainer, who to his own credit, has gone on to do some pretty amazing stuff within the entertainment world, and i believe now is a regular dj at the ministry of sound. Johnboy, who when i first started going i believe was the lighting guy, but wasn't affraid of stepping into the light when needed.
These three would literally party the feet off you all night long, along with some pretty good live singers / bands on a saturday night, along with drinking competitions during quieter hours etc. At this time the club was owned by a company called Luminair Leisure, which in it's peak, became the UK's largest leisure company, owning not only the "Jumpin' Jaks" brand but also... Liquid, The orange house (now known as mortimers) and sooo many other big UK-wide brands.
Some time ago now, as the leisure industry began to take a hit, Luminair felt the hit too, infact, too much. Luminair leisure filed for bankruptcy and tried as it mite to make the brands work. The way of doing this was to sell off venue's that were not bringing in the pounds as they used to. They tried to re-brand some famillier faces, like the liquid club in wigan had several re-brands and only last year had to close it's doors for the last time after rising costs meant it wasn't possible to make money.
But what lead it to that?
Alex who had been with Jumpin' Jaks wigan for some time left the wigan branch - Huge mistake for luminair to let him leave this site. He was replaced by several managers over the years who all tried to impress company bosses by seeing who could squeeze the budgets the most and have the biggest profit margins. Over the time of course, Lindsey left, Caino left, leaving Johnboy to run the show... and even he was restricted as to what he could do. It seemed that the staff were told to simply work and not join in with the party atmosphere, to, leave it to the music if you please.
Entertainment had become second to money-making and jaks began to lose customers hand over fist.
When it was announced that the Wigan site would no longer be opening, it was a shock, to all of us. Part of me was gutted because the story would never be finished off, seeing if Jaks could rise from the ashes and become the amazing place to be it once was... but no, gone forever.
Not long after the site was bought off Luminair and is currently trading under the Jumpin' Jaks name, although how, i have no idea because currently the site is just, awful.
It's smelly, in need of a good clean and alot of maintenance needs to be carried out... and of course, the most you'll find in entertainment at the club these days is probably the green flame effects they have on the upper part of the stage. It's all about the money these days and jaks only ever used to be about the party.
As for the rest of the brand, you can mainly only find bad reviews on websites, from when it appears the whole brand changed, and lost it's party atmosphere. People talk about the clubs and how they were filled with younger people, cheap and nasty drinks, missing toilet seats and next to no staff.... that was never jaks during the good days!
So why do i write this?
I write this because the UK club market IS missing what Jaks used to bring, we need somewhere to go that really is "the best party in town". Jaks these days... pff, never getting close to cutting the mustard.
Anyone else miss jaks?
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