This review includes tonight and two revisit summaries (14th Dec 2012, 28th Dec 2012) at the end.

Just here with some friends for a dance – let’s check it out. Here we go!

Lights!

Cubic (Fridays) @ Space Nightclub (Sydney)

Background: The promoters previously closed two of their Friday events, I guess in order to combine the two crowds for tonight’s event . The name Cubic is most likely based on Club Cubic in Macau.

Essentials:
Opening Hours:
Fridays 22:30 – 04:00AM

Address:
127 Liverpool st – enter via the second line to get your name marked off guestlist etc. Otherwise you may enter via the normal Shark Hotel line and walk in. After entering the Shark hotel floor, you may proceed to level 2 where Space Nightclub is. (The lift is preferably no longer in use by promoters)

Venue Website: http://www.spacevenue.com.au

Event Website: http://www.fb.com/cubicsydney

Promoters: UrbanAgent, Infinity Productionz

Occurrence:
Tonight is the second week of opening, while the plan is to have this event on every Friday.

Dress Code / Door Policy:
There was no specific dress code requested by promoters – as a result casual was the minimum required to get in. T-shirts were ok and so were sneakers. Most guys though wore collared shirts with jeans / fancy shoes. Girls generally looked good as well with their going out dresses or whatever they are called.

Entry Fee / Cover Charge:
$25 for entry. $20 for guestlist entry for guys. Tonight was “ladies night” and all girls who “liked” the Facebook page got free entry before Midnight and discounted entry after midnight. In order to qualify for discounted / guestlist priced entry you were required to line outside to mark your name off and obtain the “VIP card”

Passouts:
No passouts before midnight.

Guestlist:
cubic@urbanagent.com.au / joe@infinityproductionz.com

Cloak Room:
$5 per item. On the expensive side.

Tonight:
Assessment Time: 11:30PM – 3:15AM

Outside Line:
None outside the venue. Inside the Shark Hotel entrance there was a short line of 10 people or so – the line moved pretty quickly at this time.

Inside:
Side Room:
Space nightclub tonight is configured over two rooms / areas. When you first enter the club, you will enter the private area / chillout room. There is a roped off reserved area for a large contingent / party of people with bottle service similar to clubs in the US (and Marquee Sydney). The smoking room/box is also on this side of the venue to fit 20 people tightly.

Main room:
The rooms are separated by a wall with a common bar in between the rooms. Through the doors to the other side is the Space venue. Tonight the whole area is open. DJ and MC sit aloft on the elevated stage with a catwalk in the middle to fit 4 or 5 people who want to strut their stuff. The dancefloor space is square-like (besides the catwalk dividing the middle of it) with approximate space to hold approx 300 people standing. On top of this there are tables and lounges that line the walls, far from the central dancefloor, hiding in their own dark corners. All the flashy laser lights and beams etc are setup here which is well suited for a trance party.

Bar Prices / Line:
Didn’t get drinks tonight but it appeared the line was a two order wait on average in the main room. In the side room there were less people so getting an order here would be theoretically less of a wait.

Bathroom Facilities:
Average. They served their purpose.

DJs:
Only recognized DJ Shui (?), David X Nguyen later in the night playing the Trance tracks. There were other DJ’s prior to this too.

Music Style:
– Early: A bit of house and a bit of trance but it is really mostly RnB and Top40 party tunes.
– By 1:30 there have been the occasional song repeated – it’s still RnB and Top 40.
– 2:40AM: I did hear a particular rnb song played tonight for the third time. Disappointed.
– By 3:00AM RnB has been dropped altogether and it’s all electro, trance and house. Banging beats that I jumped like a horse, though I am not sure if the crowd knew the songs. I was jumping like a madman though.

Personal low point: Hearing One Direction and Justin Beiber. That’s me though – Everyone else was chanting and singing to it.

Crowd:
Appears to be a crowd in their young 20’s. All Asian, with a mix of local and International Students, skewing towards the latter. A lot of the girls here were tall. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s something in the water. The club-like atmosphere tonight tended to keep people to themselves tonight. Though there were probably 3 or 4 random guys who tried to crack onto the girls we were with tonight. The crowd is overall well dressed and generally all look attractive.

Midnight crowd (the rest are behind me)

Ratio:
Approximately 2.5-3 guys to 1 girl. Seems normal.

Entertainment:
Podium dancers tonight! Dressed in lingerie, can’t complain. considering tonight was ladies night one would have expected some half naked men flexing their pectoralis majors, but it was not to be tonight.

When ‘Gangnam style’ came on, it was pretty funny to see the dancers immediately look at each other with looks as in “how do we dance seductively to THIS song?!”, followed with a swift jump off the podium. It would be great if they embraced the song and danced it.

Atmosphere:
– Midnight: Bumped into a friend and I shall quote him: “..it’s dead, it’s dead, it’s dead”.
Admittedly the vibe wasn’t here yet, people were still streaming in. This felt like a club at 11PM when doors just opened. Someone else I spoke to said it was a noticeable difference since last week’s grand opening.
– 12:30ish: Shortly after though the crowd has definitely picked up. (Downstairs my other friends have reported the small Shark Hotel dancefloor is packed, but with a very casually dressed crowd. )

– 1:00AM probably peak of the night where people are bustling about, dancing etc, as a club should. This was the part where you got a bit squishy with your neighbour – people made the most of it. It held for a good hour or so.

– 2:30ish – with the change of music and tone people began to leave, but there remained a sizeable proportion of the crowd (mostly guys) and whoever were left were free to finally shuffle around

Overall its considerably very loud in here compared to other clubs especially near the front where the biggest speakers are. Standing within 3 metres of those speakers and you can feel your body vibrate. It’s also very dark and combined with the smoke machines you can’t see very far across the room – making it easy to lose friends despite the place not being that big. Past experiences at Space have left me very sweaty but the air con has worked its magic today and most of the night I’m relatively cool.

Video: Music though the night and a walkthrough:

Upon Departure
Friends gave up but I pushed them for an extra half hour before leaving. The music later on in the night was too good.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation

Slow to start but the crowd eventually got in and filled the main floor to have a bit of a dance around. Come with some friends as it may feel a bit lonely at the start. I wouldn’t go full price for this, try your best to get in cheaper if you can. Overall it is an improvement from previous adventures at Space Nightclub but if you were not too keen on a dark loud club like atmosphere with relatively good tunes then there is always Shark Hotel downstairs to take a break before heading back up again to continue (which was what I did for a few minutes).

I haven’t got much bad to say about this place except it could do with more guys – I wouldn’t be rushing to check this place out but if you were invited to go you should be okay – especially if you were a girl.

Revisit: 14th Dec 2012 (1:30AM – 3AM)
Yes, I ended up back here just a week later. I entered much more later into the night, right about peak time, and there were much more people than last week.

It’s good that this event is picking up more people. The crowd is still much more fobby rather than local and it is still all Asian.

Revisit #2: 28th Dec 2012 (11:30PM – 2:00AM)
I used my OPM from the night before to get free entry tonight. Sadly the guys have returned! There were lots more guys than usual throughout the night. Kind of sad really.

I was with a girl tonight and I could feel the stare of men just checking her out. Then there were creepier sleazebags who try to take her away from me. What a pain.

Anyway it didnt seem to be as big as I thought it would be. Eventually it did get more crowded but the male to female ratio appears to be a bit disappointing.