Some people think that organised fun is a good thing. These people are wrong. One hideous event that I recently had the misfortune to learn of abundantly illustrates why.
The 'Big Night Out', organised by the Gold Coast Backpackers Association, is everything I hate about Going Out. (I must confess that I didn't actually go, so there is a small possibility that it might have been amazing. But I doubt it. As my friend Alessandro once said, 'I might be wrong, but I'm not.') On the face of it though, it's a fairly inoffensive pub crawl, sold to eager travelers as ‘the chance to party with your fellow backpackers on the most exclusive Backpacker’s Big Night Out in town!’ A reasonable sentence at first glance, perhaps, and maybe even an appealing one - if it wasn't a big, fat, stinking lie.
The Big Night Out is the antithesis of exclusivity. Surfers Paradise, where this extravaganza takes place, is a community that exists solely to service backpackers. If backpackers didn’t visit Surfers, it would be nothing more than a perfectly pleasant but completely anonymous hamlet on the Australian Gold Coast. Instead it is a bustling, mile-long stretch of high-rise hotels and tacky bars and restaurants. Backpackers made Surfers. Backpackers are Surfers. The Big Night Out is ‘exclusive' only in the sense that it is exclusively available to anyone willing to fork out the $30 attendance fee.
Amongst the things you get for this $30 is 'FREE VIP entry to four clubs'. My issues with this are twofold. Firstly, it's not free, because YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. Secondly, VIP entry only provides a benefit if there is a qualification for admittance, some sort of, I don't know, EXCLUSIVITY. If everyone's the same, then there's absolutely no point. It takes 200 VIPs just as long to file into a building as it does 200 Ps. Idiots.
But some of the very worst things about the Big Night Out are those that the flyer doesn't flower up. Take the 'FREE group photo'. You know the kind: everyone strains to get to the centre of the picture, thrusting a drink in the air and forcing an open-mouthed grin in a desperate attempt to be memorable. They are completely charmless and totally naff. Look at you all! You sheep! You cretinous sheep! There you are with your stale, watery lager and your carefully unbuttoned Ben Sherman shirts and your whiter-than-thou trainers, doing your very best to have fun - or at least appear to be having fun - because you're supposed to. What a crock of shit.
Organised fun will never work because the pressure to achieve your collective aim of enjoyment makes it virtually impossible to relax. The best policy is to never, ever want to go out. That way, when you are occasionally persuaded to leave the comfort of your home for a bar or, God forbid, a night club, there is a small chance that it might be better than fucking awful.
Vincent Forrester
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