Crowd: 12:15AM

Flaunt @ Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross, Sydney (Under new promoters)
Assessment Time: 11:25PM – 2:05AM 
Opening Hours: 9:00PM – 4:00AM (according to Facebook anyway)
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 2 Kellet St, Sydney, Kings Cross. http://g.co/maps/ex79j
Venue Website: http://www.sapphirelounge.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Postman-Productions/193173984047360 (This event is no longer run by Urban Agent) 
Occurrence: Every Thursday night. Formerly run by Urban Agent the past few years, we have actually stumbled upon the “re-launch” of the “Flaunt” nights, this time run under the new promotions company Postman Productions. Tonight was the second week of “Flaunt” under Postman Productions.
Outside Line: No line as we entered.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Dress Code is encouraged. Hats are allowed in here. Most girls wear pretty dresses, and guys in general are looking good. There are some suits and casually dressed people as well (i.e. me), but this was no issue in getting us through the door.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $15 if not on guestlist. According to poster, entry is free before 10:30. Unsure if guestlist is required.
Guestlist: According to the promotional poster send emails to djtikelz@hotmail.com for birthday packages. Yes, it is the DJ.
Inside: The entrance is on Kellet St, just around the corner from the kebab store, its quite easy to miss. It’s a small entrance to a small club. Walk in past the cloak room to enter the main room, where there is a bar on the left manned by 2 staff. On the right are 3 separate lounge areas as well as one behind you to seat about 8 people each.

Continue the walk to enter the dancefloor area which could hold about 20 people comfortably. At the very front is the DJ booth on the left, and on the right is the largest of the lounge areas, which has lounges dotted on the far end walls to seat a small party of 20 or so people. The second room is one flight of stairs down and contains a smaller bar (unmanned tonight) and serves more as a re-entry point for patrons as well as a chill-out area. Nobody really is here at all, and its cordoned off later in the night.

Cloak Room: $5 per item
Bar Prices / Line: $7 cocksucking cowboy shots (3x). 2x Long Island Teas @ $18 each. $5 Alize lemonade (x2, before 11PM only) $9 Alize Lemonade (after 11PM) 3x Southern Comfort Apple Juice ($21). There are also $5 cocktail specials before 11PM but I didn’t buy any cocktails.
Bathroom Facilities: Pretty clean and well kept tonight.
Eviction Count: None seen.
DJs: Tito was mentioned by the MC during my time here. Others that are listed in the poster are: Moto, Lyrikz, R-Kayz, Reklezz
Music Style: Mostly contemporary modern RnB/ Top 40 music.
Crowd: Mostly local Aussie and Euro crowd. Ages range from 18 year olds who came from their year 12 formal to late 20 year olds having a late one after work. There are a handful of folk here above 30/40 as well.
Ratio: There were more guys than girls here, though all the girls were prettyful to make up for it.
Entertainment: MC Mistah Cheekz.
Atmosphere: Upon entry it looked pretty bleak (11:45AM) there were about 20 people counted. But by about half an hour later, the population literally doubled to 40 and the small floor has appeared busy. It’s also very dark in here to match the ‘classy’ atmosphere, so its hard to distinguish who is who, or find your friends quickly despite it being a small club. It also, I suppose, makes it easier to express your dancing without feeling too embarrassed. Music isn’t too loud to blare out conversations but it is loud enough for a dance out in the front.
Video: 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
Nothing really special to experience except that there was a really drunk guy dancing around. Surprised he didn’t get kicked out. He was seriously swerving and hugging and being a serious drunk, but he was a friendly one. I like friendly drunk.

I was expecting a lower turnout (it was pretty dead when we got in) but later as it picked up it was a little bit better than I anticipated.

Arrivederci
Left as the girls were a bit bored (well there were only so many people you could perve on), and wanted to go to a strip club. Oh well.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
For a Thursday it was a respectable turn out but the crowd only picks up after midnight. The drinks are a little pricy as well abut that is to be expected from the classier like bars. I would get my pre-drink on somewhere else around then come here later for a dance when it is a little busier at around midnight.  5.5/10

Fridays @ Sapphire Suite (Formerly Sapphire Lounge)
Assessment time: 10:45- 12:00am
Location: 2 Kellett St, Kings Cross
Website: http://www.sapphirelounge.com.au
Inside: Limited in area, the back half of the club is dedicated to compartmentalised lounge rooms. It’s not cramped, its very spacious and well done. The middle area has a normal sized bar, and at the front is the DJ booth and dancefloor. The floor could hold 25 people  comfortably. The venue is licensed for 300 patrons.
Atmosphere: Quite dark, relaxed. Not many people turned up tonight. The place probably never reached more than 40% capacity. At the bar, there was usually only one person in front of me.
Crowd: Dominantly Euro. There were also some islanders tonight. Karmen, myself and my friends are the only asians.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $15
Cloak Room: $5 all sizes. No rechecks.
Music: Mix of RNB and House, similar to last time I was here.
Dress Code: No shorts allowed. Casual jeans / t-shirt ok. Dress up outfits ok.

