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: 

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

Courtyard area (just the front bit)

Wonderland @ Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney
Assessment Time: 12:10AM – 3:00AM
Opening Hours: 8:00PM – 3:00AM
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 36 Blue St, North Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.greenwoodhotel.com
Promoters: The claim was 17 promoters joined in the fun to make this event. The main promoter was Syndicate Events, GTB, and Colab – the same promoters for Perfect Nights @ Pontoon Bar.
Occurrence: Once off event for Australia Day
Outside Line: There were about 5 people in front of us, but we quickly got in
Dress Code / Door Policy: Relaxed dress code. Most things were okay. Most guys wore t-shirts but girls still glammed up.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 full entry. Pre-paid tickets unknown.
Guestlist: N/A
Inside: Enter via the rear via the ramp where the register is. Pay your dues and walk down the ramp to enter the courtyard where the DJ is on the left with a standing area in front for around 100 people. There are tables, chairs and stonewalls for people to sit on to get their smoko on. The whole building looks like it could have been a little church (and it probably was), considering the large sandstone bricks that make its walls and the general architecture of the building. There are four separate door entrances along the walls to each of the 4 internal rooms. The right most room is “the clinic” room, a small room with a bar, lounges and a small dance area to hold 15-20 people. The next rooms are the chillout room and the Mashup room – mashup room has a bar along the wall and a wall cushion bench thing with a slightly larger dance area with DJ in the far corner. The chillout room is just that, with music supplied just outside from the courtyard – saloon style lounges and bar exist in here. The “Black Label” room is the largest of the rooms with DJ on the far right and dance area for a good 100 or so people.

Cloak Room: The cloak room was situated upstairs on your right, as you just step into the Greenwood Hotel courtyard. $5 for bag deposits. 
Bar Prices / Line: 3 minute wait at the bar in the mashup room. $49 for 4x Jam Donut shots and 2x Tequila shots.
Bathroom Facilities: Bathroom upstairs near the cloak room as well as downstairs by the rear of the ‘Black Label’ room. The facilities sufficed.
Eviction Count: Didn’t spot anything personally. Crowd were pretty behaved tonight.
DJs: A whole shitload over the four separate areas. There’s a picture in the gallery with the full DJ list.
Music Style: Outdoor courtyard: Contemporary RnB / Top 40, “Black Label” Room: Classic RnB / Hip Hop, Mashup Room: RnB and House mashup naturally, “The Clinic” Room: House, classic House. Overall compared to other typical Sydney clubs where you are faced with one or maybe 2 rooms, you have a choice from 4 rooms of music, but they all pretty much overlapped in terms of just playing commercial House and RnB / Hip Hop to satisfy the crowd, so if you just are a regular radio listener you would be into this kind of music.
Crowd: Mixed ages, mostly people in their 20′s – an even mix of young and slightly older late 20′s and some early 30′s characters I bumped into. A lot of people here is of Asian descent and pretty much every Asian person looked like a local Aussie Asian.  The rest (about 10-20%) were mostly Euro or locals in the area. 
Ratio: If you were to find a good ratio of women, they would be hiding out in the RnB / Top 40 rooms, rather than the house rooms. Overall it was alright, probably 65/35 female/male but it wasn’t an overwhelming feeling of sausage around.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment, though there are $5 burgers if your stomach desires it. The patties looked burnt and carcinogenic though. DJ in the mashup room was giving away mix CD’s. The CD has some choice songs on it, but the mixing was pretty horrid IMHO. 
Atmosphere: Outside its always busy with the crowd surrounding the DJ, but on the downer this area doubles up as the smoking area and I personally couldn’t hang out here for long periods of time. The Clinic room, being where most house and “shuffling” songs were being played, quickly became a mini literal boiler room, where the humidity of sweat just hits you as you walked in. It’s qutie dark in The Clinic room and you may shuffle as you wish without much judgement, if you could find some room in the cramped area. The Black Label room also fell under this humid B.O smell but only until just before it closed, as the room was larger. The chillout and mashrooms were pretty bright/well-lit and no more than a handful of people were up in front of the DJ dancing at any one time. Most people chose to sit down and have a chat/take photos here. The crowd in general as mentioned were pretty well behaved and most just wanting to dance and apparently enjoy the night.
Video: Montage of music and walkthroughs:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline

Hate brings people together
“Whooa-ooa-oaa-oaa-ohhh… whooa-ooaa-ohhaoahohhh.. You know you love me.. (uh huh) I know you care!”.

Oh… if you haven’t figured it out, its a song I used to love, but now am not a fan of anymore. It’s JUSTIN BIEBER’S ‘Baby’. UGH. So when the DJ plays this song I sit down with a friend and mock-karaoke the words. The random guy next to me doesn’t like the song either and we quickly became friends over the song. I start thinking about a future friendship with him: going out, dinners, water sports together, etc.

Anyway we had some shots together! He said he was here alone only because the DJ was a friend of his. It’s like that with a lot of people who you see at the clubs and just sit down. He ran off after the shot. It was fun while it lasted.

Even when I am clubbing, I am not safe
I was chatting to a pretty girl and you know, I reckon we got along well. I started thinking about having a future relationship with her: Going out, dinners, water sports together etc.

Anyway we had a dance, and then… it goes a little something like this:
Her: I think I know you from somewhere.
Me: Where! (praying to god it wasn’t from this website)
Her: Do you live in XXXXX ?
Me: Yes, I do!
Her: OMG… I think I know YOUR MUM!!
Me: Ahhh WHAT!????????? MY MUM!!? X_X
Her: Your mum once babsit my kids a few years ago, and I remember meeting you!
Me: Oh right..

Hoolleyyy shitfucks this was way too weird.
It was all coming back to me now. I was a strapping young lad back in the day, and she looked exactly the same as the last time I saw her all those years ago. It would be weird if I went for it, and she decided to visit me again at home, so I wisely moved on.

Arrivederci
Stayed around until 3AM when everything was done.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
This was a once off event but other events at Greenwood should be definitely considered going to, especially if you haven’t been before since it’s a nice little venue.

