Here for a friend’s birthday – I thought I would rock up fashionably late after studying all day. Here we go!

Vanity @ Verandah Bar
Assessment Time: 12:15AM -02:30AM
Opening Hours: 10:15 (?) PM – 04:00AM
Lockout: Usually 2:30AM is the lockout time.
Address: 60 Castlereagh St, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.verandah.com.au
Promoter Website: http://1nitestand.com.au , www.viplist.net.au and www.eso.net.au
Occurrence: Every Saturday since late 2010
Outside Line: Entered the line at 12:15AM. and got in at 1:00AM. A total of 45 minutes. So usually after midnight, most of the people in line would be cleared to go in. The problem with tonight was that the club was almost at capacity, so they were slowing down the entry rate. This meant that the line started from the inner entrance, through the cloak room out around the outside entrance around down the street by about 40 people. In total I would say there were about 100 people in line. A couple who was behind me left the line after 10 minutes. “Its ok to dog his birthday.. I’ll see him some other time” he said. It is the most frustrating thing in the world waiting in line. Then as you go into the cloak room, the line becomes a free for all area with no order. This is where at least 5 people decided not to line up at the back, but cut into the middle. It’s frustrating. So do try to get in earlier if you hate lining up. When the event first opened, there were distinct separate guestlist lines and general entry lines, but tonight was just one big line for everyone, with no special treatment for guestlisters, which is not as expected. I think the line finally became much shorter at 2:00AM
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Casual is recommended but casual is also accepted tonight as long as you dont look too daggy. Hats are allowed.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 on guestlist before midnight. Otherwise $25 is the standard price.
Guestlist: see websites or their corresponding facebook pages for details
Inside: (lifted from a previous visit) The gambling room is open as the cloak room and as thoroughfare for lining up, to i guess keep more people warm inside. After paying entry enter the main room – Dancing and DJ area to your right with podiums spotted along the area. The dancing portion of the venue looks to hold 100-150 people. Continue walking down the path to the bar area, where lounges are around and standing area for patrons to line up at the bar. This is a slightly bigger/open area than that of the dancefloor. At the very back is a very narrow outdoor ‘Verandah’ smoking area.
Cloak Room: $5 per item
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight. Bar lines are 2 people deep.
Music Style: Primarily Commercial modern RnB with house and hip hop mash up later in the night. No complaints here, as I was only here for a short time and didn’t experience repeated songs.
Crowd & Ratio:: Tonight the crowd is mainly Asian Australian. Well, pretty much everyone actually.
Entertainment: Podiums throughout the main dance area. Podium dancers also featured tonight. MC as well. Tonight the main act was Akon’s DJ’s from Supafest. While lining up earlier before midnight, patrons were treated with a Red Bull truck with blasting loudspeakers, giving out cans of Red Bull. This resulted in a litter of empty Red Bull cans spotted on the path of lining up. Fun times!
Atmosphere: Extremely busy tonight as evidenced by the long queue. The dancefloor, people are getting busy with their feet, while in the back, there are actually some people dancing here as well. As the night goes on, the back area dulls down and doesn’t become so dance friendly, where people just mill around chatting or staring at other people. Throughout the venue it is well lit.

Timeline
Where’s the cloak room? A bad start to my night
Finally after we got in, the girl I’ve brought along decided to want to put her stuff in the cloak room. Sure thing. The cloak room is outside the main club in the separate TAB gambling room. Security inside the venue told us to go outside to the pavement and go through the door. So we went outside, and Jesus Christ, the long line for general entry is still there, going through the cloak room. We would have to line up AGAIN just to get into the cloak room. This wasn’t going to happen so we turn around to go back into the club.
“I’m sorry, you can’t go back in this way. You have to line up to get into the club”‘
“No worries, we have stamps!”
“Sorry, you still need to line up”
“But we were just outside here for a few moments”
“You have to line up”
There you have it. 45 minutes in line, and locked outside 5 minutes after. I was pretty much prepared to go somewhere else now, because I am not wasting more time. However there are some people who know the bouncer or work here and get in right away. So, let’s play a game – who in line knows me? Not even 5 seconds and, BOOM, friend found. It happens that her friends knows some people, who know some other people.. who know the bouncer. So after 5 minutes, we are inside the club again without doubling up in lining up time. THANK GOD, because I didn’t spend $25 just to line up twice. However, it is too late for the girl I’m with – she is in a really crabby mood and remains that way for the entire night, just because of the choice of layout for cloak room.

Too lazy to go in the midst of it
Basically to have a chance of having a good night here, it helps to spend some time in the middle of the dancefloor, where you can truly soak up what the event offers tonight. it was too packed to go in there and try to dance my own special way – people were bobbing up and down. Most of my time was hanging around the outer edges of this main dancefloor, and I must say it is not as enjoyable out here as it is inside on previous nights. So either you can stand inside and have no room to dance, or you can hang out at the back and not really dance. It’s a losing scenario. I did spend some time on the podium, but it was packed here too. A friend who came here the week prior told me the exact same thing – he didn’t really enjoy his night as only the front half of Verandah Bar is for dancing.

Lust is blind
in front of me was a guy and a girl who obviously just hooked up that night. They are pashing each other and sticking their tongues in each others mouths, because they obviously know that nobody, except everyone in the vicinity, was watching them and making comments along the lines of “they should get a room”, and “they really should get a room”. I don’t think tonight had any random hooking up.

Arrivederci

Out at 2:30AM. Just buggered 🙂

Recommendation
People are still coming here and enjoying it but I am personally over it after the long lining up (and not being able to get back in), and inability to dance freely earlier in the night. It’s such a fine balance for a promoter to balance between packing out a venue to maximise earnings while not making too packed so that people can enjoy their nights, whether it’s for dancing, drinking, etc.  Well, If you haven’t been, do still give it a try to see what the talk is about.  

Vanity @ Verandah Bar – 5.5/10