Remembering The Works Nightclub In Bristol
Tuesday, 23rd September 2025
My first visit to to the nightclub at 15 Nelson Street in Bristol was in late 1997. I remember borrowing a provisional driving license from an older boy in my year at sixth form to get past the bouncers.
At this time the club was known as Odyssey having launched with great fanfare in late 1992. The Bristol Evening Post heralded it as "Bristol's great new £2 million nightclub" with a capacity of around 1,800 people.
Within a couple of years, the venue underwent another rebrand to The Works, by which time I was a regular - visiting the club most Thursday nights, as well as the occasional Friday and Saturday, and sometimes Tuesdays, which were students nights with two drinks for £1.50 before 10pm. I remember us buying as many drinks as we could before 10pm and lining them up for later.
One night of the week that I never stepped inside the club was Wednesday night. This was when the venue hosted under 18s nights, commonly referred to by us over-18s as "nappy nights."
Sadly, there's very little record of Odyssey or The Works in the public domain. Although camera phones were growing in popularity towards the end of my clubbing days, these early models didn't take great photos, especially in low-light conditions, plus we just weren't in the mindset of photographing every moment of our nights out back then.
I have a handful of photos from nights out, but none capture any sense of the club's layout or features. However, I did manage to dig something I wrote about club back in November 2000 out of my archive. Here's how I described The Works back then: "A sort of cheesy commercial club in Bristol that won the title of discotheque of the year 1999 and DJ of the year 1999."
This is maybe a bit unfair. The Works was quite mainstream and not as "cluby" as places like Lakota, but it was less cheesy than other clubs in the city at the time like Evolution, and IQ, which hosted 80s night on Tuesdays. IQ later became Creation, which was actually a bit more of a serious club than The Works.
Regulars to the club could purchase a gold card, which gave them VIP treatment, well it gave you free entry and allowed you to skip the queue at least. This was also true if you were friendly with the bouncers. If Len or Patrick were on the door, I didn't need my gold card. In fact, I'd often give it to friends I was with so that they didn't have to queue.
I'd had to work for this honour though. I remember one of the first times I visited the club, Len had put me to the test. He asked my date of birth, I panicked and gave him the current year rather than my year of birth. He told me I was "big for a baby."
He then told me I could still come in, but I'd have to complete a challenge. Channelling Richard O'Brien of 'The Crystal Maze' fame, Len asked me if I wanted "mental or physical?" I of course chose mental, so Len said, "right, you're having physical."
My challenge was to wait for the traffic lights outside Mothercare to turn green, run down, touch the lights, and then run back before it turned red. I failed, but Len let me in for trying.
Inside the doors at street level was a very purple room with a ticket desk, a flight of stairs lead up to the club on the first floor.
The Works was a pretty impressive club. Inside it had an industrial theme, with rusting metal panels, and metal pipes and valves climbing the vibrant purple walls. The club was spread over two floors, but early in the night your were confined to the lower floor. Then the floorspace would cleverly expand as more clubbers arrived, a process that began with a giant ball bearing in the DJ booth.
This metallic sphere was raised up to the ceiling and dropped on to what was essentially a giant marble run. This ball bearing would whizz around the club on the overhead tracks. When it came to the end, a set of stairs either side of the dance floor would descend in plumes of smoke and flashing lights. This would open the upstairs up to clubbers as their numbers increased.
This ball would go on its journey again later in the night. After its second run a whole bar at the front of the club on the top floor would swing back, opening up another room hidden behind it and expanding the club to its full capacity. On quieter nights the bar wouldn't swing, allowing the room behind it to be used as a second room.
From the top floor you could look down on to the dance floor, and if you were lucky, you might see the lighting rig descend. As a bit of a club and lighting geek, I loved this. The rig was a giant sphere of metal trussing suspended close to the ceiling, but it could be lowered to almost within touching height of the dance floor.
This was done to great effect often as the resident DJ played the 1998 dance track 'Gotta Have Hope' by Blackout that contained a sample of the theme from '2001: A Space Odyssey'. As this iconic piece of music played, the sphere would slowly be lowered to dance floor, with lights flashing around it like a landing UFO. How do I remember this detail? Well, I was such a geek for all this that I didn't request songs, I'd write on a request slip "do the light lowering thing with the Space Odyssey song."
As if the awesome sound system, the theatrical of the immersive design, and the state-of-the-art lighting wasn't enough, The Works also had an in-house burger bar on the top floor.