Nobody is dressed up
The first suspicion that nobody was dressed up was at the door:
Bouncer: “Why are you dressed up??”
Door Bitch: “Theres a charity event on tonight – doctors and nurses”

I had my nurse dress on. I walked onto the dance floor and guess who else was dressed up? nobody. Yes that’s right – I WAS THE ONLY PERSON DRESSED UP, AND I WAS DRESSED UP AS A CROSSDRESSING NURSE. Karmen was there, and she did not have her bear suit on – WHAT THE HELL?? She promised to dress up!! She only brang a lab coat and she wasn’t even wearing it!!! She was dressed like every other girl. Suddenly reality hit me. I could hear the wails of everybody screaming. I look around me, and everybody is pointing to me, the crazy asian guy who just walked in dressed as a nurse. They are laughing and pointing at me. The guys give me whistles, and my friends have chickened out and did not put on their lab coats either. I love the attention though.

Posing with two girls at Sapphire Lounge, in my sexy Nurse outfit

The bouncer right away drags me outside. Why?
I was inside for no longer than two minutes when the bouncer drags me outside. I was in deep shit. He steps me outside:

Bouncer: (looks at me) “I was checking to see if you were wearing shorts and a shirt, but you’re not, so its ok for you to go back in”.
I was then allowed back in.  So basically, I can’t wear shorts and a t-shirt at a club but I can wear a nurse one piece dress??? haha I love Kings Cross. However I didn’t like this place one bit.

Pulled into the circle but beaten
There’s only one circle, and everyone is having a bit of a dance. I am suddenly pulled into the circle by one of the girls. I am in a nurses dress for gods sake. I do some moves, and then suddenly a big guy comes along and out dances me by pulling off some popping and locking moves!! UGH! I wish I took some more popping / locking lessons. He looks pretty good. I am done for and leave the circle.

A free drink from the promoter – my efforts were not in vain after all!
As a consolation though, a promoter came up and gave me a Free Drink Card for dressing up – score! That was half my entry fee back. I got myself a free Corona. That was half my entry paid back for.

The doctor arrives:

another person , Doc, has arrived. He had contacted me through this blog and it’s my first time meeting him – and THANK GOD, he is dressed up!!! He has another friend, Make up Man (MuM) so now we are a scrubs party of three! However the place is still pretty dead, despite us doubling the population:

Doc, MuM and Myself - the ONLY ones dressed up for the theme night at Sapphire Lounge.

Meth takes over with Bollywood moves:
I’m with Meth, of Indian descent. He is not dressed up, despite the fact that he is studying medicine. anyway, he busts out some bollywood / bhangra moves one minute,  and the next minute, he’s in the middle of the circle busting out his groove! It’s crazy, everybody in the circle has gone nuts for him. Here’s a video of the last 30 seconds of his routine:

Click here to view the embedded video.

We leave Sapphire:
We’ve been here about 90 minutes – 90 minutes too long. Me, Doc, and MuM ditch Sapphire to make the most of these costumes.

After tonight and last time – I would not recommend Sapphire for Friday nights.

Kit & Kaboodle (K&K) / Sugar Mill
We have arrived at Kit & Kaboodle. Strangely enough the walk down here was uneventful – none of the bouncers at the Strip joints bothered me about coming into their strip clubs. I might wear this one piece more often.