Upstairs

Perfect @ Pontoon Bar, Darling harbour, Sydney
Assessment Time: 10:10PM – 1:15AM, 3:15AM-3:30AM
Opening Hours: Downstairs: (Open earlier in the night for dinner – 4:00AM) Upstairs: 11:30PM – 2/3AM?
Lockout: No known lockout, but entry is closed to the general public at 3AM, while stampholders are still permitted re-entry rights at all times, though you have to line up in line AGAIN if you want to get back in. Totally sucks.
Address: Listed as 201 Sussex St, but access to the place is more or less via The Promenade at Darling Harbour’s Cockle Bay Wharf. The main entry is now via the ground floor where you will usually see a line of people. After 11PM you can also pay for your entry upstairs and get stamped as well – so there are two effective entry points.
Venue Website: http://www.pontoonbar.com
Event Website: http://www.theperfectnight.com.au http://www.facebook.com/perfectnights
Promoters: Joint promoter companies: Colab, Syndicate Events, GTB, and an extra promoter “Forever Fridays” tonight who are hail from Melbourne – they brought over their MC and a Melbourne based DJ.
Occurrence: Every Friday since Mid-April 2011
Outside Line: We arrived a little earlier than I would usually like, but there were no people in line. As we debated whether we should go in, about TWENTY people jumped in line. Oh my god. We joined the line eventually and got in after about 10 minutes. Upstairs opens at 11PM, and despite having stamps already, we have to line up AGAIN amongst the other people who haven’t paid entry to get access! Bloody ridiculous. It’s the same as well downstairs, once you go outside for whatever reason, you have to line up to get back in. Luckily for the smokers, there are “open” areas on each level where you can puff and stuff your lungs with tar. Later in the night around midnight it took a friend 30 minutes to get in. Tough love.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Casual is promoted here tonight, and pretty much most people here are compliant. Not sure about the hat situation but the last few times I was here, they were okay to wear. Most guys are in pants/jeans and a collared t-shirt, and girls have managed to not wear casual tonight.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Standard full fare Asian clubbing price of $25 tonight. If you were on the guestlist and arrived before 11:30PM, you got a card that entitled you to $15 entry. Brilliant, except during a moment of absent mindedness, I forgot to use my card and inadvertedly paid $25 without even realising it. I simply gave the discount card to another friend so they could enjoy the benefits of me lining up early, while they didn’t have to.
Guestlist: Guestlists are no longer valid after 11:30PM. Guestlists to be sent to info@syndicateevents.com.au
Inside: Ground Level: Walk past the easy-to-miss cloak room and cashier to enter the middle part of the floor. To the left is the main bar with about 2-3 staff as well as the entire outdoor area. The are large wooden tables and stools, chairs, lounges about, where people were once dining hours ago. This outdoor area could hold easily 100 people or so. The dancefloor area on the right is a slow covered transition from the outdoor area where also 100-200 people can dance here. The DJ booth sits in the far corner near the toilets. There is little furniture bar a lounge at the rear of the dancefloor. Upstairs: Walk through the chillout/smoking area where there are many lounges, with a view of Darling harbour – continue on into the depths of the dancefloor situated on the far end of the room, as where the DJ is. The setup has slightly changed from last time, where the DJ was in the middle. I think this is a good thing as it is as far away from the smoke as possible, though at risk of the area overheating quickly. The walls are lined with squarely setup lounges. Bar is on the right
Cloak Room: Cloak room downstairs – $5 for placing an item, while it is $2 for rechecks. Pretty reasonable.
Bar Prices / Line: $15.70 altogether for a Gin and Tonic, Orange Juice and coke. $12.90 for a Vodka+Red Bull in a tall glass. At 10:15PM there was no waiting time. At 11PM the wait increased to about 5 minutes. At around 1AM, the wait was timed at about twenty five (25) minutes on both levels up and down.
Bathroom Facilities: Fair, could be a little bigger.
Eviction Count: None spotted, but I wasn’t paying attention.
DJs: Resident DJ’s plus guest DJ Mich from Melbourne
Music Style: Mostly Contemporary RnB downstairs, while upstairs did play some more of the older ‘throwback’ rnb songs. Oh yes, throwback is a word im going to use now.
Crowd: Dominantly Asian, and mostly local Aussie Asians. I don’t think I ran into one international Asian here tonight. Most of the ages were young. Company was of course lots of 21 year olds. That said, the crowd was mostly young 20′s to mid 20′s, as far as I could tell.
Ratio: You know its always going to be more guys then girls, but it was good. A lot of the girls looked their best surprisingly tonight, and I ain’t complaining.
Entertainment: There was no real special occasion except for having the MC and DJ from melbourne to do a set.

Atmosphere: Between 10-11PM: People were mostly in the courtyard chatting and drinking, with some daring to go on the floor.
Around 11:15PM: I would consider the dancefloor downstairs to have enough people to be considered pretty busy. That is quite the achievement. I got pretty hot in my blazer already at this time, and the lack of seabreeze from outside plus the cigarette smoke didn’t help either. Man, let me tell you cigarette smoke always does me in at the clubs. I try and stay away from it as much as I can, resulting me in being on the dancefloor most of the time. Though there were quite a lot of people outside in the courtyard not to smoke, but to just have a normal conversation about the weather, or discuss about why do they call it a building, when its already built?
Upstairs after 11:30PM it wasnt packed but it wasn’t dead. You could dance here but the sofas right next to the dancefloor made you feel like you were on show, and people shied away from that area. The line at the bar here was pretty long as well during midnight-1AM
Video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
Another reason I dont like lining up at the bar
You know what I like about lining up? Nothing. Well actually, I like it when there is like a girl behind me and unfortunately she has to place her breasts on my back as I line up. Besides that, there really isn’t much fun in the line at all. So as part of this fun experience we have two people placing orders, and they have bought some shots. Well, you know, they had to pass the shots to their friends behind us, and somehow spilled some of that shit all over our clothing!! yuuuuuuuuckk. I hate that. Keep your hand steady please. Then as a added thing, his friend spilled another drink on us too. Fun times. Turns out the guy who spilled the drinks was a friend of my younger brother. My lord, I don’t belong here.

A envigorating dancer
There are a few dancers that many Asian a folk will always remember, such as Jason from Bamboo/Wow.. or.. well you know. Other people. Anyway, a friend of a friend who came along to the party looks quite like a normal chap until he starts to dance. He is on supercharged energizers.. oh my lord. hair shaking, fist bumping, very surreal performance. A few people could probably keep up with this guy, but definitely the highlight was when he jumped up and did the splits on the floor. THE SPLITS! who in this world can do the splits? Apparently my friends say 1 in 5 but I don’t know.

Arrivederci
I took it extremely easy tonight as I had to go snorkelling in the morning. I left just before 1:30 .

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
Simply by having two levels of rooms, this place pretty much trumps the others in terms of numbers of Asians you can fit into one place. It seems to be a default for my friends and I do try to avoid it as much as possible to prevent getting sick of the place, but besides the long bar lines, smoking, stale warm weather, and that drink spill.. I can’t really fault much of it. Didn’t really interact with the crowd tonight so I can’t tell if they were friendly or what not. Other than that I would say though, do try to get in before 11:30 with a guestlist, because the difference between $15 and $25 is a big one.

Dancing with some of the other shuffling locals upstairs

Wednesdays (Summer Launch Party) @ The Eastern Hotel, Bondi Junction
Assessment Time: 11:23 – 3:00AM
Opening Hours: Open early in the day – Unknown (4AM ++?)
Lockout: 2AM Lockout
Address: 500 Oxford Street, Bondi Junction, Sydney. It’s a bit hard to find if you haven’t been before. It’s on the far end of Wesfields away from the station. Google maps: http://g.co/maps/rachx
Venue Website: http://www.theeastern.com.au , http://www.facebook.com/TheEasternWednesdays
Promoter Website: Appears to be self promoted
Occurrence: Every Wednesday
Outside Line: 24 people was the headcount upon lining up. However the line was pretty fast, and we got in within 10 minutes. I like that.
Dress Code / Door Policy: A lot of people wore caps tonight – these were mainly the people who came for the hip hop music tonight. Spotted also were fedoras and cowboy hats. Others wore casual, smart casual and whatever is fashionable. It was a mix of everything here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $10 flat entry. Free before 10PM if on the guestlist
Guestlist: wednesdays@theeastern.com.au
Inside: This place is made up of 4 levels. The ground floor is the regular bar and NOT OPEN tonight, while the 3 levels above are the club levels for tonight:
(1) Island Bar: Half the room is sat by the Island Bar, to the left half of the room. On the far left are booths to sit down away from the music. Theres a long light overhead along the rim of the room. The music / dancefloor is on the right hand side to hold 100 or so people. DJ booth is very small and along the same level as the dancefloor.
(2) Main Bar: On level 2, this place strikes you with the black and white patterned wallpaper as you walk in. The main bar is on the far end opposite you and is the length of the dancefloor (~20 people long) . To the left is a larger DJ booth, with lounges in the far left corner. In front is the large dancefloor for about 200 or so people. To the right are a smoking room, two further separate lounge rooms and a smaller bar manned by a single bartender. This is the biggest level by far.
(3) Pacifica: Another flight of stairs to take you upstairs to what appears to be an Asian restaurant lounge during the day. It’s very classy. Plush lounges, ambient lighting, high ceiling, portraits of what look like Geishas on the walls, Medium – Small dancefloor for 50-70 people. At the back is the bar, a small one manned by 2 staff.

