People milling around on the dancefloor

Dancefloor area of Docks Hotel Sydney

A birthday invite at Docks Hotel. It coincided with the grand opening of the new rnb club event here, so here we go!

Rendezvous @ Docks Hotel, Darling Harbout Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:30PM – 02:00AM
Opening Hours: Early in the night – 03:00AM
Lockout: Did not ask. It didn’t look like there was one.
Address: Shop 255 Harbourside Shopping Centre – Near the big South Steyne Boat at Darling Harbour.
Venue Website: http://www.dockshotel.com.au
Promoter Website: I couldn’t read the poster well enough to find out who was promoting, but here is the event page for one of the DJs who was performing tonight: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120068251378791
Occurence: Every Friday
Dress Code / Door Policy: Most guys wore smart casual. There was no actual strict dress code and people can go in with hats, t-shirts, clean sneakers, etc. Girls all looked pretty good – pretty dressy.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge:$15 guestlist, $25 Full Entry
Guestlist: I have no idea. You would have to try your luck with the docks hotel management who would pass your details onto the promoters
Inside: Walk inside. To the left is an extended carpted lounge area for 50-70 people. To the right is the bar that runs for half the length of the place. On the far end is a curtained off area for private functions with a secondary bar.  Later it was open access for all.
Cloak Room: $5 per item
Bar Prices: I can’t remember, but there was at maximum 1 person in front of you in line at the main bar. Most of the time you could get service right away. At the secondary bar, the line was 4-5 deep with only one bartender. Didn’t make sense why they didn’t just go to the main bar.
DJs: Moto, Edo, Biggie, Flipsta, Cbu, Mike Hyper
Music Style: Contemporary RnB and classic Hip Hop near the end of the night
Crowd: Mixed crowd tonight of local Asians and Euros, Probably 70/30 was the ethnic ratio. Gender ratio was 50/50. Age of the crowd was in their 20’s Birthday girl was 24 I think, and other Euro girls we met were 28, so its quite a range.
Entertainment: The promotional poster stated “Special Performances” and “Free Shirt Giveaways”. Throughout the time I was there, I didn’t see or hear any announcement of T-shirt giveaways. Plus, what was the “Special Performances” -????? It was as though they just threw some words together to make it sound good, hoping that people didn’t really notice that there was no actual Special Performance of any sort at all. Well actually, I did see the MC perform a dancemove where he rolled his hat down the length of his arm, behind his head, to the other end of his arm – I thought that was pretty special. Eventually nothing eventuated. There is also girls only podium on the dancefloor.
Atmosphere: Underwhelming for a grand opening. I really didn’t pick up much notice of the opening of this new event. The place was probabaly at one quarter to one third capacity.
Video: Walkthrough Video at 12:15AM
YouTube Preview Image


Timeline
It never picked up
I’ve been to Docks Hotel for many clubbing events, and only once has it ever reached capacity with two dancing areas. Tonight was probably the worst I’ve seen it. At the bar you could always get service at the main bar right away, and there were no more than 20 people on the dancefloor at the same time. The other half of the crowd was in the outside area smoking away. At around midnight, I was expecting a late surge of people, but it never eventuated. Pretty sad.

The podium of eviction
It’s only this year I’ve been introduced to the concept of girls-only up on the podium – At Home Bar when the DJ kicked me off, at The Bedroom Gold Coast where there was a sign saying “girls only on podium”, at Sanctuary Hotel when security walked up kicked me off, and then there was tonight. I hopped up, and not even 1 second into my dance routine, I was kicked off. Well, the security guard was actually already STANDING ON THE PODIUM and I snuck in behind him. The podium for about 6 people was occupied by one person for most of the night – that security guy.

Podium guarded by sexist security

The forbidden podium, guarded by Security.

A second dude braved it and danced up on the podium, but was ballsy enough to dance in front of mr podium security. Immediately he was escorted off the dance floor, and kicked out of Docks Hotel!! WHOA, he got kicked out for dancing on the podium?? I saw him waving his passport madly at the security guy until one of the City Rangers took over and continued escorting him away from the place, LOL. I shouldn’t laugh – he was honestly just having a good time and wasn’t causing trouble. So anyway, two further guys went up on the podium, and they, too, were kicked out by other security guards who were watching the podium. Unbelievable, seriously… never in the history of clubbing have I seen guys, irrelevant of state of inebriation, kicked out for dancing on the podium. It was an utter shamble. However it did help with the ratio of men/women on the dance floor.

an early death
People started filing out at around 1:30, when the hip hop started to play. Was I the only one singing to “Who Am I” by Snoop Dogg? Oh wait, there was one other girl, but that was it. People these days need to get acquainted with Classic West Coast Rap.

Arrivederci
By 2AM this place was pretty dead. Birthday girl left as well. Time to find somewhere else to dance.

Recommendation
Despite the nice venue, good music and good-looking crowd, there just was not enough people here. Also the eviction of the men who got up on the podiums was pretty out there. I cannot see myself coming back here or having a birthday here.

Rendezvous (Grand Opening) @ Docks Hotel: 3.5/10

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