Assessment time: 12:00am – 3:00am
Cover charge - Free entry into Sugar Mill. $10 for Kit & Kaboodle.
Crowd: Young and old for both venues. Sugar Mill had a higher concentration of older folk. Dominantly white.
Music: I don’t quite remember – it was a mix of everything – rnb, house, but mostly from the 80s and 90s – I remember some Snoop Dogg playing at K&K. Sugarmill bar was more party tunes. pop, top 40, house, rnb, contemporary etc.
Inside: You walk upstairs to Kit & Kaboodle. There are two levels, one dancefloor level and another more ‘classy’ like level. I didn’t visit the ‘classy’ level. On entering the dance level, theres lots of lounges on the right, and a dance area on the left. The entire place gives a very cosy kind of feel to it. It must be all the red around the place. The walls, carpet and floor. Dark ambience helped as well:

On top of that there are suitcases around with spare clothing for you to put on!
Atmosphere: Kit & Kaboodle: Pretty good! People are dancing, some are drinking, and some are chilling out. It’s a medium sized place, and I did expect more dancing, but you can’t have everything. Sugarmill- Just some dancing, and some people drinking – not as good as it’s just a bar with cheap drinks.
Cloak Room: None for either place
Dress Code: The nurse outfit was allowed into both venues. Hats allowed.
Inside Video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline (Kit and Kaboodle):
Dressing up and props!
There are these suitcases lying around with clothing for anyone to try on. Hot pants, dresses, wigs, masks:

A mess of spare clothes at Kit & Kaboodle for you to try on!

The even have props, such as guitars:

Me in a nurses outfit, playing with a guitar prop at Kit & Kaboodle

I really liked this place. You just put whatever you want on and these guys trust that you put it back at the end of the night. Very friendly here.

Dance area: About one quarter of the size of the place had people dancing. It wasn’t that many people dancing – mostly everybody chatting with each other. I did do some dancing, but me and Doc were just looking to chat some girls up.

Meeting another dress up guy:
I met some other guy at a suitcase and his friends.  I don’t remember his name, but we did get along quite well. We were just jumping up and down and making noises and putting on different clothes. At one point I think he thought I was gay and went for my hand, but I’m not sure. He and his friends were fun.

I don’t get noticed:
The place was so dark and everybody was dressed up, so much so that nobody went crazy about the guy dressed in a nurses outfit – I actually fit into here and was accepted without question. I didn’t like that. I wanted attention. I have ADD.

Coda (Kit & Kaboodle)
We head on downstairs to the SugarMill to try our luck there as the novelty of Kit & Kaboodle was slowly wearing off. I do recommend Kit & Kaboodle if you have a mix of friends who dance, dont dance, and who like to dress up. A fair price to enter as well.

Timeline (The SugarMill)
Me and Doc go downstairs to the Sugar Mill.  Right away we are noticed as a doctor and crossdressing nurse. I like this place.

Girls get sucked to us on the floor:
It was more or less just standing there, and the girls came to us. Half to Doc, and the other half to me. Doc gets the hot ones and I ended up with a drunk 40 year old married woman latching onto me.

I make out with the 40 year old married woman:
She was all over me. My penis took control and I had basically exhausted my other girl options at Sugar Mill. She bought me a tequila shot. How could I ever repay her back? Was she a cougar? She wasn’t pretty for a cougar, and she was married, so I don’t know. We end up making out, even after I keep laughing about the whole ridiculousness of this situation. After we make out she asks if I have drugs. WHAT? Man I don’t have drugs! She then says wants to go home with me. But her other married friends come and drag her away. She is definitely drunk.

MarriedWoman: “no!! let me have this one night of fun, this one night away from married life!”

Today I saw a picture of her:

Me and a married cougar post-making out, outside Sugarmill bar. Hope her husband doesn't read this blog. If he is, well, she told me she loves you.

WHAT WAS I THINKING????

No respect for my hair:
A random guy borrows my hair. 5 minutes later I see him spinning it around like a lassoo and lets it fly to the ground behind him – all to impress a girl. Well I have a message for you – SCREW YOU – I HOPE YOU HAD SEX WITH HER AND GOT CRABS AND I HOPE THEY DON’T GO AWAY FOR A LONG LONG TIME. Because i freaking hate it when people take advantage of my friendliness.

Coda
Doc and MuM were outside resting and had picked up 2 Korean girls, and since SugarMill was dying, the 5 of us went to any bar that was open. The only place was Mansions Hotel.

Recommendation: Only come here if you want cheap drinks, or a place to dance for free.

Mansions Hotel
Location: Kellet St Kings Cross
Assessment time: 3.30am-4.30am
Music: I forgot. Probably House

Timeline:
It was quite dead, but it was the only place around that was not part of the lockout. There were probably 20 people in here, and 2 or 3 on the dance area in front of the DJ.

A dance with the girl Doc picked up.
She’s crazy and right into it. As Doc says, she was ‘intense’ – staring eyes into you, close up grinding, almost the works. Do all koreans dance like this at 4am in the morning?