Perhaps my most memorable night at The Works was in 2005. Although we hadn't known it before, when we arrived at the club we soon realised that there was to be a special guest. Jim Bowen was going to be hosting a live version of his classic darts-based gameshow 'Bullseye'.
Everyone got a raffle ticket on the way in and they were doing a draw to pick six contestants. That didn't work too well. They called out the six numbers and no one came forward, so they DJ just said the first six to the DJ could play. I ran over and got selected as a contestant.
The six of us were taken to the bar at the back of the top floor, which had been closed off to the public. There we met Jim, had a chat and photo session, and were put into three pairs. My partner was a girl called Nicky. We were then taken back downstairs where Nicky and I would be competing against the other pairs. There wasn't much of a stage at the club, just a large, raised podium to the right of the dance floor in front of the DJ booth.
Since we'd all been drinking, we weren't trusted to throw real darts - sharp things don't mix well with vodka and Red Bull. Instead, we had to throw a sticky ball at a big wooden target. I was picked to go first and took my three shots, hitting the bullseye once and scoring a total of 15 points, while Nicky answered some general knowledge questions.
After a couple of rounds, we made it through to the final and won an exercise bike, a board game, and a set of crockery. But in true gameshow fashion, we had the chance to gamble to win big. We decided to go for it and ended up winning the whole prize pot, which included his and hers watches, an alarm clock, and Bully's special prize of a speedboat.
Yeah, that's right. I won a speedboat in a game of 'Bullseye' at The Works. Well, a remote control speedboat.
I didn't know Nicky, we'd been randomly put together. She asked how we were going to split the prizes. I'm not stupid. I didn't want to be loading up crockery and an exercise bike in a taxi at 2am. So I kindly suggested that Nicky had it all, I'd just have the speedboat, which was worth well over £100. She accepted this offer, so I happily left the club with my very own speedboat.
To celebrate those happy memories of clubbing in Bristol in the late 90s and early 00s, I've put together a mixtape featuring some of the songs that soundtracked those unforgettable nights. It includes floor-fillers like Tall Paul's 'Rock Da House', Fragma's 'Toca's Miracle', and Paul van Dyk's 'For An Angel'.
Turn it up, close your eyes, and step back into those heady nights when The Works was the place to be.
If you have any photos, videos or memories of The Works or Odyssey, please get in touch via my contact page.
At this time the club was known as Odyssey having launched with great fanfare in late 1992. The Bristol Evening Post heralded it as "Bristol's great new £2 million nightclub" with a capacity of around 1,800 people.
Within a couple of years, the venue underwent another rebrand to The Works, by which time I was a regular - visiting the club most Thursday nights, as well as the occasional Friday and Saturday, and sometimes Tuesdays, which were students nights with two drinks for £1.50 before 10pm. I remember us buying as many drinks as we could before 10pm and lining them up for later.
One night of the week that I never stepped inside the club was Wednesday night. This was when the venue hosted under 18s nights, commonly referred to by us over-18s as "nappy nights."
Sadly, there's very little record of Odyssey or The Works in the public domain. Although camera phones were growing in popularity towards the end of my clubbing days, these early models didn't take great photos, especially in low-light conditions, plus we just weren't in the mindset of photographing every moment of our nights out back then.
I have a handful of photos from nights out, but none capture any sense of the club's layout or features. However, I did manage to dig something I wrote about club back in November 2000 out of my archive. Here's how I described The Works back then: "A sort of cheesy commercial club in Bristol that won the title of discotheque of the year 1999 and DJ of the year 1999."
This is maybe a bit unfair. The Works was quite mainstream and not as "cluby" as places like Lakota, but it was less cheesy than other clubs in the city at the time like Evolution, and IQ, which hosted 80s night on Tuesdays. IQ later became Creation, which was actually a bit more of a serious club than The Works.
Regulars to the club could purchase a gold card, which gave them VIP treatment, well it gave you free entry and allowed you to skip the queue at least. This was also true if you were friendly with the bouncers. If Len or Patrick were on the door, I didn't need my gold card. In fact, I'd often give it to friends I was with so that they didn't have to queue.
I'd had to work for this honour though. I remember one of the first times I visited the club, Len had put me to the test. He asked my date of birth, I panicked and gave him the current year rather than my year of birth. He told me I was "big for a baby."
He then told me I could still come in, but I'd have to complete a challenge. Channelling Richard O'Brien of 'The Crystal Maze' fame, Len asked me if I wanted "mental or physical?" I of course chose mental, so Len said, "right, you're having physical."
