Amadeus at Aberdeen beach opened in 1998 amid a trend for building massive clubs with something for everyone. You didn’t like the vibe in one room? Well you could always move to another.
Friday night was classic club and disco, Saturday was reserved for the over-25s and then house music played on a Sunday, with a DJ flying up from London.
The five different drinking areas came in different themes and included the casino bar, the Gothic bar, the secret garden and the VIP bar, which looked directly down on the dance floor.
Free buses scooped up customers from the city centre for a night down at the seafront pleasure palace.
The club was hugely popular but closed down after five years after the entertainment conglomorate who ran it was taken over in a management buyout.
Laura Hughes, 40, worked at the bar when it first opened – and then got inside again years after it was boarded up to capture the silent, empty club as it waited for a new purpose.
The pictures show the giant building, which had five different bars, a rising dancefloor and plenty of podiums, rendered completely still.
The main dance area has been dismantled, the chandelier taken down and the bars – once flowing with pints and and Diamond White and black – stripped out.
Ms Hughes, 40, now of Liverpool, recalled Amadeus in its prime as being “a lot of fun”.
She said: “Everybody went there. I just remember how busy it was – it never got quiet, I was just serving drinks all night long.”
Ms Hughes, a keen photographer with an interest in abandoned places, managed to enter Amadeus in 2012 ‘by chance’ as workmen started to gut the building.
She said: “I have always got my camera in my car.
"I was down at the retail park and saw the door was open. I just chanced my luck and went in.
"It was so strange seeing it empty. I started taking photographs and all these feelings, these memories came flooding back.”
At that time, it was due to become a karaoke bar, but Amadeus’ days as an entertainment palace had long passed.
Plans to open a casino and then a youth church never materialised. In 2014 it became a branch of The Range. At the former nightclub spot site, staying home became the new going out.
1. Disco fever
The club had a capacity of 2,100 with free buses running from the city centre and student halls of residence to scoop up a stream of customers. PIC: Laura Hughes. Photo: Laura Hughes
2. Boarded up
The entertainment conglomerate that ran Amadeus was taken over in 2000. The free buses stopped running over time and its pull started to weaken. It closed first in 2003 and for good in January 2004. It sat redundant for around 10 years. PIC: Laura Hughes. Photo: Laura Hughes
3. The party is over
Photographer Laura Hughes, who used to work at Amadeus, got back into the club just as the entertainment palace was being guttted. PIC: Laura Hughes. Photo: Laura Hughes
4. The bar runs dry
Not a drink to be found at one of the bars which used to run all night long with pints of lager and Diamond White. PIC: Laura Hughes. Photo: Laura Hughes