A dance with a short girl who worked there
She’s dancing and she seems me. We dance. She’s a little pocket rocket of fun and we rip it up. When she leaves, she gives me a kiss on the lips. I didn’t know employees were allowed to do that.

A dance with a girl from the outback
She’s dancing with a rose from a guy who gave it to her. She sees me and we dance. She lives in the Outback. She is cute. One of her friends with her is cracking onto her. I assume its her boyfriend and we have a fun time dancing innocently.

The male friend is still energetic and loves my wig. He puts it on and goes wild. We all dance to the music. The Dj must think we’re crazy.

When I leave, she kisses me on the lips. Damn, she was single this whole time.

Coda
Well by this time, all two dancing girls in the pub were kissed, and we were exhausted. So we left to go home. A nice place to go if you still want to drink after 2am. Better than Vegas Hotel, as it has a DJ here.

“This is Captain James T. Tran of the USS Sydney Clubber. After our encounter with the Trademark Hotel xenophobia, we have set a new course to across the road – Sapphire Lounge. I ask all of you to prepare yourselves – set expectations to low!”

Sapphire Lounge (formerly Sapphire Suite)
Location: 2 Kellett St, Kings Cross
Website: http://www.sapphirelounge.com.au
Inside: Limited in area, the back half of the club is dedicated to compartmentalised lounge rooms. It’s not cramped, its very spacious and well done. The middle area has a normal sized bar, and at the front is the DJ booth and dancefloor. The floor could hold 25 people  comfortably.

DJ Booth - Sapphire Lounge

P.Y.T Fridays
Slogan: “Party like its 1999″
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: $15. Free before 11pm (Guestlist)
Guestlist: Unsure. Can’t really read the poster.
Door Policy: Casual allowed. T-shirts and regular sports shoes allowed. Hats unknown.
Crowd: Favouring Caucasians, but other nationalities welcome
DJs: Adriano, Will Fix, Tom Piper, Johnny B
Music: Classic RNB and contemporary House, but edited to keep out the crazy dance bits or rap bits. Since there was only one DJ, he constantly switched between the two genres every 5 or so songs. It was the dancing equivalent of foreplay or fondling but never getting to intercourse, then having a cigarette every 20 minutes and restarting again.
Atmosphere: People were either here to relax, or they were actually looking for a good time dancing but walked into the wrong place. We were the latter half. That said though, most people here had a go dancing. It was very dark, no flashing lights or fancy pyrotechnics, carpeted area (afai remember), music not at full blast either -  so it was pretty easy to get up and dance discreetly like a maniac, unlike Cremorne or Shark Hotel, where the lighting and centralised floor gets you get stared at. Overall, it was a very laid back affair. The only people whom you knew were staring at you was the security detail. This was definitely not a club.

View from the front

Timeline

Door Issues
“So how many of you are there?”.
“Just us five”.

A friend inside reported that it was “pretty dead”, with about 20 or 30 people inside. We were disgusted she had to confer with the bouncer to whether we were allowed in. We were going to increase the patronage of the club by at least 15%! We discussed in heated Asian, about how they could even possibly think about refusing entry to a group of well dressed people? Did they not want our money?? Eventually they let us in. The door policy here at Sapphire shits on Trademark for an honest dancer.

Impressions
We entered around midnight, not expecting much, and our expectations were matched. From the outside it doesn’t look like much, but inside was alright. About 15 people on the dancefloor, and another 15 or so sitting around the various lounges around the place. A blue hue from the bar eminates the whole place amongst the darkness.

I stomp on a girls toe.
The Dj started to play a favourite song of mine.  “This is where the Party’s at” by Tonite Only. I jumped right up and started jumping up and down with lots of energy.. stomp-like. Then I landed on a girls toes with full force. My god. I turned and apologized and she gave me the biggest dirty ever. It didn’t help that her boyfriend was next to her. I really couldn’t do much. She didn’t accept the apology at all. I run away in embarrasement to the amusement of my friends. I wonder if girls get trod on often at clubs.

an unfair ratio reversal
There was me and Brojo. 2 guys. Then there was about 12 girls on the dance floor. Enough said.

2 hours later when we left, it was the other way around.. oh well.

Coda
My friends wanted to go. It was only 1.30am, but there were more and more males coming in. We left, and threw curses at Trademark Hotel on the way out. We were still very bitter about the rejection 2 hours prior.

This would be a good place to relax with a partner, but not to party if you want loud music and contemporary beats.