Random photo of me and Pikachu - Beauty and the Geek theme

I already did Sanctuary Hotel last week – I do try to avoid going to the same venue twice in a row – you risk getting bored easily. The problem was that I made a promise to a friend I would come here tonight. Well, apparently it would be even more busier than last week – lets find out shall we!

The views expressed below are those of the author and NOT of Phat Entertainment

Funky @ Sanctuary Hotel (EDIT 16TH SEPTEMBER 2010: THIS EVENT IS NO LONGER RUNNING)
Assessment Time: 9:00PM – 02:00AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM – 03:00AM (?)
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.funkybuddha.com.au, http://www.phatentertainment.com.au
Address: 545 Kent St – Corner of Liverpool and Kent St, Sydney. Behind 3 wise monkeys.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Tonight, the theme is Beauty and the Geek! Casual OK. Hats allowed. Guys are wearing a mix of casual and smart casual. Girls are mostly in dresses. I saw someone walk in with a Pikachu outfit.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 Standard Entry, $20 on guestlist. Free before 10:30PM. The only slight hope you could get in before 10:30 was to be on a birthday guestlist, and line up in the birthday guestlist line at 9PM. If you got there 9:30PM, you wouldn’t make it. We were on a standard non-birthday guestlist. We got there 9PM AT THE VERY FRONT, and we only managed to get in after 10:30PM! We just stood there as we saw birthday guest after birthday guest walk in. We even stood there watching hopelessly as people off the street just cut the line! Amazing that bouncers could not be more strict on this or have a more foolproof way of being fair on people who actually lined up. Usually lining up 9PM gets you in before 10:30 but the organisers have actually done the right thing, and let the birthday lists have priority. This is how it is meant to be, unlike other venues where it is first come first serve, with birthday people not given priority at all. Well at least cut us normal people some slack. 90 minutes in the cold – give me my $5 discount!!!

Guestlist: info@phatentertainment.com.au
Occurence: Every Saturday
Inside: The entrance is not at the normal Sanctuary Hotel entrance. It is via the TAB area further along on Kent St. The room upon entry is where people can have a chat and chill out without actually going outside. Walk in further to the main area, and the large carpeted room has been converted to a dancefloor. DJ on the wall, and a 3 tier podium smack in the middle, dividing the room into two halves. Bar along the far back wall.
Cloak Room: Cloak services are located in the entry room. Standard rip off prices for the event. I think it was $4 for small bags, and $8 for large bags, possibly $5/$10. Who knows. I avoided the cloak room and placed my stuff behind the ATM on the dancefloor. It held up the whole night.
Bar: I didn’t buy any drinks tonight. Waiting time 3-4 minutes or less.
DJs: Sefu, etc etc.
Music: Mostly Contemporary RnB / Pop, with the occasional house mashup.
Crowd: Mostly Asian, and mostly teenagers
Entertainment: Last week the podium was a three tiered podium. This week it is 3 separate podiums. One podium was rectangular to hold upto 5 or 6 people, while the other two were solo podiums which could hold upto 3 people. This freed up some dance room to walk around. Also an MC to keep things up.
Atmosphere: It got pretty busy quite quickly, then it got immensely packed on the dancefloor. Lounge areas – most seats are taken.
Video: Walking around the dancefloor 
[Video removed on request by Phat Entertainment]

Timeline:
Not used to this attention
Being early to line up, we are early in. Dancefloor already has some people dancing, so jump in we go, doing geeky dance routines. Then BAM! 6 korean girls surround and dance with me. I really didn’t know how to handle this. So I kept doing the stupid dance. They were going to leave in 1 hour to watch the Korea vs Argentina world cup soccer match at Darling Harbour. Why they hell did they spend $20 to stay here for an hour? anyway, one had braces but she didn’t want a photo with me, even after I offered $5 for a photo. When the official photographer came, she actually ran and hid behind her friends. That made me laugh. Watching someone literally RUN and DUCK to avoid having a photo taken. hahaha

No dance for the man
Minute 1: The podium is empty.
Minute 2: The podium is empty.
Minute 3: James is on the podium dancing.
Minute 4: James is kicked off by security. No reason given.
Minute 5: The podium is empty.
Minute 6: Girl is on the podium.
(10 minutes later): Girl is still up on podium!!!!!
Sexists!!! I tried a further two times to get up on the podium and stay there for longer than 30 seconds, but the security dude kept pulling us down. One third and final ditch effort resulted in a girl jumping up and grinding with me. The moment she jumped off, I was asked to get off the podium again. Total bullcrap.

Free Shots!
We met a dude and he liked our enthusiam so much he bought us drinks, and kept buying us more and more. He refused to take payment from us. We can’t say we didn’t try to pay back the guy.

Too busy on the dancefloor
It was now so busy it got to the point where the only space to dance was on the carpeted area outside the direct dancefloor. Fair enough, so we danced to our hearts content here. People found it amusing and some joined the silly antics. Was fun! Most though just sat there in the lounges staring at the other people having fun. They definitely were not coming back here.

Arrivederci
All my friends left, so M and I went off to Shark Hotel to continue dancing into the night.

Recommendation
Much more busier tonight. Not many in theme. Very upset that a 90 minute line up did not result in free entry, while a handful of people were seen pushing in. What can you do? Atmosphere pretty good. Music is great for a contemporary RnB joint. As much as I do not like to admit it, I had a better time tonight sans the lining up trouble. If only they let a man dance for more than 1 minute on the podium…

Funky @ Sanctuary Hotel: (Beauty and the Geek)– 7.5/10