Lava and Ignite

Love it or hate it it is what you make it! Lava Ignite is far from classy, but with it’s reasonable entry prices, massive space, and choice of music on different floors you can have great time here if you let your hair down and have some fun with friends. Drinks are cheap, there are student nights, and acts often play here for very reduced prices (i.e. Example and Calvin Harris, both played here for between £5 £7 on the very weeks they were number 1 in the charts was great fun!). The staff and bouncers are friendly, although it can be hard to get served quickly, due to how busy it usually is. Only once have I been and it was dead; an Easter club night clearly went amiss to everyone but me and 2 of my friends. All the same, hilarious having the whole bar and dancefloor to ourselves and finally being able to get served! Yes, it’s not the cleanest or most stylish but as a student, I always have fun here.

Love it or hate it — it is what you make it! Lava Ignite is far from classy, but with it’s reasonable entry prices, massive space, and choice of music on different floors you can have great time here if you let your hair down and have some fun with friends. Drinks are cheap, there are student nights, and acts often play here for very reduced prices (i.e. Example and Calvin Harris, both played here for between £5 — £7 on the very weeks they were number 1 in the charts — was great fun!). The staff and bouncers are friendly, although it can be hard to get served quickly, due to how busy it usually is. Only once have I been and it was dead; an Easter club night clearly went amiss to everyone but me and 2 of my friends. All the same, hilarious having the whole bar and dancefloor to ourselves and finally being able to get served! Yes, it’s not the cleanest or most stylish but as a student I always have fun here.

Everyone still calls this place ‘Cav’, short for ‘the cavendish’ as it used to be called.
If you’re not 18, enjoy alcopops and short skirts then this probably isn’t the place for you. It is rather pricey, sometimes costing up to £8 on the door but then there are the usual drinks deals on the cheapest types of vodka mixers. They do have a good sound system and an upstairs retro disco floor, complete with cheesy pop music which is enjoyable if you like that kind of thing.

It’s dutty, skanky, full of chavs and plays shit music but for some reason I always end up having a good night there. It’s absolutely huge, with different rooms offering different genres and levels of aural shite and breaking up the crowd of drunk scummy punters. I honestly cannot say why I like it here, probably because I’m always drunk, but it has a loveable charm about it because it’s so bad. Like in the kid’s cartoons where the runt of the litter has a heart of gold, but remade for the new hip urban scene (cue Step Up style dance scenes). It’s a really crap club but I love it for that.
One thing that is not cute though is the f**king carpet. Whichever bloody idiot decided to put carpet in a club is a f**king moron. Going up the stairs is like walking in treacle and it is amusing seeing people trying to dance with their feet firmly glued to the ground, but when you’re in a rush to go to the toilets it’s you against the clock my friend.

The name Lava and Ignite must be one of the worst names for a club– club names don’t sound cool if they’re too long, therefore people call it Cav– short for its old name ‘The Cavendish’ before it was refurbished.
Cav was probably the most convenient club for me to go to during second year as it was the closest to my flat, but I saw myself going there less and less as time went on.
On the weekends it’s pretty rough, especially in the downstairs ‘RnB room’, but on the students nights it’s not too bad. Any how I tend to head upstairs to the cheese room as this is where I feel that there is a better atmosphere and there are more areas to sit and chat with friends.
The best thing about Cav has to be the drink deals with £1.50 drinks and the queues can sometimes be quite long but the bar staff have always been pretty quick and pleasant when they are serving.

I don’t get the contempt for this place! Fair enough, the queues on big nights are disgusting and it’s not the most stylish club you’ll ever visit. Also, if you go on a Friday/​Saturday you’re asking for trouble. My biggest problem with the place has to be the bouncers. They’re just power crazy and I got thrown out three times in a row at the start of the year just for having drinks on the dance floor!
Other than that Cav (Lava and Ignite’s ‘real’ name) offers a fun, inexpensive night. Whether you’re in first year or not, Sunday night here is always a blast with £1.80 drinks all night, two dance floors and plenty of seating. Their cheese room upstairs is legendary and never fails to be raucous with multi-​coloured flooring, terrible tunes which we all secretly love and a DJ who goes ferrell at any drinks being taken on the dance floor.
I’ve unashamedly had many a good night in Cav. I can definitely understand that it wouldn’t be up many people’s streets, but give it a try and see what you think.

