It was either the Hollywood event tonight or the Korean night at V Bar nearby, both being grand opening nights, but this venue looked like it had more promise, so off we went – here we go!

Crowd at the Upper Level - 12:27AM

Hollywood (Grand Opening) @ World Square Pub (22nd January 2011)
NB: (World Square Pub was formerly known as Equilibrium under the old owners)
NB2: Don’t confuse this with the event named ‘Flow’, which is held here on Fridays only and run under a different promoter.

Assessment Time: Midnight 12:00AM – 02:15AM
Opening Hours: Security mentioned an opening at 11:00PM. Closing time unknown, but the Friday events close at 3:00AM – I would imagine tonight to be the same.
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 680 George St, Sydney (World Square, Corner of George and Goulburn St)
Venue Website: http://www.worldsquarepub.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.urbanagent.com.au
Occurrence: Commencing tonight and every Saturday thereafter.
Outside Line: About 10 people in front of us, but the line moved quickly as there was plenty of room inside.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Security had mentioned that the dress code tonight was much more strict than that of Friday nights. A friend of ours had not-so-clean sneakers on and was rejected. I had clean white sneakers and was okay to go in. (We didn’t dog our friend, he wanted to go home anyway, so it was alright)
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 Full Cover charge. $20 on guestlist.
Guestlist: bav@urbanagent.com.au
Inside: Walk into a foyer area for 20 people. The floor here is in an L shape configuration. On the left and continuing on down the length of the venue are multiple bars and lounges for probably 100 people. On the right is the dancefloor area to hold 50 or so people, also surrounded by lounges/chairs. Walk upstairs on the right to enter the proper dancefloor for 200-300 people. The floor is in the middle, DJ on a podium at the front, and bar on the far right. There are various lounges and chairs spotted along the walls of the room.
Cloak Room: $5 per item. If it’s your first time, the cloak room can be found at the back of the upper level. As you walk upstairs, turn left instead of right to get there.
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight.
DJs: Unknown tonight
Music Style: Rnb, House Mashup upstairs with mixing of songs done with the best bits only. There was also some American Rap. Downstairs was mostly songs played in their entirety – old school and house music.
Crowd & Ratio: About half the crowd here were Asian Australian. The rest were comprised of Caucasian patrons who were drinking earlier in the night here at World Square Pub, or Indians. Pretty Mixed. Age wise, a friend described it as “full of people who graduated from university already”. I would agree the crowd here was lacking in teenagers. It’s good for us older folk 🙂
Entertainment: MC to keep things going. Also there is an all-sexes podium near the front, while the sole podium at the back appeared to be female only, as I got quickly kicked off when I went up for some starjumping action. There are also podium dancers in white lingerie doing their thing throughout the show, which attracts the attention of everyone of course.
Atmosphere: Upstairs is a pretty dark area. With the spotlights providing the only form of lighting. This is where the dancing happens, and where everyone is most of the night. Most of the night the temperature kept okay, but at around 1:30AM it became a little unbearable and we retired downstairs. Downstairs, there is more prevalent ambient lighting and less people – probably at most 10 at a time. It was “dead” most of the night downstairs.
Video Montage: 360 of Lower Level, Walkthrough upper level, and Music Sampling throughout the night. 

Timeline
There wasn’t much we did except to dance all night here. As mentioned earlier, we just had our own little spot upstairs, and stuck to it here. Nothing to complain about music wise – we only were forced to go downstairs when it got too stuffy and just danced downstairs.

Hollywood @ world square pub: Podium Dancers

Arrivederci

We left just after 02:15AM – friends were already bored. I wanted to keep on dancing, but not everyone can be happy.

Recommendation
Upstairs had a good amount of people, but downstairs not so much. The promoters opened a second event on the Saturday night going up against the staple ‘Bamboo’ event, albeit halfway across the CBD. Asians are spoiled tonight with multiple events to go to, but this was probably a safe choice to visit, if you wanted the same experience as Flow, but without too much overcrowding.

I would still consider the promoters other event at Verandah Bar if you haven’t been there, or visiting the Sweet Taboo event down the road at Civic Hotel instead if you wanted more ‘Asian’. Perhaps in the upcoming weeks it will pick up more patrons. 

Hollywood @ World Square Pub – 7.0/10