A venue I’ve always wanted to visit. I made plans, cleared the night, and tonight was the night. Here we go!

Dance podium area

Saturdays @ “The Club” Nightclub, Kings Cross, Sydney
Assessment Time: 12:30AM – 2:00AM
Opening Hours: 21:00PM – 05:00AM
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 33 Bayswater Road, Potts Point, Sydney. 
Venue Website: http://theclubsydney.com  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/theclubsydney
Event / Promoter Website: Self promoted
Occurrence: Every weekend. 
Outside Line: There’s two lines, one for re-entry and one for ‘first time’ entries. Our ‘first time’ line took about 5 minutes, while re-entry was only a few seconds. Security were pretty lenient on scanning. 
Dress Code / Door Policy: Being situated below Hugo’s, one would believe the dress code would be strict, but it suprisingly isn’t. T-shirts and hats were allowed for guys and so were singlets  allowed for the ladies. There is a simple explanation for this later on. 
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Tonight was $25. 
Guestlist: you may enquire within at info@theclubsydney.com but we are not sure if you are guaranteed a response. 
Inside: Walk past the counter to enter the common pre-club hangout area where you can either move onto the main room, a side room, the bathroom or the outdoor smoking courtyard area. The side room is quite small and has a small DJ set on a table, with lounges and a small bar staffed by 1 person. Bathroom to the left and main room on the right. The first set of steps takes you to the main bar area, which is basically: big long bar on the left, with lounges around the whole floor. There is even a darker corner of lounges on the far left. Continue walking and approach the second flight of stairs, which leads you to the main dancefloor. The area can hold about 200-300 people easily and if you watched the video, our first reaction was “wow”, just seeing this big space snugly hidden underground from the outside view. Big giant disco ball overhangs while there is a large podium/stage area with not 1, not 2, but three dancing poles. That is pretty impressive. It is no surprise to learn that this place was a former strip club.

Cloak Room: None spotted
Bar Prices / Line: I didn’t drink tonight but there are, indeed, jugs of water on the side you can get instead of waiting in line. The lines looked terribly long, and only began to die down closer to 2AM. The bar at the far corner of the main dancefloor would be the least busy as it was also the least accessible. 
Bathroom Facilities:  Acceptable
Eviction Count: Spotted one man besing escorted out by security, followed by about 10 of his friends. 
DJs: Unknown, but during the 2 hours we were here, we just had 2 DJ’s working together on tracks, so we didn’t suffer any repeated tracks. Earlier in the night, we missed the 11:30 Set from Foster the People. Oh my god.. Foster the People,  PEOPLES!!
Music Style: Primarily classic old school RnB and Hip Hop, with some contemporary RnB, reggae and rap thrown in. This was definitely not suited for the young people who only listen to the radio. Notorious B.I.G, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Outkast, UB40 are some of the artists you would hear here tonight. 
Crowd: Considering the music and from what I could tell, most of the crowd here were mostly in their mid-20’s as an average age. I could be totally wrong, but definitely mostly in the 20’s or over. Mostly also a Caucasian crowd – Mostly White Aussies with some Wogs and to a lesser extent other minorities. It appeared the crowd mostly were local, rather than internationals or backpackers.
Ratio: Pretty fair ratio throughout the night, girls looked pretty when they were found. 
Entertainment: The dancepoles here provided some entertainment, as well as a set from Foster the People earlier tonight. I still can’t believe I missed out on them. 
Atmosphere: It’s underground – it’s going to be dark, and it is. When getting to the main room I was in awe of the amount of people who have managed to come here tonight. With the people come also the buildup of heat and humidity making it very warm for me, quite quickly. I was very compelled to remove my blazer in the first five minutes being here. Other guys were walking around with back and armpit sweat stains. There are about 10 girls counted on the dancing pole stage when we entered. Almost everybody on the floor is vibing and dancing, while in the lounge areas it is quite noisy as people chat and drink away.  This kept up throughout most of the night, with some spots to dance only clearing up at around 1:30AM. This unfortunately didn’t help with the heat situation.
Video: 
YouTube Preview Image

Timeline
Breaking through the proverbial door
The door wasn’t proverbial. And the person trying to climb through the door was this drunk girl. The door had a little hole in it, just big enough for perhaps a 10 year old to climb through, and this poor girl was already head through and right leg through. It was quite the amusing sight, as she tried to push the rest of her body through. Lube, anyone?

How to hunt for Cool Breeze
When you’re in the middle of the dancefloor that is full of body, things get pretty hot, and you want to find a place to cool down, but there is nowhere to go. All you need to do is look up. So I looked up, and there weren’t many long air conditioning vents there, but there was one near the front, which was heaven! We dared not venture out to other areas of the club, lest our bodies melted under the intense humidity. Speaking of melting, this is what happened to the club stamp after half an hour in the club:

Almost washed out after 30 minutes

Welcome to sydney
Nothing like a bit of prejudice as we hear some guys say “welcome to Sydney” and snigger as we walk by. We must be giving off a huge tourist vibe. I think “Fuck you”, would have been a nice response.

Arrivederci  
Ok we took a breather at 1:30AM but it was only an hour since we entered the club, and so we went back into the dancefloor den, but could only manage until 2:00AM until giving up the fight and leaving this literal human sauna, to find another place to dance.  

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
It’s a beautiful venue, and the music I absolutely adore, but it seems it is so popular that is has overheating problems. The air conditioning must be fixed in here!!! If only this was not a problem, then this would be a place I could easily recommend. Until then I would be pretty hesistant to pay the $25 to return here for a dance. If you wanted to come here for a drink and a very short dance, you’ll enjoy it.

 

One Response to Saturday Nights @ “The Club” Nightclub: 28th Jan 2012

  1. yeeha says:

    3 poles….and a lady taking photos from it…….woooooooooooooooooooooo

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