I dread to think of the person who on a friday night doesnt want to go anywhere except Lava Ignite (Cav for us who are more than 16 years old…).
Yes, if you go on a student night its cheap as chips — but any other night you will be paying twice as much for the same drinks, and you will STILL have to put up with the horrible, sticky, odd smelling, hot and full of charvs club on top. Not a great place I can tell you. There is one main room that plays all of the crap music to a mostly ned clientel and the upstairs isnt that bad either. The bars take an age to get served at, and at least 3 times I have gotten the completly wrong drinks order, but just accepted it for fear of dying an old man while I wait to have it changed.
That is if you get in of course — the queues are always beyond a joke: «Its just not worth it freezing drunk girl being held up by your equally drunk and over styled boyfriend. I promise you. Once you are inside you’re gonna need a drink, I’m guessing? Well, better start queing again now, or she is gonna sober up and wonder what the hell you were doing bringing her here.»
Yup, thats it. A horrible place that you will have to que to get into. So not worth it.

Grimy, sticky floors… cheap nasty beer… same old same old mainstream music dribbling out of the speakers… and a cloak room that stringently charges you for every item of clothing you hand in (even if, in my case, it was a fleece that lined the inside of my jacket…)…these dismal features and many more are freely available at Lava Ignite.
There’s plenty of other clubs in Edinburgh and plenty of other places that will offer a much better clubbing experience.

This place tends to divide people down the middle.
It has a lot of plus points. For starters, if you go on a wednesday or sunday (their student nights) then it is seriously cheap. As in, £1.50 for anything behind the bar type of cheap, which can never be a bad thing. For another thing, there is the huge main room downstairs playing mainstream generic chart/​dance/​indie/​whatever else happens to be on the radio at the moment, the upstairs room playing full-​on cheese (think Wham, Baywatch, Spice Girls etc…), and then the R&B room which is exactly what you’d expect: a slightly more relaxed feel (especially compared to the dancing in the cheese room) and lots of overly fake-​tanned girls pouting to within an inch of their life. But essentially, whatever sort of music you’re into, you’ll hear things you like somewhere in Lava.
This place does get a lot of bad press though. Granted, it’s never going to be the classiest night out of your life. And true, if you get there more than half an hour after it opens you can queue for literally hours. I can remember one occasion when we queued for an hour and a half, had moved about 5m and eventually decided to jack it in and go elsewhere. Similarly, whilst the £1.50 drinks on weds/​sunday nights are perfectly priced, if you go on a friday or saturday you’ll pay £3.60 for exactly the same drinks… and all of a sudden that doesn’t seem very good value considering there is hardly ever ice or even glasses behind the bar that aren’t red hot from the washer. Nobody likes a lukewarm vodka&orange.
That said, as much as I love the George Street clubs and everything that goes with them, sometimes you fancy a break and want to go somewhere that’s a breath of fresh air, where you don’t recognise half of the people in the place and nobody cares if you’ve already worn that outfit once before.
I wouldn’t suggest you go here every week, but for that once-​in-​a-​while occasion where you need to let off steam without having to maintain perfect posture/​mascara all night, this is the place.

If you live in Edinburgh, you are likely to refer to Lava and Ignite as «Cav». Therefore, visitors when you here someone mention «Cav», this is the place.
In my first year at uni, everyone was all about the Sunday nights at Cav. On one occasion myself and my flatmate queued outside, in December for 2 hours to get in. I look back and wonder wtf was I thinking?
Anyway. So this place has three floors, and bars a plenty. If you can get to the bar, then good on you. Each floor plays a different style of music, from R&B, to chart to 80’s classics. I have only been on a Sunday so I can’t comment on the other nights, but I have heard that a Saturday is particularly rough so watch out. Generally Sunday nights are packed with most of the clientele between the ages of 16 – 19. (Yes 16 is underage).
The last time I went to Cav a smashed glass which was sitting up-​right on the floor sliced the side of my foot open. With my foot gushing with blood, I repeatedly tried to get help from bar staff and bouncers. Nobody seemed to be aware of any first aid facilities– not even a plaster in sight. So I went to the toilet to bandage myself up with toilet roll and headed home.
Partly due to that reason, but mostly due to the fact there are far better, nicer clubs in Edinburgh I really avoid Lava & Ignite and have no desire to ever visit again.