My challenge was to wait for the traffic lights outside Mothercare to turn green, run down, touch the lights, and then run back before it turned red. I failed, but Len let me in for trying.
Inside the doors at street level was a very purple room with a ticket desk, a flight of stairs lead up to the club on the first floor.
The Works was a pretty impressive club. Inside it had an industrial theme, with rusting metal panels, and metal pipes and valves climbing the vibrant purple walls. The club was spread over two floors, but early in the night your were confined to the lower floor. Then the floorspace would cleverly expand as more clubbers arrived, a process that began with a giant ball bearing in the DJ booth.
This metallic sphere was raised up to the ceiling and dropped on to what was essentially a giant marble run. This ball bearing would whizz around the club on the overhead tracks. When it came to the end, a set of stairs either side of the dance floor would descend in plumes of smoke and flashing lights. This would open the upstairs up to clubbers as their numbers increased.
This ball would go on its journey again later in the night. After its second run a whole bar at the front of the club on the top floor would swing back, opening up another room hidden behind it and expanding the club to its full capacity. On quieter nights the bar wouldn't swing, allowing the room behind it to be used as a second room.
From the top floor you could look down on to the dance floor, and if you were lucky, you might see the lighting rig descend. As a bit of a club and lighting geek, I loved this. The rig was a giant sphere of metal trussing suspended close to the ceiling, but it could be lowered to almost within touching height of the dance floor.
This was done to great effect often as the resident DJ played the 1998 dance track 'Gotta Have Hope' by Blackout that contained a sample of the theme from '2001: A Space Odyssey'. As this iconic piece of music played, the sphere would slowly be lowered to dance floor, with lights flashing around it like a landing UFO. How do I remember this detail? Well, I was such a geek for all this that I didn't request songs, I'd write on a request slip "do the light lowering thing with the Space Odyssey song."
As if the awesome sound system, the theatrical of the immersive design, and the state-of-the-art lighting wasn't enough, The Works also had an in-house burger bar on the top floor.
Perhaps my most memorable night at The Works was in 2005. Although we hadn't known it before, when we arrived at the club we soon realised that there was to be a special guest. Jim Bowen was going to be hosting a live version of his classic darts-based gameshow 'Bullseye'.
Everyone got a raffle ticket on the way in and they were doing a draw to pick six contestants. That didn't work too well. They called out the six numbers and no one came forward, so they DJ just said the first six to the DJ could play. I ran over and got selected as a contestant.
The six of us were taken to the bar at the back of the top floor, which had been closed off to the public. There we met Jim, had a chat and photo session, and were put into three pairs. My partner was a girl called Nicky. We were then taken back downstairs where Nicky and I would be competing against the other pairs. There wasn't much of a stage at the club, just a large, raised podium to the right of the dance floor in front of the DJ booth.
Since we'd all been drinking, we weren't trusted to throw real darts - sharp things don't mix well with vodka and Red Bull. Instead, we had to throw a sticky ball at a big wooden target. I was picked to go first and took my three shots, hitting the bullseye once and scoring a total of 15 points, while Nicky answered some general knowledge questions.
After a couple of rounds, we made it through to the final and won an exercise bike, a board game, and a set of crockery. But in true gameshow fashion, we had the chance to gamble to win big. We decided to go for it and ended up winning the whole prize pot, which included his and hers watches, an alarm clock, and Bully's special prize of a speedboat.
Yeah, that's right. I won a speedboat in a game of 'Bullseye' at The Works. Well, a remote control speedboat.
I didn't know Nicky, we'd been randomly put together. She asked how we were going to split the prizes. I'm not stupid. I didn't want to be loading up crockery and an exercise bike in a taxi at 2am. So I kindly suggested that Nicky had it all, I'd just have the speedboat, which was worth well over £100. She accepted this offer, so I happily left the club with my very own speedboat.
To celebrate those happy memories of clubbing in Bristol in the late 90s and early 00s, I've put together a mixtape featuring some of the songs that soundtracked those unforgettable nights. It includes floor-fillers like Tall Paul's 'Rock Da House', Fragma's 'Toca's Miracle', and Paul van Dyk's 'For An Angel'.
Turn it up, close your eyes, and step back into those heady nights when The Works was the place to be.
If you have any photos, videos or memories of The Works or Odyssey, please get in touch via my contact page.