M, random drunk dancer and I - The Tunnel Nightclub Sydney

M, beer breath dancer and I - The Tunnel Nightclub Sydney

It’s my birthday weekend, but I’ve already had two dinners, a karaoke and a meat tray raffle birthday party. My friends are getting sick of me celebrating, and I still had a house party to host as well. Tonight was my clubbing choice of night out, so here we go!

Addiction @ The Tunnel (Formerly Dragonfly) Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:30PM – 03:30AM
Opening Hours: – 03:30AM
Lockout: 02:00AM ? We tried to leave at 02:30AM but was told it was lock out if we tried to re-enter.
Website: http://www.tunnelnightclub.com.au, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=166455593127
Address: 1 Earl Place Potts Point / Kings Cross, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Casual. Hats were allowed inside. Groups of guys are allowed, and people of non-caucasian backgrounds were welcome tonight. Can you believe it?? The racist door policy of the old Dragonfly club on Fridays was no longer evident. This is primarily because tonight is an RnB event. However I do not know if their Saturdays have relaxed their door policy. Guys inside tonight are dressed mostly with collared shirts, and the girls are all dressed up and looking very good. There was a dancing girl with multicoloured boots with funky lycras and loose shirt etc, like a dancer from the fluro 80’s, and so it is safe to assume as long as you look good, you can come in no matter what you are wearing.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: I got free entry as it was my birthday, but if you submit a standard guestlist, the cover charge would be $10 before midnight. I am unsure what the standard non-guestlist entry fee is. I would assume this to be $20.
Guestlist: I sent mine to nathan@exclusivproductionz.com, though there are probably other email addresses as well. There is also the Facebook group.
Occurence: Every Friday
Inside: Similar to the old Dragonfly, as you walk in you are presented with lounges with a bar behind. Surrounding the bar are booths and lounges. One of these booths was mine. On the left is the dancefloor, which seems more open. The DJ booth has moved from the far left wall to the side of the dancefloor closer to the bar, to replace a booth that used to be there. In the old place of the DJ seat, is an elevated podium for the show offs to dance to the side of the crowd. A glassed off private area to the left exists as well but nobody has booked it tonight, and it remains closed off for the entire night.
Cloak Room: Yes, there is a cloak room offered (its on the far left behind the dancefloor) but I am not sure of the pricing. We just left our stuff on the booths during the night.
Bar: I didn’t drink alcohol tonight but waiting in line didn’t take long at all, at most 3-4 minutes, unless there was a big order in front of you. No more than 1 person deep.
Music: Primarily RnB and pop, with some house, Baltimore, etc as advertised.
Crowd: The crowd tonight was mostly Euro. Minority consisted of blacks, us asian dudes, some backpackers. You can’t tell who were the backpackers as they are all dressed like everyone else. Most of the crowd are young, but there are some older folk (ie myself) in their late 20’s and met some people in their 30’s.
Entertainment: There was an MC to keep things moving along.
Atmosphere: A pretty friendly atmosphere. The staff and security are pretty friendly so long as you don’t get on their bad side. No fights tonight that I witnessed.

Photo from my booth at the back of The Tunnel Nightclub

Photo from my booth at the back of The Tunnel Nightclub

Video: 360 view from my booth
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Video: 360 view from the dancefloor taken at 1:00AM
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Timeline:
Where are my friends?
This was the question asked by the promoter who was taking care of my guestlist of 50 or so people. I was with only 2 of my friends in line. The promoter had organised free entry for myself and two others as well as a reserved booth to have the entire night. I felt bad that I only brang two people so I lied to him:

‘My friends are behind me’ I reply. I really had no other friends coming. This was a hastily organised clubbing night and I really didn’t invite anyone to come along except 5 or 6 people. This on top of what was mentioned above, in that my friends were sick of my birthday celebrations 🙂

Get out of my booth! (and brithday benefits)
I look for the booth with my name on it. I couldn’t find it – all booths were taken and occupied by people! Someone has stolen my booth, but I don’t bother. There were only 3 of us anyway. So its straight to the bar for some water. A tap on the shoulder. It’s the promoter:

‘Look over there’.