Cloak Room: None found on any level.
Bar Prices / Line: Two Smirnoff Blacks and a Tequila Sunrise = $27.50. The average wait at a bar would be around 5-10 minutes. There was a bar or two on each level so it did just keep up with demand.
Bathroom Facilities: I only used the bathroom on the top level which, whose floor was pretty wet and filthy – a combination of vomit, urine and alcohol.
Eviction Count: Big fight spotted later in the night at Level 1 Island Bar, it was assumed that the people involved were kicked out, but it was quickly defused. As a side note, I saw another pissed off guy gesture a “pulling the trigger” with his finger at some girl, no idea what the back story was, but he looked mighty angry. Again, this was on the Island Bar bottom level. Also on top of this, a friend who came outside at 1AM REFUSED to come inside, because she saw quite a number of people outside the club vomiting their guts out, and she went home for fear of molestation or something else if she went inside and met more of these kids. Fortunately most of these drunks were outside the club, and not inside. The drunkards did provide for a entertaining journey back to the car afterwards.
DJs: Nacho Pop (yup, the Nacho Pop judge guy from So You Think You Can Dance), John Glover, Oakes & Lennox, Here’s Trouble, 14th Minute, Skinny, Eko, Naiki, Troy T.
Music Style: For each of the three levels:
(1) Island Bar Level: Entire time we were here, the music was rap / hip hop (NOT RnB) aka Kanye West, Snoop, Jay-Z .. that sort of music.
(2) Main Bar: Primarily House, Commercial House, and some other form of house later in the night
(3) Pacifica Room:  Pop and Top 40 with house mashup.
Crowd: Mostly a local Sydney crowd, from all over Asians, Aussies, Africans, etc. – I met people who travelled from as far as Casula to come here tonight. Mostly Anglo-Saxon for the Main Bar. At the Island Bar room (Hip Hop) it was a half mix of the locals, and the rest were people of African descent, backpackers, dancers (you can tell by the number of caps that were worn in this room) or just fans of the music here tonight. At the top level Pacifica bar it was more of a Anglo-Saxon crowd, with some local Asians. Earlier in the night this room was VIP only, and was opened up at around 12:30AM for the general public to enter, but most newcomers probably never realised there was a top level room here tonight.
Ratio: Pretty much an even ratio, or dare say at some areas of the club, even more girls than guys. For the majority of the night, there were never more guys than girls. Really there was nothing to complain about here. A healthy representation of the worlds gender ratio.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment. The week prior, LMFAO had dropped in for an unannounced visit. Missed out hard.
Atmosphere: (1) Upon entry the Island Bar level was pretty much packed. People were pretty chilled out and dancing to their own – the important part is that everyone is dancing here. Though, right in the midst of the dancing here, it does get quite stuffy and you will start to sweat easily. 
(2) Upstairs to the main bar, it was packed, but people are just standing around mingling, despite the massive tunes being dropped. I would say out of the few hundred people on this level, only 10-20 people were actually dancing next to the DJ booth here. The place stayed pretty busy until around 2:00ish when people started to leave. It became quite deserted by 2:30, and me and my friend were just shuffling around with about 3 other people on the entire dancefloor.
(3) Top level Pacifica: couldn’t get in until after 12:30, but that was pretty packed too. (This whole friggin place was packed.) Top level, is the smallest but the crowd here are the most vigorous in their dancing. Almost everyone who is standing is obliged to dance, and they are jumping and singing to whatever is being played. It’s quite the nice atmosphere, as time goes by in this room, people move back downstairs and the hardcore shufflers stay back for even more extreme dancing. It started to die down at 1:15 and I think eventually upstairs was closed at 2:00AM
Video: Music Sample, mini tour. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
On the way here I met some people who were also going to tonight’s event for the very first time, which was pretty cool. Together we somehow found the place, and since it was raining, we walked in with our cardigans/jackets above our heads, looking like idiots.

We’re not freaks
There were in this club, 2 really really tall girls, and a friend tried to ask them for photos, but kept getting rejected everytime before he finished talking LOL.. perhaps they got that question many times before.

Arrivederci
I came with friends tonight and we stuck together most of the night. We left at closing time.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
I was definitely impressed on first impressions, and I was asking myself, why can’t more clubs in the city be more like this? This would be my ideal kind of club night. Cheap entry, packed, friendly crowd and music to suit all tastes. Definitely give it a visit with friends if you have nothing to do late Wednesday night. My only complaints are a lack of ventilation in the Island Bar, and people getting drunk too quickly – that comes with the increased numbers.

Tonight’s rating – 8.5/10

Crowd - Live Art Space (3:30AM)

Friday I’m In Love @ Oxford Art Factory
Assessment Time: 2:10AM – 4:00AM
Opening Hours: 6PM to late.
Lockout: Unknown.
Address: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.oxfordartfactory.com/
Promoter Website: Appears to be self promoted. But there was probably an act earlier on in the night at the Live Art Space Room.
Occurrence: Every Friday.
Outside Line: There looks like a line but its actually a smoking area – there was no line upon approaching and entry. I’m sure though that during peak hours there would be a huge line outside.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty casual. Not sure about hats – didn’t spot anyone with hats.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free at time of entry for the Live Art Space Room, but this is normal after 2AM. Unknown whether there was cover charge beforehand. Free all night in the smaller Art After Hours Room.
Guestlist: None at this time
Inside: There are two main rooms which reside below street level. (1) Live Art Space Room: Walk into this larger room where live bands can play for small crowds. A stage is setup at the front, with dancefloor for about 200-300 people, with an elevated level at the back with 4 or 5 lounges. Tables and chairs on the left while the bar is on the right. Behind the Bar is the (2) Art After Hours Room, about half the size as the 1st room, it also has the bar, and a more narrow rectangular area for dancing for about 100 or so people. 2 or 3 lounges are in here.
Cloak Room: Surprisingly no cloak room tonight. it’s hard to find dark little spots here where you can hide your stuff.
Bar Prices / Line: Asahi and Vodka combo – $15
Bathroom Facilities: You piss on a brick wall (purposely designed). Otherwise enough taps to go around with the shared trough.
Eviction Count: One eviction spotted – Marty got kicked out at the end of the night. 
DJs: Unknown
Music Style: Live Art Space Room: Hip Hop, Rap, 90′s Pop. Art After Hours Room: Old School RnB / Hip Hop / Pop / Rock. Little to no mixing performed. Pretty much nothing from the past 10 years was played at this time.
Crowd: Almost all Anglo-Saxon crowd, and mostly locals here. Ages look like it varies between teenagers to more mid 20′s to early 30′s. Hard to tell in the dark.
Ratio: It was pretty even, with a slight tendency towards guys at times, which is surprising at this time of night.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: Both room were quite busy and near capacity. People are all into the mood, and with minimal seating, people are forced to dance. It got a bit stuffy in the smaller Art After Hours room but that comes with the extra people. After about 2:30 numbers started to quickly drop, and people were all forced to move to the larger Live Art Space room to keep the vibe going. Smart move. Overall people are quite happy to dance and mingle tonight.
Video: 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arrivederci - kicked out
Marty and some drunk girl sat up on the stage area and she proceeded to pull him to standing up position on stage, for what was presumably an impromptu dance. Suddenly within seconds, bouncers POUNCED on Marty and kicked him out!! Hahaha oh shit. Well that was the end of the night here. The drunk girl remained in the club as we left to quickly follow Marty out. Oh the injustice of it all.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
A popular place with the locals, and with free entry and reasonably priced drinks with good classic music, I can’t see why it can’t go wrong. Despite the rain and Stereosonic the next day there was quite a big turn out. A cloak room would help though. I liked it, but Marty wasn’t so into it.

