Prelude
I have naturally been tasked to pick where to go for tonight for a group of 15 Asians aka my friends. Everything was set for the opening of the grand opening of the Asian rnb event at Gypsy nightclub. However Oxford St was a little too far from where we were at King St Wharf. The two other options offered to me that my friends would only consider going to were Flow @ WSP and Babyface @ Tao Lounge. Flow was too small/crowded and the Babyface International Asian scene might not be the right crowd for my Asian Australian friends. I had an event come to mind which I almost forgot, and was the closest to where we were, and which probably resolved these problems… Velvet @ The Vault – It had a local crowd, it was multilevel and it was close by. Hope they like it – here we go!

Velvet @ The Vault
Assessment Time: 11:45PM – 03:00AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM(?) – 03:00AM
Lockout: Not sure if there was lockout or not from outside. Unlike last time, there wasn’t an internal lockout to go to the underground level.
Address: 122 Pitt St, Sydney. It’s opposite the Westin Hotel at Martin Place, half a block from the north side of Pitt St Mall.
Venue Website: http://www.vaulthotel.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.velvetfridays.com
Occurrence: Every Friday since late 2010.
Outside Line: There was no line outside as we approached the venue. Friends were afraid the place was going to be dead.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart casual is recommended and possibly enforced. Don’t turn up looking scraggy. Guys have jeans/pants with collared shirts, clean sneakers. Girls are equally dressed well, but can probably get away with casual but at risk of not blending in with the crowd.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free before 10:30PM if on guestlist. $15 before 11:30 on guestlist, and $20 full entry. We pay $20 which is a relief – better than other Asian events tonight which are happily charging $25.
Guestlist: velvetfridays@live.com.au
Inside: Walk into the side alley entrance to be presented with the ground level dancefloor. Bar and Shots Bar on the left. Dancing floor area in the middle and right to hold 50 people or so. Close right corner is where the DJ is. On your upper left is a VIP area / lounge for maybe 20 persons. Bathroom is here. In the far corner on the right are a set of stairs that lead downstairs. Walk downstairs to enter the “cooler” underground level room where speakers play music from the DJ on ground level. Podium for 6 people are on the left side. Lounges span the length of one of the walls and a bar takes up the other end of the room.
Cloak Room: I didn’t utilize the cloak room. 2 months ago it was $4 per item.
Bar Prices / Line: $8.50 for a Wet Pussy shot from one of the main bars late at 2:00AM. The wait time was 2 or 3 minutes. There are also two smaller specialised “shot bars” where only Tequila shots, Wet Pussy shots and Jagerbombs are served for express intoxication.
DJs: Unknown
Music Style: Primarily Modern American RnB, with some mashup of House, Hip Hop. I didn’t pay particular attention to it tonight as typical tracks were being played you would hear on the radio.
Crowd & Ratio: Most of the crowd tonight are Asian Australian. There may have been a handful of International Asians but these are the big minority. Other than that I don’t remember spotting any other ethnicities here tonight. The ratio was fair here at about on par male and female throughout most of the night. Didn’t appear violent but apparently there was a fight inside as well as a cat fight outside.
Entertainment: MC to keep things going alone. There was no dancepole tonight. Last time I was here, one of the MC’s friends broke the dancepole.
Atmosphere: On entering the ground level, the floor wasn’t too busy with about 10 – 20 people drinking around. There were 10 people lining up to go downstairs, as downstairs was completely at capacity. Later on in the night, as people gave up on going downstairs, they would stay on ground level and dance here, which was fine, and added to the atmosphere. When we eventually got downstairs the vibe was pretty busy/packed. The podium was chockablock full of people. Very party-like. By the end of the night everybody is basically downstairs as its much cooler than the warm upstairs, and well.. this is where everybody was.

Timeline
Heading upstairs for the bathroom
The upstairs area is usually reserved for VIP events or for the DJ or whatever. It appeared nothing was on here, as the DJ was on the ground level, and there was just one person up there. It was a promoter, who offered us some nibbles (Spring rolls and pastries I think). Very nice of them. Also up here was a line of women lining up for the sole female toilet seat, as during peak time, nobody was allowed underground to use the bathroom. Men, of course, didn’t line up for the sole male toilet. Always an interesting sight. I spotted a girl preventing a guy going into the toilet, as her female friend was inside using it. Kinda selfish!

The Fights
I didn’t witness any of these but my friends did:
Showstopper Fight:
“stop the music. Sorry, but due to a fight downstairs we have to close the club down”
A fight in the underground level!! The club was closing already?? This is a very heart wrenching line to hear at 1AM, especially after we got into the groove. Was the fight that bad? Will we get refunds? The crowd is whinging, moaning, groaning, some boo’s were heard. A few moments later, the MC announces the closing down of the club is cancelled, and that the show will go on.

Cat fights:
One of my friends spotted a cat fight right outside the venue. REOW. She also saw one down the street which might or might not be related. Friend didn’t go into further detail.

I need some new dance moves
Nobody has touched the podium at all in ages, so I’ve gone up and done starjumps to the amusement of my friends. Some other people watch but only in an observing way. I don’t think they enjoyed it, but I couldn’t tell. Tough crowd. Or it could have been that they have seen me use these moves before. So I grabbed a male friend and grinded him, again to the amusement of my friends. I don’t think other people were watching at all. Very tough crowd.

Train!!
The ground floor dancefloor needed some vitilisation. It needed a train!!
“No James, I DON’T want to do a Train!” my friend objects
“It’ll be fun!”
I grabbed him and pushed him around , and did 2 laps around the floor. My friends joined in and there were about 10 of us lapping the floor, haha hilarious. Sadly nobody else joined in. It must have been a really, really, tough crowd, but anyways it looked cool. Nonetheless, I shall be using this underrated move more often for my own entertainment.

Arrivederci
We left at closing time. Time flew pretty quickly here.

Recommendation
I personally had a good RnB dance tonight, and my friends have thankfully enjoyed their time here as well. Unfortunately for whoever were in the fights tonight they didn’t have such a good time. This is not the type of venue I would have expected a fight, but it just goes to show enough alcohol can make people do bad things. Do keep a watch out for yourself and stay away from trouble when you’re here or in any club. People only get hurt, you look like an arrogant idiot, and you might just ruin everyone else’s night if the venue is forced to close.

Velvet Fridays @ The Vault Hotel Sydney – 7.0/10 (would be higher if it weren’t for the threat of fights)