Paul Morrell

NYE just got Bigger, Better and Bolder! Legendary Bear Club XXL is back with a bang! Relaunching NYE.

XXL London - New Year's Eve 2025
Celebrating 25 years of full fat fun! Step into the shadows and celebrate the turn of the year the XXL way - raw, powerful, and unapologetically male.
Club XXL London is a men-only event - a space for men who own their strength, style, and sexuality. Expect a dark industrial atmosphere pulsing with energy, heavy beats, sweat, and attitude.
Dress code and membership rules apply; men's clothing and footwear only. No exceptions. Think masculine, confident, and ready to play.
On the night, you'll receive one year's free XXL membership - your key to future events and the brotherhood that defines the XXL scene.
As the clock strikes midnight, join a crowd of men who know exactly why they're here - to connect, dance, and celebrate under the throbbing beats of London's most legendary gay night.
This is XXL London - NYE 2025. No labels. No limits. Just men.

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Review of XXL London NYE

Terrible venue. Terrible organisation. Shameful and embarrassing for the organisers

Taking a week to apologies as well as blocking all comments on ig also doesn't make up for the badly organised evening.  When can we expect refunds?

XXL NYE Review

I've been hesitating about posting a review as although it was an unmitigated disaster (of epic proportions), my partner and I still had a nice time and I feel quite sorry for Mark Ames and the XXL team as this was the first XXL I've been to in 8 years since it closed, and it wasn't good. Oh dear oh dear oh dear...

So, what went wrong...?

- We arrived at XXL at around 9:30pm (after the tick*t and notices said it would open at around 8pm) and it was shut. There was quite a crowd of people outside shivering as it was sub-zero temperatures and some of them had been there since 8pm. We found a door on the side and went in to get warm. Very quickly we were shooed out by Mark Ames and I've never seen him looking so completely out of sorts & stressed. Som**hing had obviously gone very wrong and he was trying to fix it. At that point we all felt quite sorry for him. A couple of the XXL guys did come out with trays of shots which were appreciated (if nothing else to warm us up), by the 3rd shot I wasn't feeling the cold anymore (hic).

- The doors opened at 10pm finally and they let us in. Very quickly we went to the cloakroom queue which was just as well as it took us about half an hour to check out coats in (and this was when the queue was short!)... Perhaps this is the most unforgiveable aspect of the evening. People were queuing for over an hour to put their coats and bags into the cloakroom and as it got busier, they just gave up and kept them with them. I believe the cloakroom actually closed down at one point and it was total chaos!! Someone else posted a comment about it "being like dancing in an airport lounge" (which was hilarious but very true), certainly it took "dancing around your handbag" to the next level!! When we wanted to leave it was about an hour's queuing time to get our coats which was quite interminable. Thank goodness for Candy Crush is all I will say...!

- One of my friends was refused to be given his jack*t which had his house keys in it(!!!) even though he had a valid cloakroom tick*t, so had to go home in a T-shirt and jeans (shivering all the way). He then tried to contact the venue by e-mail (no phone number) which was ignored, and it was only when he went up to the venue itself that they finally gave it back to him. That is very poor and such a crucial thing to get right -- I remember with Brüt when it first opened they had the same problem and they were stuck with that reputation for the first few months, which is never good when you're trying to launch a new brand. For XXL which is a well-established brand, this is just not acceptable.

- The price of the drinks were eye-wateringly expensive - £14 for a (single) spirit and mixer. For a vodka-redbull, it was more... 3 drinks were £47... WTAF?!?! Someone said "Oh this is Tottenham prices"... Honestly I think drinks in Mayfair are cheaper...!!! There was no ice to start off with and then they ran out of drinks not even halfway through the night!!! Surely when you've sold X many tick*ts you would know to buy N x X drinks?! I can only imagine it was supply-chain problems / logistics, but again this should have been mitigated and could have been completely avoided.

- Speaking of prices, we were able to get the second-tier tick*ts at £27, but I believe the final prices were around £45 (ouch) which OK it's New Year's Eve, but then you have the right to expect a well-run club. Cost of the total evening for 2 people (and not many drinks) was somewhere around £200~£250 which is very steep... Next year I think we'll do som**hing much lower-key or even just stay home and do som**hing nice in January. Again one of the reviews likened it to the equivalent of the 2024 Glasgow "Willy's Chocolate Experience" which nearly made me spit out my coffee all over my computer. Ouch! Harsh but true.