Score: 7.5/10

Far end of the bar. Looking towards the dancefloor.

Chamber Fridays @ Hotel Chambers
Assessment Time: 11:45PM – 1:35AM
Opening Hours: 9PM – Unknown (3AM?)
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 53 Martin Place (It’s on the corner of Elizabeth St and Martin Place, across the road from Martin Place Bar)
Venue Website: http://www.hotelchambers.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.cliqueevents.com.au
Occurrence: Tonight was the grand opening, to be run every Friday for as long as possible.
Outside Line: No line upon entry.
Dress Code / Door Policy: People were either well dressed, or casually dressed – but casually dressed in a good way, not a daggy way. Hats were allowed as well as sneakers.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: We paid $20 for entry. The promo poster mentions $15 all night entry – this might be for people on a guestlist, but I don’t know. We also got a free shot of a red thing upon entry!! Good value but not such a good taste.
Guestlist: Try a promoter, otherwise send to admin@cliqueevents.com.au. $15 on guestlist??

Inside: The venue layout is pretty “rectangular”, being long and narrow. The entry is on the West end – walk into the standing area where there isn’t much except some lounges tucked away on the right. The DJ is on the far East end. In between are numerous lounges along one wall, while the bar sits on the middle opposite wall on the other side. The walking path was about 5-7 people wide. At the DJ area where most of the dance action is, there isn’t much room. This is not just a dance area but also a thoroughfare area to the lounges  behind the DJ, meaning potentially more crowded conditions. It appeared they had at least 3 or 4 birthday areas reserved just on this side of the club behind the DJ. Anyway the standing room was quite small – to fit about 20 people, otherwise you will just have to dance somewhere a bit further out.
Cloak Room: $3 per item as far as I remember. Pretty good value. Though we didn’t see anybody manning the cloak room, so I don’t know if it was in use today of it was a leftover sign from a previous night. The umbrella that we brang was kindly offered by the promoter to be left at the reception desk for tonight.
Bar Prices / Line: Bartender charged us $5 each for 2 bottles of Smirnoff Double black – so good! We told him how good the pricing here was. Then he told us it was a mistake – it was $10 per bottle of Smirnoff. Goddamnit. Still okay pricing.
Bathroom Facilities: It was quite chat in the Mens. There was only one basin and someone had already decided to deposit the contents of his stomach all over it and clog it up. Not cool. More than enough room to find a urinal to pee.
Eviction Count: None spotted, though to keep things orderly, there was an RSA Marshall, pacing the club looking for drunk people. Last time I saw one of these guys was at Club Fusion down at Cronulla. No drunken antics allowed here I guess.
DJs: A mix of DJ’s tonight. Eko / Sirdee / Sivi / Nacho Pop / Wendy Samantha.
Music Style: It appeared each DJ had their own style. When we entered approaching midnight, we got commercial Rnb, then from 12-1AM it was mostly Commercial House (Think Ministry of Sound), then after 1am it was old school RnB. Basically it was a different genre every hour during peak time. Yet somehow, just somehow, they managed to double up some songs during the night. Groooan. Nobody cares apparently, so long as the repeated song is “Low” by Lil Jon.
Crowd: Earlier on it looked like some corporates were still here, assuming from a Friday night after work drinks, maybe about 10-20 when we got in. The rest of the crowd were a mix of Asians, Indians and Euros. It also looked like some people were also here to support some of the acts here and the DJs (Note to Self: Get T-shirts emblazoned with my name on the back). Ages varied wildy from young 20′s to 30′s.
Ratio: Slightly more men than women tonight.
Entertainment: MC hosting throughout the night. Also there were two artists who performed one or two of their original songs for the crowd to dance to. One of the guests played a bit of drums to add to the music, worked quite well actually, though he did seem a bit sick of playing it after a while.
Atmosphere: In terms of numbers there were probably 100 people at any one time until around 1:15 when people began to leave. It was at this time the lights got turned down. Before this time, the lights were dimly lit on, giving a relaxed, friendly kind of warm feel. Most people hung around the one corner near the DJ so it did seem to appear busy. Basically on the dancefloor it was busy and quite friendly, but everywhere else, it was a pretty sparse – you could get a lounge at any time if you wanted in the far ended areas. On the main floor people were in their own groups dancing and chatting, though it was a bit loud for some of the girls I overheard. It was also pretty warm in the middle of the floor, but at the entrance and the back lounges, it was pretty cool.
Video: Walkthrough & Music Sample

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline

A special guest, all the way from…  ”.. all the way from Sydney’s West!” Was the proclaimation. You would think it would have been somewhere with more glitz and glam after the build up moments beforehand. I couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Anyway the guest was an 18 year old Tim Batista who confidently stood up, said some words and performed some rap songs. Pretty cool, I congratulated him afterwards.

Whinging for his song to be played
Paul Lizzy all the way from overseas is the other performer. In return, he seems to have agreed to a one hour stint of being MC and playing the drums, which he does quite well but with with a bit of reluctance. You could tell he was super keen for his track to be played though, as everytime the DJ ended tracks, he would tell the DJ via microphone “Play my track play my track”, but the DJ kept teasing him by playing other tracks, LOL. This was followed up by a glance at the DJ booth, where this big mean ass looking dude was just staring at Lizzy, as if to telepathically tell him to keep going. Anyway he kept whinging and finally his track got played. I mean it’s fine to whinge, but don’t whinge up on stage in front of everyone to hear. It wasn’t a nice impression. I didn’t congratulate him afterwards.

Paul Lizzy at work

Arrivederci
There’s only so much time you can spend in one small area to dance before you get a bit tired of it. We left at 1:30AM to continue the journey to attain 24 hours of clubbing. Security recommended us to head on to a gay club for some daytime clubbing such as Arq or Phoenix Bar. Sure thing!

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
A combination of bad weather and Steresonic festival the next day dampened numbers for tonight (Friends reported that other clubs were similarly low on numbers) but still a respectable number turned up. I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt just for this weekend, but it would be interesting to see how it goes the next few months. Though the random mix of rnb/house/rnb may not be for everyone (I like all genres so I was happy with it). Promoters that we spoke to tonight were also quite friendly, so at least this venue is in good hands.

Overall score: 5.5/10

Thought you might like this irrelevant photo (Back Room)

I’ve heard bits and pieces about the redesigned place, and the opportunity came to visit it tonight – time to check it out!

