Shot of the dance DJ area

Nothing scheduled – thought I’d have a look at the new Friday event at Tao Lounge, which recently moved away from the always disappointing Pumphouse. Guestlists sent in and so here we go!

Babyface (Bubble party) @ Tao Ultra Lounge (Me B’s Hotel)
Assessment Time:12:15AM – 03:30AM
Opening Hours:10:00PM (?) – 04:00AM
Lockout: Possibly 3:30AM or just before it closes. You can come in anytime though.
Address: 396 Pitt St, Corner of Goulburn St and Pitt. Below Mr B’s Hotel, and opposite World Square
Venue Website: http://www.mrbshotel.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.infinityoz.com
Occurrence: Every Friday
Outside Line: The line looked about 20 deep when we arrived at 12:15, and so we went to eat some pies at Pie Face across the road. BTW, Pie Face is a freaking rip off. Better to have just walked a few more metres went to the Asian supermarket downstairs at World Square and bought something there. Anyway, the line was gone at 12:30 and so that’s when we decided to go in.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual accepted but not encouraged. Collared shirts and dress attire for the men and girls. Korean/Honkie hairstyles optional but is seemingly what most people guys here have. Dressy for girls but casual also accepted.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: I can’t even remember anymore. I think it was $20 on guestlist and $25 for everyone else. I remember now – I remember being relieved it wasn’t $30 as a previous joint event by this promoter spruiked. Unsure on what early bird prices were.
Guestlist: Submitted guestlist 2 weeks prior to nicholas@infinityoz.com . You could also submit to nicholas@infinityproductionz.com – Didn’t receive any confirmation after a follow up email, so I sent my list to another promoter and I only got guestlist confirmation after a follow up message to the second promoter. 4 messages to get a confirmation.. really? Really. I had also queried about filming inside but no reply was given back about this. I can only say to you that if you are sending a guestlist, your guestlist was probably added.. just don’t be surprised if no reply comes back.
Inside: Nothing has changed at all since the last time I visited this venue. After paying, walk downstairs into the single room that is the Tao Ultra Lounge. The bar half is an open area of just woodfloor panels with the bar in the corner, with some stools to sit around on. About 100 people could stand around here. The other side is the DJ side. Half of the space is dedicated to the big fat lounges, and the middle section is for the DJ and direct dance area to hold 30-40 people.
Cloak Room: Available but I did not utilise tonight. Pricing unknown.
Bar Prices / Line: $5 (I think??) drinks offer before midnight , and afterwards standard club price pricing. 4 tequila shots for $20 something? My memory does not serve me well tonight. The bar does not take EFTPOS.
DJs: Unknown
Music Style: Primarily RnB tonight. There may have been some house mashup but I honestly cannot recall.
Crowd / Ratio: It is pretty much all Asian here tonight. A good majority are of the “fob” type, as you can tell from appearances, and the inclination to speak their local language, rather than english. Mostly these guys are hailing from China, and there are also some Koreans and other nationalities too. When we entered at 12:30 the ratio was probably 60:40 guys to girls but quickly dropped down to possibly 80:20 or worse from 1:30 onwards. I even spotted Eric Woo himself – head of Urban Agent promotions (Shanghai Nights, Bamboo, and the new QF nights) – Probably checking out the competition while he is on visit here tonight for whatever reason, and why not. 
Entertainment: There are two podiums on either side of the dance area. Tonight is a bubble party, so there is an automatic bubble machine blowing hundreds upon hundreds of bubbles into the front of the dance area throughout the entire night. pretty cool.
Atmosphere: Dark in the dance half of the room, and to help in your quest to not be noticed, smoke machine directly spitting fumes of smoke into the crowd. People ended up staying directly away from the vicinity of the smoke machine, as everytime it blew out smoke, you were eventually unable to literally see in front of you. Smoke was also terrible for my camera shots. Oh well.
Video: Since the layout exactly the same, I’ll just post a better quality of another walkthrough when I was at Tao Lounge for another event. Just imagine the crowd to have more guys, less people and more smoke and a shitload of bubbles. Yes… do try your best:

Timeline

The bowing ring
I was talking with some random and as we say goodbye, I thought it would be nice to shake hands and bow goodbye. So we shake hands and bow. She bows as well. So I shook her hand again and bow again a second time, and she bows again. Oh, looky looky! I bow a third time, and she bows again, almost out of obligation. More bows, and more reciprocating bows. She got the message and ran back to her friend and stood behind him, probably telling him that I was a bow abuser. Oh, the poor girl.

Podium unrestrictions!
The ability as a man to be able to dance on the podiums without being told off is excellent. Of course, a whole load of other guys dance as well and there aren’t many girls up throughout the night on the podiums. I DON’T CARE! Everyone has the right to dance on the podium and this venue luckily provides for it.

Smoke machines – bad photos
Most of my photos on my compact camera turn out bad. Darned smoke machines.

Trying to take a photo while the smoke machine is going full power. A very unflattering pic of me.

I think this was my reserved area:

I *think* this area was given to me, but I wasn’t told beforehand by the promoters if was given a VIP area. Most of the night nobody sat in this area except for the random tired dude or dudette, so I just assumed it was my area and sat here.

Possibly my reserved VIP area - nobody else held claim to it by 1am.

Arrivederci
We stayed until the place was pretty much all guys. There may have been or or two girls left. Plus I was super tired tonight so it was a good idea to leave.

Recommendation
There’s nothing wrong here with the music or venue – all is good here. Maybe a few more people and slightly better ratio would help. I really do like that the guestlist actually goes past 12AM (possibly all night), but kind of offset by the fact that I fork out a the big $20 anyway. Also keep in mind that promoters may not get back to you and that on the night you will be clubbing with many asian foreign nationals if you are wary of your crowd composition.

Babyface @ Tao Ultra Lounge – 6.0/10