- There were queues for the darkroom (which should have had a "please take a tick*t and await your turn" system in place!!) which I've never seen before... and from the size of it from the outside, it looked smaller than my sitting room (which is not big) and again someone likened it to a "wardrobe"... Maybe it was Narnia or a TARDIS and was bigger on the inside than the outside, but honestly, they shouldn't have bothered with it.

- It was very cold in the venue and it never really warmed up... I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and thank goodness I'd had the foresight to wear a thick flannel shirt... That did NOT come off all evening... Brrr!!

- Then the location of the club was on an insalubrious industrial estate, which had a VERY dodgy narrow & dark path you had to walk down, right next to the railway tracks (complete with barbed / razor wire), from Tottenham Hale tube station. It was quite worrying to expect that 2000+ people were going to have to traipse down that path to the club, with the fear of being attacked. I will never go there again.

- What I will say (and it makes me very sad to say this) is that perhaps XXL has had it's day, which is a great shame, given I went to the first XXL at the Arches next to Southwark Bridge from 2002-2010 and then the more recent venue under Blackfriars Bridge from 2010-2017 and they were both a very-well oiled machine and ran like clockwork. I think it's been too long since the last "proper" XXL and perhaps expectations were way too high. Then again the bar had been set pretty high previously, so even if it had been "more of the same" we would have been very happy, even despite the steep costs of the whole evening. Perhaps the evening should have been cancelled and rescheduled for another date, with at least a chance of getting it right...?

- These days you have Roast at the Electowerkz which has "a version of XXL" (on the top floor) or Bear Bash at the Eagle which is like a "mini XXL" and far friendlier, cheaper and (personally) our favourite.

- Mark did have the good grace to post som**hing on the "Club XXL" page on Facebook, which was appreciated, but I fear after this NYE's experienced and the high costs that were incurred (by everybody), it may be too little too late.

- Still, I had a nice time, my partner had a nice time, as did some of our friends, and it was really nice to see some of the old guard, some of whom we'd not seen in 8 years. This was really lovely and it was great to catchup, so I will be thankful for that.

Waited 50mins for
The cloakroom. 
Other waits for
Drinks. Music very bad!  Left at 1am. waited 20mins to get back my jack*t as it was lost. Thankfully I had a picture of it. My friend has lost his top in that cloakroom. Worst event ever

Waited an hour in cloakroom queue to then decide not to use the cloakroom to avoid waiting for collecting, dark room was a shambles , ran out of water to sell at 02:00,

The cloakroom queue was over 90 minutes. Everyone ended up dancing in coats, clutching bags. Zero vibe.

The bar queue hit 40+ minutes before I gave up. No drinks, no atmosphere, just people awkwardly dancing fully dressed with bags at their feet.

The room felt completely flat. My friends and I left shortly after midnight.

Easily the worst New Year's event I've ever been to, and the worst club night full stop.

XXL, you've had your time. Clearly you can't recreate what you once were, and you're nowhere near the competition that's out there now. 

Time to stop.

A complete debacle from go to woe. And woe was the overwhelming feeling we were left with.

I was over the moon to see XXL finally returning to London, as I used to regularly attend their nights before their venue closed a few years ago. My excitement only grew when I found out that their first comeback event was happening not far from where I live.

I arrived at the venue shortly after midnight and found that the coat check was already full. While this was slightly annoying, it was somewhat understandable given the time I arrived. However, after looking around the venue, I noticed bags and coats strewn across various areas, suggesting the coat check had been closed for quite some time and was clearly not sufficient for the number of people attending.

Unfortunately, the soft drinks from the tap were unpleasant in taste, and many of the toilet door locks were broken, which detracted from the overall experience. On a positive note, all of the staff were very pleasant, friendly, and smiling throughout the night, which made a real difference.

Overall, the venue itself was good, though there are definitely a few areas that could be improved. For an opening night, it was alright, and I'm hopeful that future events will iron out these issues as XXL settles back into the London scene.

Banging party for just the boys. So much fun

The venue was great.  The music was exceptional.  Finding the venue from the Victoria line was a bit of a hassle.   The one thing that was a total disaster was the cloakroom.  I got to the club at 11:20 and didnât check my coat until 12:30. And when I left, I got online at 2:45 and didnât get my code until 3:30.  Other than that, I had a great time.   

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