Saturdays @ FakeClub (Empire Hotel Level 2), Kings Cross : formerly “Plantation Bar “
Review Note: This is the extended, personalised, version of the short review written for the Best Clubs In website,  found at http://www.thebestclubsin.com/sydney/fake-club . 
Assessment Time:11:40PM – 1:35AM
Opening Hours: 09:00PM – 06:00/07:00AM
Lockout: I don’t think there was any form of lockout, partly due to the extended opening times.
Address: Roslyn St. It’s on level 2 of Empire Hotel. This is the same venue/event formerly known as The Temple, formerly known as Plantation (Bar).
Venue Website: http://www.fakeclub.com.au
Promoter Website: Self promoted.
Occurrence: Every Saturday. The event is also open on Fridays, Sundays as well for other events with different music styles.
Outside Line: There was nobody in line as we entered. There was, though, a small crowd outside having a smoke, so at least you knew the place was at least populated.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty much you could wear as you please, excluding thongs. The relaxed dress code today might have been influenced a big chunk of the patrons coming from Creamfields festival earlier in the day, with whatever they were wearing – they are easily spotted with their singlets and shorts. . The rest of the crowd wore casual or smart casually dressed. The door policy was pretty relaxed – we were not scanned by security for any dangerous items.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 was entry. $15 entry if you wore a Creamfields wristband. Discount/Free before 10PM, which isn’t much leeway.
Guestlist: Guestlist ended at 10PM.
Inside: After walking up the (what appeared to be) fire exit stairs, you will be presented with a room which resembles a large garage or a small warehouse. High ceiling dotted with stability columns around the edges. To the left is the dance floor area to hold probably 100-150 people, with DJ on the West wall. Large LED screen intallation spans the DJ booth and rises up 3 metres or so close to the ceiling. To the South side are a handful of medium sized reserved lounge areas to hold parties for 20 people or so. To the right is the main bar for length of about 10 people. The North side is just pure wall, and the bathroom. The back room, hard to find, is located just adjacent to the main bar via a closed door. Walk inside to enter a smaller room – it can only hold 20 people squishily on the floor itself. DJ on the far end, while a makeshift bar on a table is on the left. Futons and lounges dot the walls here.
Cloak Room: None Found. Noted were people leaving their stuff around the place.
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight but the line was pretty busy – it would be at least 15 minutes of waiting time at the bar. It’s also in thoroughfare between the two rooms so you’re awlways moving and bustling around.
Eviction Count: None that I spotted. It was pretty dark.
DJs: Resident Fake Bratpack DJ/s, Teenage Terror Squad, Bangers and Mash, Oh Glam, and more.
Music Style: Main room played different flavours of electronic house (this is not the same as electro) and dubstep, (except notably commercial flavours) during the time I was here. During times, there were a good 10-12 minutes of ‘dull’ time where the beat/rhythm of the music being played was not sustaining the crowd at all, and you could tell people were getting bored. I don’t think the DJ sensed this – or it was just a part of his plan to not have the crowd jumping around and have them relaxed instead? Who knows. The secondary room is Old School Rnb, Hip Hop and Rap, with some old boy band songs too. Think Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Eminem, Backstreet Boys – A tribute to the 90s and early 2000′s hip hop/rnb scene you would say. The mixing in the back room was non-existent here, as the DJ used a standard form of slow-stopping the track and moving on to the next one. She made up for the lack of this by picking some good tunes and even dancing up and singing with the crowd.
Crowd & Ratio: Primarily local Australians / Caucasians here. We are one of two Asian groups tonight, and there are some islander groups. Gay friendly. The ratio was 65/35 male/female from best estimates. A good proportion of the crowd here are also from the Creamfields festival event earlier. This helps keep the average age here at about…. 19. haha.. well in all fairness the crowd was pretty young anyway. There are some folk in late 20′s and I saw a bloke who was definitely in his 30′s, but the place is pretty dark so its hard to spot anyone else older. Pretty OTT amongst some of the crowd here, with crowd surfing and people dancing on the speakers here.
Entertainment: MC for the main room to keep things going.
Atmosphere:
Pretty dark atmosphere here in the main room, with the LED light wall providing the main source of photons. It’s a blur of noise, the LED lights from the DJ area as well as constant strobic lighting giving the passive person’s first time out a very overwhelming experience. The people in this room seem a bit cold.. had a girl with ADD shove me and other people aside to get to the front without apologizing or anything – shameful. Otherwise the music is the focus here tonight. Also the first thing I wanted to do was take my jacket off when I walked in, so be aware of the warmth here.

In the backroom, it is more well lit and as the room is smaller, it does have more of a cosy vibe but can be overrun with the amount of people trying to fit in here. The atmosphere is more vibrant with people singing along to the music of years gone by. Sadly though the room died at around 1:30AM, arouns the same time the DJs were switched. Unknown how the room progressed later in the night.
Video: Main Room and Back Room: Walkthrough and Music Sample Timeline

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
Welcome to Skin Club
As mentioned, its quite warm in here, so its no surprise that the MC has decided to take his shirt off, step up onto the DJ booth, in front of the LED screen, and proudly show off his chiseled body to the women of the crowd, who are literally jumping out of their seats and taking photos and video footage of the guy posing. I can’t blame them, as the place was to dark to see anybody else. Then if that wasn’t enough, he took off his pants as well and stood there in his jocks. Taste… taste!

Alright, got a bit tired of him strutting around, so went to the back room for some Old School love. DJ is up and pumping her fists in the air and the crowd is chanting along. Pretty cool. Then the DJ decides to lift her dress up and flash her rack! What was that I just saw? She did it a second time in case anyone missed it. Okay – That was freaking awesome. Don’t think I’m deprived, I just thought it was amazingly something you dont excpect a female DJ to do. at. all. It totally made up for having to stare at the shape of the MC’s crotch in the main room.

The state of affairs in the bathroom
I love how some bathrooms have only ONE basin. Such as one bedroom apartments. This is a club, and we only had one basin (for the small bathroom I must admit). Unfortunately someone in a moment of stupdendor decided to smash the basin down to the ground and obliterate it to pieces. This meant that theoretically no male who visited the bathroom (including myself) had clean hands. Wiping your hands on your jeans doesn’t count!

Something I haven’t heard of in a while
Spotted by M were two people openly sniffing a liquid substance. I don’t know what it is, but it’s definitely not someone sharing their prescribed legal medication with another person. I suppose I’ve been so sheltered in the clubs I’ve been going to that I forgot that this aspect of clubbing does still exist. Perhaps I’m not looking hard enough. Though despite this nobody else was visually seen taking up substances.

Arrivederci
My Asian RnB loving friends are not fans of this place at all and I have relented at 1:30AM

Recommendation
Obviously you need to be a fan of the music, as demonstrated by my friends, who didn’t like it. I’ve kept an open mind about the music in the main room – at times it was good, and at times it wasn’t so good, even for the others here – but it was more on the good side. The vibe is up there but it would have been nice if the DJ / MC combo was able to sustain the excellent vibe consistently through the night.  

Saturdays @ Fake Club (Empire Hotel): 6/10 (Only if you like the music in the main room!) Otherwise don’t go.

Macquarie Hotel: Bar area - Dancefloor behind the white wall

Easter Monday @ Macquarie Hotel Liverpool Sydney

Assessment Time: 10:30PM – 02:15AM
Opening Hours: It’s open all day until 3AM, but I think the DJ starts at 10PM or earlier
Lockout: No lockout I believe
Address: 269 Liverpool St, Liverpool, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.macquariehotelliverpool.com.au
Promoter Website: Self Promoted event
Occurrence: A once off event for Easter Monday
Outside Line: No line outside. It was like this pretty much the entire night, so its good.
Dress Code / Door Policy: No hats allowed inside. There is no recommendation by promkoters, but the majority here are wearing casual clothing – t-shirts, jeans, hoodie jackets. Guys wearing t-shirts, and girls wearing simple dresses tonight.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free entry all night
Inside: Walk inside past the gaming area (and secondary bar) to enter a large room split into two areas. “Open air” Smoking dancefloor at the front to hold 120 people or so. DJ out at front and bar at the back, where you stand.
Cloak Room: No cloak room tonight
Bar Prices / Line: $11 for a can of Smirnoff Double Black. $5 for a glass of house red wine (it was pretty bitter). Early and later in the night there isn’t much of a line, but during peak time the line is about 4 people deep – so approximately a wait of 15 minutes, but I didn’t even try – just head over to the other side in the gaming lounge where the smaller secondary bar is – there are usually fewer people so you may have a chance of getting your drinks sooner – however the choice is more limited here. BUT… they did give out free pastries and pies from the kitchen. We helped ourselves to a handful of these delicious goodies to go with whatever you are drinking. It took us a good 2 minutes to convince a group of girls nearby that the pies were, indeed, free.
Eviction Count: None that I saw. Crowd looked well-behaved tonight anyways.
Music Style: From the start to about 1:30 it was primarily commercial RnB with the house mashup song thrown in. 1:30-2:00AM it was very trancey with some rock song remixes thrown in, just to mix it up. The crowd didn’t seem very receptive to the unknown trance songs (no vocals), and the rock songs such as Kings of Leon, were so-so. From 2:00AM until close, it was pretty much entirely American hip hop / rap / West Coast, whatever you wish to call it. I’m familiar with the songs and dance to it but friends are not familiar with these songs.
Crowd & Ratio: Initially composed of visitors who were here earlier in the day, the ratio is 50/50 Asian and European/Middle Eastern guys here. Ages varied wildly between early 20′s to late 40′s. I am pretty sure I saw a woman here who was at least 40 or 50 – probably here for a birthday. However don’t be surprised if you see a much older crowd here. Mostly though, the crowd would be in their 20′s. Ratio wise, I would be saying 65%:35% at its best during peak.
Entertainment: An MC to keep things going. I must note he was pretty good at his freestyling and keeping the crowd alive. I might have just probably paid more attention tonight to him, but MCing isn’t an easy job, that is for sure.
Atmosphere: 10:30-11:00PM it was still building up, so not much dancing to be had, but by the time 11:00PM came around, the dance floor was pretty busy, but you could always find yourself some space to dance around – we found a spot at the front and danced our merry way without much problem. Again the front here is considered an open area, because of the open roof (which was pretty much closed due to the rain), and so smoking was more than welcome here. I dislike cigarette smoke muchly, but such is the venue. To alleviate the smoke smell as well as possible overheating issues, mists of water are sprayed down on the crowd occasionally, which is pretty cool (ha!)
Video: Walkthrough and music montage