Ok I am a Glasgow girl so I don’t know Edinburgh quite so well, that is why I have ended up at Lava & Ignite a few times by accident. This is most definitely a young person’s club, as in if you’re over 19 you’ll probably find this place a little dire. It reminds me a lot of The Garage in Glasgow in that you love it during your early student days but the novelty does soon ware off.
This place is big with loads of different rooms and areas specializing in different kinds of music. There’s no getting round it though. Like The Garage this is a cheesy pop place at heart! The nights that they do are the same sort of things you get in all these kinds of clubs. For example Sundays are students only nights.
If you have just recently become «of age» then you will probably love this place but for someone like myself who is 24, Lava & Ignite just makes me feel ancient and bored! Seen it, done it, bought the t-​shirt.

One of Edinburgh’s multiplicitous student-​oriented night clubs. Perhaps more than others this particular one possesses an air of desperation that lingers throughout the night, growing in intensity as the night wears on and the crowd separates out into singles and couples.
Those who fail return home alone and in shameful silence. Only pure mammalian politics operate within Cav’s walls.

Should you end up here on a Saturday night, my advice is this; look at your pint, look at the floor, look at the ceiling. Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact with any of the bottom feeders in this place, a bottle in the face is their way of saying «hello»…

Not really as the reviews have you believe :(Went at the weekend, it was stupid expensive and full of chavs bouncing around to hardcore music and chewing their faces off. Girlfriend got punched by a guy when there was a fight on the dancefloor. Looks like the alter ego Lager and a Fight is a little more accurate!

It is the best club in Edinburgh. You should go if you are ever there xx

More commonly known as CAV this club is amazing. the student nights are espessially good as their cheap. The only thing to watch out for on student night is the queues which go for miles and usually dont seem to be moving quickly. There are a few differnt rooms so if you get bored of the classics upstairs you can go down for the club, trance music and the rnb room.!a great place to go celebrate an event whether it be a birthday or a hen nightyou can always ensure it’ll be a fun night. and sometimes you get a complimentary bottle of champaigne

I used to love this club, a few years ago it was a mecca for students and was always a great night out with the same familiar crowds on Sunday and Wednesdays, now on Friday and saturdays the age limit has been lowered so it is just as popular on these nights. Althought his has drawn in rougher crowds and there tends to be quite a lot of fights now.
It used to be well known for its cheapness but now at £7 to get in and £3.50 for a bottle of VK it is just as expensive as the more classy clubs so its maybe time to see what some of the other places are like.
The main floor is all dance music, upstairs is still old cheese and the back room tend to be R n B but in my opinion a bit of a mix would be better on the main dance floor as the back room would be more suited to a chill out room.
It is still a great night out just not as good as the old school cav!

Lava ignite, or ‘cav’ as many people still know it since its name change, boasts a massive capacity and multiple dance floors and rooms. Downstairs is the main floor which on a Wednesday or Sunday (the student nights) has chart music, or rock if someone like radio 1 Colin Murray is visiting. There is an R&B room adjacent, and a cheesy hits room upstairs. Plenty of different bars makes this place a great night out. Definitely at its best on special events nights, but also really crowded so go early and take a SnapFax (queue jump) if you have one!

I absolutely love this place! I have been going for about 4 years at least once a month. It is a great place for everyone to go, it used to have over 25’s nights on a Friday and a Saturday so on these nights you sometimes get a mixed crowd where as on a Wed or a Sun these are student ngihts where the drinks and entry fee is a bit cheaper. Even still on a non student night entry is ony about £6. The music is a good mix, on the main dance floor it tends to be dance music, though in the back bar its mostly R n B and upstairs is all the old anthems and cheese music. In all the times I have been there has never been any trouble. The only thing I would say is watch out for queues and lengthy bar waiting times on pay day weekend, it tends to be really busy on that weekend.

Lava ignite is a night time haunt for locals and students. It markets itself as having «the ultamite clubbing experience for contemporary people» but I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Its generally a good night out — the student nights on Wednesday and Sunday are very cheap though watch out for the queues. The music is nothing too exciting — chart hits and disco classics — but perfect for a giggle with your mates.