The final stop, after visiting Northies and Sting Bar. This is where all the action is supposed to be in the Shire – so here we go!

Central dance area (2:30AM)

Central dance area (2:30AM)

Easter Saturday @ Fusion Nite/Night Spot, Cronulla
Assessment Time: 12:15AM – 02:45AM
Opening Hours: Unknown – 03:00AM
Lockout: Unsure, but likely to be enforced due to the attentiveness of RSA staff here
Address: 84 Cronulla St, Cronulla
Venue Website: No official website that I could find (I am sure I found it). FB: http://www.facebook.com/pages/FUSION-NITE-SPOT-Cronulla/234586068300
Promoter Website: Self Promoted Event
Occurrence: Every Saturday. Fridays are also open under a different event name.
Outside Line: About 20 people in front of us with a waiting time of about 10 minutes.
Dress Code: No hats are allowed in side. Anything goes here, and most are locals dressed up in casual gear – shirts, jeans etc. I met a guy inside with long dreadlocks so there you go. Girls wear whatever makes them feel sexy. I particularly very overdressed just wearing collared shirts, let alone with ties, dress shoes and blazers to match, but better than underdressed, right? 🙂
Door Policy: “How many drinks have you had?” – The standard sobriety question. At this place, the guy asking is very particular – if you look even slightly drunk then you’re denied entry. Speaking to another patron of the club, she did say it was a 50/50 chance of getting in, whether you had been drinking or not. It’s a massive clamp down here, as there probably were some incidents in the past.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $10 for the entire night. Let it be noted that there are no stamps given on your way in – That’s fine, but guess this – there are no stamps on your way out either! Huh? Yes.. why would they do such a thing? I was wondering the same thing – it turns out that every time you exit and want to re-enter the club, you need to pay an additional $10. Shameful! Does it keep the patrons inside though? Sure does.
Guestlist: None can be submitted. These guys don’t have a contactable email address that I could find.
Inside: The Fusion Nite Spot is situated on the upper level of its residence. Walk up the stairs and enter via the Southern side to face the middle of the room. On the SW corner to your left is a small bar to service the small lounge area to hold a small party of 20-30 people. Smoking area to hold about a handful of people along here as well. During busy times, there is actually a queue to go to the outside smoking area – it’s that small – and since people are not encouraged to leave.. you have to wait it out. On the NW corner is a second bar, to line up for 5 or 6 people. On the North wall is the DJ area, which is defined by the platform the DJ set stands on. On either side are lounges. To the NE corner are two pool tables and more tables and stools. This general area is a standing / drinking area. The SE/E corners is where the main bar and bathrooms area. There are also lockers and lounges. Right smack in the middle of it all is the dance floor – In the middle of this is a very thick mirrored column about 2×2 metres in the middle. Around the column is a tier of elevated podium dance area about 1 person wide, surrounded by the main dance area about 6×6 metres. This area is bordered by tables and metal poles, so the areas are pretty well defined, but there is nothing stopping you from dancing in other places around this central dance area. No drinks are allowed on the dance floor here, similar to Sting Bar’s policy. Cronulla must be the only place that I have seen purposely created signs that disallow patron to bring beverages to the dance floor.
Cloak Room: None, but I did spot some women using the lockers. I didn’t ask staff about the lockers so I am not sure if they are open to the public, but I would be guessing so, but I have no idea how the mechanism works.
Bar Prices / Line: The bar on the Eastern side is most busy, wich people constantly there placing orders. You would wait about 5 minutes for your order, which isn’t bad. If even that is too long, just hop on to the other side where the two other bars are usually less crowded and you will hopefully get an order faster here. Throughout the night there are also time-outs of 5-10 minutes, where alcohol is not allowed to be served to patrons.
Eviction Count: I saw someone nearly got kicked out, but after lots of negotiation managed to stay inside I believe.
DJs: Anthony K / Louise Love (sax)
Music Style: In the main proceedings of the night mostly a mix of Contemporary Commercial RnB and known commercial House track mash ups was being played here. Later nearing the end of the night it was more of a Hip Hop style of music, typical of a closing night of an RnB club – they even played Sexual Healing! It’s been a while since I’ve heard the clubs play that near the end of the night. This was definitely a club that fostered romance.
Crowd & Ratio: Like the other places around here, the entire crowd is pretty much local. Local Caucasian Australians are dominant here but there are also a tiny handful of islanders and Asians. Most of the guys are beefcakes though. Women are generally pretty well dressed, and looking pretty fine. Everyone here is pretty young  – ages range from teenagers to 20s… with a few late 20s early 30s too. Also some of the crowd that we saw at Sting Bar also made the trip down here later in the night. The ratio was quite okay here. It was probably on par or just slightly more guys for most of the night. Also there were plenty of people here so your options weren’t that limited.
Entertainment: No MCs or extra entertainment
Atmosphere: Pretty much all the crowded dancing action was here. Most of the people making out in the club were in the middle as well. Throughout the night it was constantly packed, so it was a bitch trying to dance well here – one can only manage to secure their own little spot and bob up and down. You actually had better luck going up on the central podium area as at least you only had two people next to you on either side, instead of being surrounded by people. Outside the immediate dance floor there was generally space for which daring people could dance here at the observation of the drinking crowd. The eastern side was quite busy with an extreme abundance of men particularly in the pool table corners. The other side was more balanced, but there were fewer people than that of the side with the main bar.