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pies on the house

The turn out

I think in general it wasn’t going off as it does on the weekend, but for a Monday night it is quite the extraordinary turn out I must admit. It also helped that there was no event going on at Nox nightclub down the road; all locals have to come here.

Western Sydney is awesome
I met someone who was from Adelaide – she said tonight was better than ANY club in Adelaide! Are you kidding me? That’s hilarious, to have this nightclub an hour away from the city bigger than anything in Adelaide – but I have to see it for myself. I think a trip to Adelaide is in order …

Arrivederci
Left at 2:00AM. Friends looked a bit tired and aren’t fans of the West Coast Rap music. (I personally like it)

Recommendation
It was alright during its peak time, but I wasn’t too excited. A once off so no score given.

Pumphouse Crowd Main Floor II

Mix @ Pumphouse
Assessment Time: 11:30PM – 02:40AM
Opening Hours: 10/10.30 – 3/4AM?
Lockout: Didn’t appear to be a lockout when we left.
Address: 17 Little Pier St, Darling Harbour, Sydney. It is right next to the Entertainment Centre.
Venue Website: http://www.pumphousebar.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.thesyndicateevents.com.au http://www.myspace.com/colab3000
Occurrence: Tonight was a relaunch of the event, but at time of writing it is unknown whether it is a regular event.
Outside Line: There wasn’t much of a line at all. There were 3 patrons in front of us lining up. Very quick.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Most attire is accepted tonight. Most girls dressed well with heels. Guys were a mix of collared shirts and normal t-shirts with jeans. Hats were allowed in here. Chucks / sneakers are allowed. It’s a very casual scene tonight.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $15 for pre-sale tickets. Otherwise $25 at the door.
Guestlist: I’m not sure. This appeared to be a pre-paid ticketed event and not a guestlisted event.
Inside: Entry is through the side of the covered patio on ground level. The cloak room can be found here. Walk to your left into the main open area to a wooden dancefloor to hold around 150 people. Various lounges line the 2 walls. A stairwell on the left and the sole bar to the right cover the other two walls. Overhead along three walls is Level 1, where the DJ is positioned as well as extra chairs, lounges and patio. You are able to look down upon the crowd from here. Smoking take place outside the entrance.
Cloak Room: $3 per item. Perfect.
Bar Prices / Line: You would have to wait 1 or 2 orders before you got your turn here. Around a 5 minute wait. Prices unknown.
DJs: Moto, Edo, Biggie, Bonniez, Flipsta, Stunna
Music Style: Tonight is American contemporary RnB, and the DJ list reflects this. There are also some house songs and old school 90′s and 00′s RnB songs thrown in. There wasn’t anything to complain about here, it was a good safe typical rnb mix of songs.
Crowd & Ratio: Crowd is mostly Asian Australian. Age would be low 20′s to high 20′s on average, from what I could ascertain. There are also some regular dancers here who show off their dancing at times. Ratio wise, there were of course more guys than girls here, but just enough girls to not become a sausage fest.
Entertainment: MC Phili to keep things going.
Atmosphere: The dancefloor is busy throughout the night. Upstairs is pretty dead throughout, even though it is open access to all patrons. Most people kept to themselves here – the socialising was done outside.
Video: 370 view from the corner of the dancefloor

Click here to view the embedded video.

Verdict (Assessment time: 1:30AM)
It was worse than it was before. Only the main room has a DJ, while the back courtyard area is pure chillout with no house DJ as it used to be. The Islanders make the majority of the crowd here, which was pretty much the same before the 40/40 cover charge period.

The place was pretty sparse as well – no more than 20 on the dancefloor tonight at this time.

Really dodgy walkthrough Video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arrivederci
Left after about 10 minutes here.

Recommendation
It’s free entry so why not check it out while going by? I wouldn’t spend a night here though.. yet.

Dancefloor under UV light - O2 Nightclub Sydney

Oxygen Saturdays @ O2 Nightclub Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:15PM – 04:00AM
Opening Hours: 9:00PM – 5:00AM
Lockout: None. I had a friend enter freely at 3:00AM
Address: 247 Pitt St, Sydney. There are no clear visible signs to get to the door. Enter the mall via the “Coolabar” sign – there might be a red carpet and standing poster to point users to the O2 nightclub. Head up two sets of escalators to reach level two, where O2 nightclub resides, opposite Coolabar itself. It is also where the Monorail station is located. Bear in mind that O2 and Coolabar are two separate venues on the same level.
Venue Website: http://www.o2nightclub.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.meentertainment.com.au
Occurrence: Every Saturday night.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual is ok. hats are ok. On the door it was stated that “absolutely no Sports Gear allowed”, because this is the place where NRL players head to go clubbing after a big match, right? Right? (the answer is no). Tonight’s theme is a White Party. Most girls wore casual dresses. A lot of the guys here were dressed in urban street gear, complete with hats and sometimes even sunglasses. I saw a T-Pain lookalike in here, you get a glimpse of him on the dancefloor walkthrough video. I really should have research before coming here tonight – Gandalf the white would have made an easy return, but I guess not tonight.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Guestlist pricing unknown. $25 full cover charge. $20 if you were wearing white.  My friend got in at 3AM for free after waiting a few moments for the door girl to pack up to go home. That’s an asian for you.
Guestlist: info@meentertainment.com.au
Inside: Walk inside to the main room on the right and the bar/lounge on the left. Bar on the left spans half the length of the venue. Around the corner near the bar are lounges / bathroom / cloak room / chill out area for 40 or so people. Back to the dancefloor, the DJ takes one corner of the wooden floor to hold about 100-140 people. There is also an upper area with a second bar – this can be reserved for special functions, and has a dancing pole and dancefloor for 20-30 people. The dance area is bathed in UV light.
Cloak Room: Cloak room services offered but it was full tonight. FULL AT 11.15PM. Ridiculous. People are putting their belongings on tables and stools nearby and hope for the best. We left our jackets behind one of the speakers on the dancefloor. At the end of the night, my jacket was covered in someone’s spilled drink. Sigh.
Bar Prices / Line: $4 for an Orange Juice. (yes, I was not drinking tonight) . Fishbowl size drinks are offered at the bar and many people are buying them.
DJs: No idea.
Music Style: Most of the songs tonight were of RnB, but this place was heavily guilty of playing Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” at least 3 times during the night. Utterly sick of that song to death now. Otherwise there were some hip hop/rap songs thrown into the mix later in the night after 1AM. There was also some house songs thrown in for mashup.
Crowd: From 11-1.30ish, it was a mixed crowd. The two main groups were Euros and Africans. There were a handful of Asians, but we were the main Asian group in here. After 1.30am, most of the white crowd had left and more of the Africans came in. Hard to tell the age of the crowd, but there was a Hen’s night here, and some older looking folk, so the crowd would be ranging from their early 20′s to early 30′s.
Entertainment: an MC to keep things going. Tonight was a white theme, so there were white balloons dotted around the place.
Atmosphere: On the dancefloor and upper level, it was pretty busy throughout the night. Not packed, but busy enough to not be able to dance freely. On the other side though, the lounge was never really full at all – you could usually find a lounge seat to rest on. When we left, the main dancefloor was still going at about 70 per cent capacity, which is very good for any place. Throughout the whole night it was pretty cool temperature wise – only one or two moments where I felt a little warm after some vigorous dancing – you could however escape to another area of the club to cool down. People mostly kept to themselves except if you knew other people here.
Video: 360 of the dancefloor

