Restrictions end at midnight tonight – which means clubs open their doors for the first time in 17 months.
And party-goers are raring to go as Cheerz nightclub in Aberdeen prepare to welcome back around 150 excited guests, with “tickets flying out” for tonight’s midnight party.
It comes as Scotland officially moves “beyond level 0” from midnight tonight.Â
The club are hosting a “classic cheesy Cheerz night” with their resident DJ blasting all the classics from Venga Boys, Kylie Minogue and the Spice Girls.
George Mckenzie, operations and premises manager at Cheerz says he “has been waiting for this day for ages”.
“It was great when the news came through – it should have happened a long time ago but it’s certainly great news to get open again,” he said.
“Tonight is about being open for two hours and giving the staff an idea of how it works with the new restrictions like the mask wearing – we are going to try it out and see how we can make it work.
“Customers don’t need to socially distance. It’s just mask-wearing and Track and Trace as per the guidance.
“Staff need to wear face masks and customers need to wear face masks when they approach the bar, but if they are dancing, drinking or seated they don’t need to wear a mask.
“It’s a wee bit confusing but we just have to go with what the guidelines say.”
After opening solely as a “pub in a club” while under Covid-19 restrictions, Mr Mckenzie says “it will be weird” to have almost four times more people in the venue.
“It is going to be really good to open the nightclub tonight to see how it works. It is a sort-of trial tonight and we have our welcome back party on Friday which has already sold 300 tickets.
“We are mainly a late night premises so our busiest hours were between 11pm and 3am and being under the restrictions we were under was really difficult for the business and it was a rough period to get through so it’s really good that the doors are finally open and we can hopefully see some turnover.
“All the staff are excited, they are all messaging me asking what we are doing and how we will do it.
“Customers are definitely raring to get back – I put up an event this morning to gage how much staff I was going to need and tickets were basically flying out for the party at midnight to 2, so I am hoping that there will be 100-150 people coming.”
Cheerz, on Exchange Street will be open from 00.01am tonight to welcome back customers to their nightclub for the first time since March 2020.
Tickets for their official welcome back party on Friday (August 13) are also on sale now.Â