The YOLO Queue – Mayhem or Moral Panic?

For anyone who is a regular YOLO go-er, or even just enjoys a society social, I’m sure you’re aware by now the nightmare that the queue has been as of late. We’ve all heard the horror stories of hours spent queueing, people frantically running over the Cathays bridge at half-past-seven, and societies who start pre-drinks as early as five p.m. Well, this week I’m putting myself at the forefront of the mayhem to see why the infamous YOLO queue has earnt its reputation as the damn to a Wednesday night.

I’ve been watching the Y Plas Instagram page for the last few weeks from the comfort of my own home, and I was shocked to see that at eight pm, (when YOLO usually opens), the queue was full. So, why is this? Just another moral panic that will hopefully die down within the next few weeks?

Despite the Student Union’s best efforts to quell the chaos and warn students, it doesn’t seem to be working. The Student’s Union keeps encouraging people to come to YOLO later in the evening when the queue is shorter, but this doesn’t seem to be persuading many people. Maybe this is because of the addition of the ten pm toll.

On Wednesday, alongside most other societies, I started drinking at six, to head down to YOLO at six forty-five. I was expecting chaos in Cathays, with hordes of togas and cowgirls frantically running to the Student Union, but to my pleasant surprise, at five-past-seven, there was barely a queue. However, this did not last long - in the space of ten minutes, a large line had formed behind me that reached the end of the SU, and by half past, the queue was as expected; horrendous.

By eight, the student union was full. The regular weekly announcement was dropped on the Y Plas Instagram page, and the ever growing line outside the SU was at a standstill. Inside, queues for the bars were around fifteen minutes, and the line for the toilets?

No better. As far as I can recall, in my first year of university I don’t remember the queue for YOLO being this much of a talking point. Have more first year students discovered YOLO and are choosing to go every Wednesday?

Or, have more people got that dreaded nine am on a Thursday and are choosing an earlier night out? If you want my advice as someone who has three years of YOLO experience under their belt; hold off on those tickets for a few weeks. If you want to do what I did, and pre-drink at six to get in the queue for seven-fifteen; then go for it!

There are benefits to this; by eleven I had secured a pizza from MAMA’s and was tucked up in bed. But, if you want to avoid the stress and hours of queues of YOLO, come back in a few weeks. As term progresses and more deadlines start coming round, less and less people will be going out every Wednesday.

Or try going in reading week, as fewer students will be in Cardiff and you can join the queue at a reasonable time. But for now, I think I’ll spend my Wednesday nights watching Celebrity Traitors.