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

People are actually in white
The last ‘White’ party I went to was at Bamboo, and in terms of people dressed in white, it pretty much failed. Here tonight though, almost everyone was in white. Agh! I feel so left out. Don’t trust Asians to dress up in theme.

.. but there is such thing as a free cake!
So after about 2AM there was no more guy guarding VIP area, and we walked in. Actually the guy guarding it came back right after we got in. So we technically snuck in. Hmm. But anyways, there was a plate of about 100 chocolate chip cupcakes sitting on the table uneaten all night. I, as an Asian, had to do my duty. So I ate these things all night. Pretty delicious. I forgot to ask for a doggy bag. The VIP area in itself was nice – we could actually dance here freely while still being able to oversee the main dancefloor. There was also an easy access lounge and dancing pole if need be.

Free choc chip cupcakes!! Friend thought it was disgusting. Do you think I care?

Arrivederci
Left at 4AM, just to being tired. I can’t believe people were still in here when we left.

Recommendation
If you don’t mind hanging out with Africans and want a cooler change of atmosphere, with the same rnb music you expect from the other clubs, then do check it out. I was a little apprehensive at first but its not as bad as I thought. Cloak room needs more space as well. A wet jacket didn’t bode well for me. Do come with friends, as people tend to keep to their own in here, I think.

Oxygen O2 Saturdays @ O2 Nightclub Sydney - 7/10

After multiple times coming here after 3AM, it was time to give this place a fair go. Guestlist sorted out, so here we go!

Zaia @ Space Nightclub
Assessment Time: 10:30PM – 04:00AM 
Opening Hours: No idea on when doors actually open. Possibly 09:45PM – 04:00AM 
Lockout: None 
Address: Level 3, 127 Liverpool St, Sydney 
Venue Website: http://www.spacevenue.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.phatentertainment.com.au
Occurence: Every Friday. 
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual allowed. Hats allowed. My sneakers were allowed in. Basically anything goes here. Guys were a mix of casual and collared shirts/dress shoes. Girls were mostly in dresses. 
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: (On guestlist) – Free before 10PM, $20 between 10PM – 11:15PM, $25 afterwards. If you ain’t on the guestlist, it’s a $25 flat charge. There is no separate guestlist line. 
Guestlist / Birthday Package: Sent mine through musesydney@yahoo.com.au, the 3rd party promoters for Zaia. Reserved area was sorted out for M’s birthday, but no birthday free passes were given to us as promised, despite protests at the register. Package included bottle of champagne, which was given in the form of drink passes. However no cloak room pass was given, nor VIP table service. Admittedly there were 20-30 birthdays tonight, and I did not specifically ask for free entry, cloak room pass or VIP table service, but I did ask for the birthday party package which, I was told, would include these things. A birthday boy or girl DOES NOT have to go through the motions to ask for these birthday things. 
Inside: Please note Space has been renovated since early 2010. Walk up the stairs to the Shark Hotel level, where red carpet and cash register awaits your money. No longer are the elevators used to enter the venue. Walk up another flight of stairs to enter Space Nightclub into the Trance room. The wooden dancefloor has been largened to accommodate more people. A stereoscopic light has been installed which dishes out some funky light patterns. Dancefloor holds about 40 people capacity. Bar servicing this room on the right, and an internal smoking room at the rear to hold about 20 people, like you see at some airports. Enter the bigger room via either of the two doors to be presented with a large dancefloor for about 300-400 people. Tonight, the cage podiums have been rid of! Instead, a catwalk like setup has been created, right into the middle front of the dancefloor, for the bikini contest later on. Two single podiums reside next to each of the columns holding the ceiling up.
Cloak Room: $10 Large Items, $5 small items. $3 Recheck. Ridiculous pricing as usual from this promoter. 
Bar Prices: $8.50 for a Vodka Cranberry. There are two bars tonight, and the shorter lines were always on the Trance Room side. People at the RnB side waited about 20 minutes for a drink, while in the Trance Room I waited about 5-10 minutes. 
Music Style: Primarily RnB in the large room, with some hip hop later in the night and some house mashups thrown in the mix as well. Repeats of songs were experienced – Mixing was done well though
Crowd: Primarily local Asians. A handful of white people, but I would say no more than 10 or 20 in total. 
Entertainment: Bikini Party – Competition for a $5000 first prize. More details later. Also podiums to which only girls were allowed to dance on in the earlier part of the night.
Atmosphere: RnB: It wasn’t too busy at 11, but at around 11:30 it pretty much picked up and peaked until around 2AM – 2:30AM when the bikini contest concluded. Dancefloor was pretty busy throughout – you had room to dance around, and only about half the time you had to move around to let other people through. In the Trance Room, the trance music really only came on at around 11:30PM, and you always had enough room to bounce around and spin and do stuff, but it always managed to stay busy enough to not look too dead. In general the crowd vibe was friendly. The rest of the non dancers just stood around the edges of the dancefloor or lounges. 
Trance: Dark throughout the night, smoke machines, and flashy nights with loud noise. People are more reserved here as we are all about dancing. Pretty warm and stuffy in here as well as the night wore on.

Video: Walk-through – Trance room , RnB room, smoking room, back into the trance room.

[VIDEO REMOVED  on request by Phat Entertainment ]

Video: Trance Room 360
[VIDEO REMOVED on request by Phat Entertainment]

Video: RnB Room 720
[VIDEO REMOVED on request by Phat Entertainment]

Timeline
Surrounded by dudes

Hooray! We have a reserved area. Just the two of us, as friends decided to fall sick tonight, and some bailed out last minute because they didn’t want to pay entry, which was a shame. But look – ALREADY TWO RANDOM DUDES ARE SITTING ON THE COUCH. WDF??? Ok, so we just sit down on the other chairs, and we are facing them. They are facing us. No words are spoken, as we are seated right next to the DJ area, and hence the loud speakers. We turn around and MORE DUDES have seated themselves around us. We are the centre of Mecca, and our pilgrim followers are in the form of dudes dress in hip hop / b-boy gear. I wasn’t quite feeling very comfortable here. All the guys were also sitting entirely in “Sophie’s Birthday” area – obviously there was nobody there who looked like a Sophie.