The general mood in the middle is party party with the darker lit atmosphere, lights and smoke machines helping out with the club feel tonight. The crowd seemingly are enjoying most of the songs being played tonight. Generally here the crowd is either quite friendly or tolerant, thought there were some aggravated blokes towards Marty at one time. I can’t blame them after he pretty much danced nearby near their little private space, right next to the dance floor. Besides that people were nice here. Some of the ladies were 50/50 friendly and cold.

Video: Walkthrough and Music Montage
YouTube Preview Image
Timeline
No longer a place for getting smashed
One of the first things that you can see in the horizon is a pretty, pretty, tall built bloke, with “RSA” written on his shirt. He circles the entire club all night, looking for any hint or sign of intoxicated people to kick out. This is a first – to see a specialised person to look for drunk people. As mentioned before, there are time-outs at midnight (and probably other times as well), where alcohol is not allowed to be served to patrons. It does provide with a safe atmosphere, but crazy nights of vomiting all over the floor or what have you won’t happen here. I really, really wonder how bad this place could have been. Given the nature of the crowd composition, one can only guess.

A failure to take over the floor
One of the items on the agenda was to dominate the dancefloor, but as there was so many people, it never really happened. I got as far in as entering the main dancefloor area, but it was just so busy that I didn’t really get a chance to do so. It was always going to be a bit difficult especially with the visually darker atmosphere here.

The next best thing was to dance around the outer fringes outside the dancefloor on the carpeted area. Sure thing. Danced with Marty for a bit here and well since he is the better dancer, AND he has those funny glasses on, he gets more attention. I’m still happy exercising the legs out here. We dressed quite similar tonight, so there were some people who told me how great a dancer I was earlier in the night, when in fact I hadn’t even started dancing yet. So it is true… we all look the same.

Otherwise, plenty of fun times to be had dancing around here, as people admire or join in on the dancing fun. It’s so pretty fun on the outside too. Many a folk came up and gave us the hi-fives.

 

with the DJ

one of the last photos with beloved jacket

Downside to wearing a nice jacket

I wasn’t sure on door policies tonight, so hence why we dressed up in blazers and all. I had my favourite blazer on tonight – bought it from overseas. Anyway someone came up and complimented how nice my jacket was, and asked if he could feel it. Strange, haha, so he felt it, and wondered if it was real velvet. Strange again! Gave my reply and he was happy.

It warmed up and I left my jacket next to where my friend was sitting. Half an hour later, my friend was still there in the same spot, but the jacket wasn’t. The jacket had pretty much been stolen! Only in Cronulla you going to guarantee your shit is going to get stolen. This on top of having the bunny ears stolen just an hour earlier really did not bide well with me, and I was pretty upset that there are people out there like that.

Is it coincidence that after I had been asked about my jacket, that it got stolen?

Arrivederci
Left just before closing time, when there were pretty much guys left in the place. The place closed in stages with the outside bar areas closing down, and finally the central area.

Recommendation
This is pretty much the only decent club around here. Sting Bar doesn’t have the populace and Northies is more of a watering hole. Carmens @ Miranda Hotel, down the road, I’ve been told has “gone down the drain” since I last visited. Strict alcohol rules here keep the venue safe. Fair entry price but no stamp policy is silly. Good tunes keep the friendly crowd going. Shame that someone stole my jacket. Next time, I would come back here with items of clothing I am okay with being stolen.

Fusion Nite Spot, Cronulla: 6/10

 

 

 


 

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One Response to Saturday @ Fusion Nite Spot, Cronulla: 23rd April 2011

  1. […] has advised us there is actually a local proper nightclub spot down the road, so we leave. It has unfortunately not picked up much patronage, and as it was […]

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