As a member of the SocialRice group (I’m not a promoter), the group has decided to have their first clubbing night. aww! Friends were all going, so I guess I was going too, so here we go!

Crowd shot of the main room at Arthouse - 11:50PM

Studio / Black & White Party @ Arthouse Hotel Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:45PM – 02:45AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM ~ 03:00AM
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 275 Pitt St, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.thearthousehotel.com.au
Promoter Websites: http://www.socialrice.com.au, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sydney-Australia/IMPORT-MEDIA/90727863220 , http://www.facebook.com/pages/VISIONSHOCK-Entertainment/130776623623024
Occurrence: Appears to be a once off event, as two of the promoters were not promoting this event on their facebook pages.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Casual was recommended, and it appeared pretty much everyone followed this. Collared shirts, nice shoes for the guys, and dresses for the girls. The theme for tonight was black and white.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free before 10:30PM on the guestlist, and before midnight $20. Outside of these parameters, do expect to pay $25
Guestlist: My name was on the Social Rice guestlist, but poster advocated sending lists to richard (at) importmedia.com
Inside: Walk inside. To the right is the cocktail room converted to the photography ‘Studio’ for tonight. In front is the main Arthouse room. Inside the main room, there is a bar to the right, and an open floorboard/dance area spanning the length of the room, to hold about 200 or so people. Stools and lounges spot the walls. DJ booth right at the rear end along with the primary focus of the dancing crowd. Further walk to the rear to the smoking area for 100 or so people.
Cloak Room: I couldn’t find any cloak room services here. The main room was pretty dark, so you could probably just leave your stuff around, though last time at Arthouse I did find a lost jacket.
Bar Prices / Line: $8.20 for a Tequila Sunrise
DJs: Eko, Cass, D-Seev, Gizmo, Flipz. MC Elevate on Mic duties.
Music Style: Primarily contemporary RnB and Hip Hop. Occasional house mashups as well. I did note the DJ’s near the end of the night had an amazingly bad mixing moment. He just cut off the song right into the next song without transition. Probably it happens all the time but it was the first time I noticed myself dancing for a bit and then suddenly stop and lose all rhythm, and thought to myself “wow that was a total mood killer”. Otherwise music was pretty danceable to – I wasn’t paying much attention as I caught up with friends.
Crowd: Pretty much entirely asian. A handful of lost caucasians in the mix. Mostly in their 20’s
Entertainment: The primary addition for tonight’s clubbing event was the Photography Studio. You were able to walk in, grab yourself some canapes if you chose to do so, and take a photograph under the two umbrella lights with some professional photographers, all for free. Pretty snazzy.
Atmosphere: The dancefloor area directly in front of the DJ was pretty busy. The dancefloor alongside the bar is moderately busy, and the space between the bar and the front entrance is pretty much dead. (The space would have held an extra 40 or so people). At around 2AM the place was starting to die out and by 2:30 it was pretty much only the dance-a-holics left.
Video: Walkthrough Main Room then Studio

Timeline
Always behave when in company of friends
It really is a good feeling to walk into a nightclub knowing that you have lots of other people there that you know as well. I had to be more well behaved though, if you know what I mean.

Chat Chat Chat
So as part of my good behaviour plan, tonight I probably spent more time yakking away to friends and random people in the side room rather than dancing in the main room. I spent a good hour in the side room chit chatting and eating crackers and cheese, surrounded by an artsy decor. I almost felt like an art critic, almost.

The Fake M
At this point in time, my current dance buddy is M, and by miraculous chance, we are wearing almost identical outfits – Black pants and black shoes, a white shirt, and a black vest. I have the extra skinny tie, and he has the hat. So during dance proceedings he walked out and I was given the hat. I danced around with hat covering my face, and tried my best to emulate his dancing style. People actually thought I was him! Haha… They were surprised when I pulled up the hat to show it was just plain old awesome James – hilarious to see their reactions.

Friends are gone, good behaviour be gone!
Friends all left pretty much around 2AM, and so did the majority of the club. It’s about 2:15AM now, and plenty of room to dance around. There were about 20 or so people left in here. Danced heaps, danced a crapload. Found a girl, and talked to her. Instead of replying, she just smiles. How sweet, but I do prefer conversation. anyway, we ended up making out, but after a few minutes, her friend takes her away to the land of Turning Japanese. Damn. Well after that, it was primarily all dudes hanging around. Fun times. (The irony of my friends reading this post is not unfounded on me)

Arrivederci
I pretty much did a very epic solo house dance and M joined me. the small crowd of 5 or 6 people directly nearby were entertained and got their moneys worth. Then we left.

Recommendation
Again, it seems to be a once off event so I can’t really tell you to not come back here. LOL. Nah it was alright but it wasn’t worth $25. Probably $20 at max. Friends whom were causal clubbers mostly enjoyed the night. The place could have done with more people though. Hard to judge as I wasn’t in the main room half the time.

Until next time.