Stuff is manhandled
I despise the cloak room prices here. The line was pretty long anyway – 20 people deep. So I left it on the couch where the reserved area was. M and I dance for a bit, and come back to find someone has moved my bag and jacket to the other side of the couch. FUCKING RANDOMS MANHANDLING MY BAG. I felt so violated. I cannot express how angry I was. Later in the night some dude is sitting on my jacket. Fucking asshole. Just don’t sit there. It’s not your reserved area. Took my stuff and placed it in a dark corner. But James, just put it in the cloak room! All you do is whinge, you say. No, I am a stubburn tight ass.

Really hot in the Trance room
There are less people in here, yet somehow the place became so much more hotter. Was it poor ventilation? Was it that the dancers sweated much more in here? Was it the carpeted area? Was it Shark Hotel downstairs? It was always cooler in the RnB room, but even that at times got a bit heated, especialy in the middle of the dancefloor squished with other people.

The bikini contest
So tonight if you wore a bikini and entered the contest tonight, you could win $5000. Ridicously so much money. All you do is walk around, get stickers from people who liked you. Stickers are given to you when you buy a drink at the bar. Well, here are some videos of some real models in bikinis:
[VIDEO REMOVED on request by Phat Entertainment]

Here are the contestants:
[VIDEO REMOVED on request by Phat Entertainment]

Pretty much in the end the top 3 or 4 girls had an equal amount of stickers, and the MC just chose whoever he thought deserved it. 5000 dollars. Freaking hell that’s a shitload of money for 90 minutes of walking around and getting stickers.

Can’t hide from the noise
It’s loud in here. Firstly, our reserved area was next to the huge speakers installed in the RnB room. Secondly, it was loud throughout the venue. Even in the back it was pretty loud. It wasn’t deafening, but there just wasn’t any quiet area to have a conversation. Well, there was the smoking room and Shark Hotel downstairs but do you really want to leave your other friends to go downstairs, or spend your time talking in a smoking room and leave all smelly?

Started to die at around 2:30AM
It was funny, after the bikini contest finished, half the club left. Promoters were smart in delaying the announcement of the winners as late as possible.

Arrivederci

Spent most of the last hour in the Trance Room until close. Nobody really was dancing in the RnB room, and I felt more free here.

Recommendation
I personally didn’t like it. It was just these little things I mentioned above that probably contributed to setting my not so good mood for the night.

[Edit 16th September 2010] I can no longer recommend this event.

Zaia @ Space Nightclub Sydney – 4.5/10

Dancefloor area of Docks Hotel Sydney

A birthday invite at Docks Hotel. It coincided with the grand opening of the new rnb club event here, so here we go!

Rendezvous @ Docks Hotel, Darling Harbout Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:30PM – 02:00AM
Opening Hours: Early in the night – 03:00AM
Lockout: Did not ask. It didn’t look like there was one.
Address: Shop 255 Harbourside Shopping Centre – Near the big South Steyne Boat at Darling Harbour.
Venue Website: http://www.dockshotel.com.au
Promoter Website: I couldn’t read the poster well enough to find out who was promoting, but here is the event page for one of the DJs who was performing tonight: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120068251378791
Occurence: Every Friday
Dress Code / Door Policy: Most guys wore smart casual. There was no actual strict dress code and people can go in with hats, t-shirts, clean sneakers, etc. Girls all looked pretty good – pretty dressy.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge:$15 guestlist, $25 Full Entry
Guestlist: I have no idea. You would have to try your luck with the docks hotel management who would pass your details onto the promoters
Inside: Walk inside. To the left is an extended carpted lounge area for 50-70 people. To the right is the bar that runs for half the length of the place. On the far end is a curtained off area for private functions with a secondary bar.  Later it was open access for all.
Cloak Room: $5 per item
Bar Prices: I can’t remember, but there was at maximum 1 person in front of you in line at the main bar. Most of the time you could get service right away. At the secondary bar, the line was 4-5 deep with only one bartender. Didn’t make sense why they didn’t just go to the main bar.
DJs: Moto, Edo, Biggie, Flipsta, Cbu, Mike Hyper
Music Style: Contemporary RnB and classic Hip Hop near the end of the night
Crowd: Mixed crowd tonight of local Asians and Euros, Probably 70/30 was the ethnic ratio. Gender ratio was 50/50. Age of the crowd was in their 20′s Birthday girl was 24 I think, and other Euro girls we met were 28, so its quite a range.
Entertainment: The promotional poster stated “Special Performances” and “Free Shirt Giveaways”. Throughout the time I was there, I didn’t see or hear any announcement of T-shirt giveaways. Plus, what was the “Special Performances” -????? It was as though they just threw some words together to make it sound good, hoping that people didn’t really notice that there was no actual Special Performance of any sort at all. Well actually, I did see the MC perform a dancemove where he rolled his hat down the length of his arm, behind his head, to the other end of his arm – I thought that was pretty special. Eventually nothing eventuated. There is also girls only podium on the dancefloor.
Atmosphere: Underwhelming for a grand opening. I really didn’t pick up much notice of the opening of this new event. The place was probabaly at one quarter to one third capacity.
Video: Walkthrough Video at 12:15AM

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
It never picked up
I’ve been to Docks Hotel for many clubbing events, and only once has it ever reached capacity with two dancing areas. Tonight was probably the worst I’ve seen it. At the bar you could always get service at the main bar right away, and there were no more than 20 people on the dancefloor at the same time. The other half of the crowd was in the outside area smoking away. At around midnight, I was expecting a late surge of people, but it never eventuated. Pretty sad.

The podium of eviction
It’s only this year I’ve been introduced to the concept of girls-only up on the podium – At Home Bar when the DJ kicked me off, at The Bedroom Gold Coast where there was a sign saying “girls only on podium”, at Sanctuary Hotel when security walked up kicked me off, and then there was tonight. I hopped up, and not even 1 second into my dance routine, I was kicked off. Well, the security guard was actually already STANDING ON THE PODIUM and I snuck in behind him. The podium for about 6 people was occupied by one person for most of the night – that security guy.

The forbidden podium, guarded by Security.

A second dude braved it and danced up on the podium, but was ballsy enough to dance in front of mr podium security. Immediately he was escorted off the dance floor, and kicked out of Docks Hotel!! WHOA, he got kicked out for dancing on the podium?? I saw him waving his passport madly at the security guy until one of the City Rangers took over and continued escorting him away from the place, LOL. I shouldn’t laugh – he was honestly just having a good time and wasn’t causing trouble. So anyway, two further guys went up on the podium, and they, too, were kicked out by other security guards who were watching the podium. Unbelievable, seriously… never in the history of clubbing have I seen guys, irrelevant of state of inebriation, kicked out for dancing on the podium. It was an utter shamble. However it did help with the ratio of men/women on the dance floor.

an early death
People started filing out at around 1:30, when the hip hop started to play. Was I the only one singing to “Who Am I” by Snoop Dogg? Oh wait, there was one other girl, but that was it. People these days need to get acquainted with Classic West Coast Rap.

Arrivederci
By 2AM this place was pretty dead. Birthday girl left as well. Time to find somewhere else to dance.

Recommendation
Despite the nice venue, good music and good-looking crowd, there just was not enough people here. Also the eviction of the men who got up on the podiums was pretty out there. I cannot see myself coming back here or having a birthday here.

Rendezvous (Grand Opening) @ Docks Hotel: 3.5/10

Posing during the podium tryouts - Verandah Bar

Verandah Bar Crowd around 11:30PM

Timeline

We lined up first in line and we were whisked inside within 5 minutes. I would happily pay the extra $5 to go inside rather than wait outside in the freezing cold. Though, there should be at least signs put up telling the punters that this line was the non-guestlist line. There was no doubt, other non-guestlist people lining up in that massive line, and the back half were going to miss out on the discount action once the clock struck midnight. Poor souls. I am hoping this will be rectified, especially after this review

Drunk dude is kicked out

Fight 1: