Wednesday nights for many students are not spent in Central, but rather underground at the aptly named University Bar, U-Bar. Pint Night serves as the student community’s weekly chance for cheap pints, and typically offers a constant rotation of student bands. But recently, allegations have surfaced that Pint Night has fallen off. Just old students, or a genuine decline? Critic Te Ārohi investigates.
As a quick history lesson, Pint Night has been going since the inaugural rager, back when The Marsh was Gardies, and has since held on as a place to knock back beers, make some new mates that you’ll never see again, and have your ribs shaken by the pounding “sound” Dunedin is famous for. To the modern student, Pint Night holds far more significance than a cheap start to the night.
With the steady closure of bars and gig venues over the decades, U-Bar has become one of the last places within stumbling distance of Studentville to come and cut some shapes with friends, as well as the de-facto place to debut your band that will inevitably cover Creep. Given the recent closure of Dropkicks, and gaping student bar shaped hole in all of our hearts, it’s feeling ever more like there’s nowhere else to turn for the humble student that’s unwilling to schlep out to Pearl Diver or The Crown for a rare free gig.
Most recently, discussion around the night’s “downfall” has been stirred up by a DJ night being advertised on the U-Bar Instagram via an AI generated lineup poster. These posters are made by the performers themselves, and the U-Bar Instagram grid is filled with many years of lineup posters. The lineup of concern was a trio of DJs – a bit of a departure from the live bands many tauira have come to expect from Pint Night. The comment section was filled with pissed off punters: “Ubar [sic] is for bands, stop doing dj [sic] sets please [prayer emoji]”, “Local bands don’t make AI posters”, and “What happened to Pint Night?”
As U-Bar is a University-operated establishment, we asked them for the low down on the concern.
When asked to comment on the criticism that Pint Night is for bands and not DJs, a University spokesperson assured that they are “responsive to student demand and occasionally put on a DJ night. Those nights are just as well attended as band nights”. Critic hopes they’ll be responsive to demand for cheaper pints next. The spokesperson further added that “capacity is reached every Pint Night”, so no fall off there.
One point of nuance is that Pint Night capacity is lower than it has been in recent years. This may explain why some older students are thinking about days where it felt more crowded. The University spokesperson explained that two years ago, the University was required to reduce occupancy by 15% in order to comply with fire regulations. “This has reduced attendance,” the spokesperson explained.
The AI posters are “diametrically opposed” to the spirit of Pint Night, argues Kaia, Audio Visual Dropkicks frontwoman (a band that played Pint Night a shit tonne last year). “U-Bar always felt like a pressure cooker for self-expression and joy. [...] It always felt so quintessentially youthful, expressive, and human”. She further said that “hearing rumours that musicians are bringing gen-AI into that space feels like a rejection of the nature of Pint Nights. I can’t understand why someone would sacrifice self expression for the sake of an easier process or more ‘polished’ poster”.
For now though, Pint Night seems to be trucking along. The University also said to Critic that “this year the whole first semester was booked out [with bands], and the second semester is too, and we have a long list of bands on the waitlist”. As the closest thing to a student bar this campus has, don’t expect Pint Night to be going anywhere soon.