He points to a booth. It was just cleared out and is now empty, with a table with four champagne glasses.

‘Thats your booth, and the champagne is free on us’

This guy has just kicked everyone out of this booth and given us free entry and bubbly. Jesus Christ, *now* I feel really bad to bringing two people, but free alcohol!! WOOT!

Reserved for James Tran - Addiction @ The Tunnel

Reserved for James Tran - Addiction @ The Tunnel

After this write up I would not be surprised if was not offered any more free champagne, free entry or booth reservation.

Continuous assault of women at my booth
So there is 3 guys in a booth which could seat 15 or so people. So what does the promoter do? He sends 3 girls to our booth and asks if we mind if there are extra girls here. “Oh, I guess I dont mind them”. Far out brussel sprouts! I just want my own personal booth for my birthday. A few minutes later here comes another girl, then another.. until there are about 8 girls in my booth – their bags and jackets strewn everywhere. WHY? I don’t want them invading my space. Well I did, but not really.

Don’t trust me with your jacket
Girls were not friendly, even if they were invading my booth. In fact, one walked right up to me, picked up her jacket next to me, and moved it further away from me. Say What? Don’t trust an asian guy sitting next to your precious jacket?? Did I really look that dodgy?? I look like freaking justin bieber right now – I am totally trustworthy!! AGH! This was upsetting, so I left my booth to dance – as there was no room in the booth to dance due to women sitting down with their legs in their way.

More dancing
It’s a bit dark in here, so its hard to take over the dancefloor. The best way was to get on the side podium where everyone could see you. Sadly though it was packed so we had to wait until later in the night when we could actually jump on there and dance.

Danced on the upper podium, and got people videotaping and taking photos of us. I have no idea what they are going to do – put it on facebook? I am moving so fast I would just come out as a blur, especially in the darkness of a club. Found a drunk girl who danced like one, and her breath stank of alcohol. Total turn off. She was fun to dance with. Oh look theres a picture of her at the very top of this post.

Also got stalked by an Indian dude. Everywhere we went , he would follow us, or he would pounce on a girl we were not chatting to. It was kind of creepy.

It sort of died quickly
People started to leave from around 1AM and by 2AM it was pretty dead. You know its dead when I am able to do multiple cartwheels on the dancefloor.

Arrivederci
We are kicked out at closing time. At closing time there are only 4 or 5 people left in the club. Security tells us ‘come back tomorrow.Its busier on Saturday’. Hahaha, every promoters nightmare.

Recommendation
Despite the recommendation by security to visit on the busier Saturdays – it was like comparing oranges and apples as Saturdays are their house nights. anyway nice clean crowd, danceable music and new refurbished venue makes for a good night out here. It is a safe place to bring friends who may not be into dancing but are happy to drink (ie for a birthday). If people stayed here longer it would have also been good.

Addiction @ The Tunnel – 7.0/10 (Edit 1st October 2010: downgraded from 7.5 upon hindsight)

10 Responses to Addiction @ The Tunnel (Dragonfly): 18th June 2010

  1. yeeha says:

    random promo guy msged me and asked me if i wanted to book for my bday….u recommend?

    or kit and kaboodle/piano room????

  2. James says:

    K&K is more relaxed – you can talk and stuff
    Tunnel is more dancey but lounges are aplenty as well, but you are still in the middle of it all.

    Depends on your friends. if more conservative go for K&K!

  3. yeeha says:

    have u been to gossip?

  4. yeeha says:

    yep yep. its just been refurbished.
    want to check it? wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

  5. yeeha says:

    msg me next wk.
    farewelling to where trannie?

  6. yeeha says:

    ahhh….. congrats?
    so what u gonna do with urself now?

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