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.

with a local

Saturdays @ Club 22, Papanui, Christchurch, New Zealand

Assessment Time: 11:00 PMish – 1:30AM
Opening Hours: 8:00PM – 2:00AM
Lockout: Unknown, but we were told at 1:30 we were not allowed back in if we left.
Address: 22 Harewood Road, Papanui, Christchurch, New Zealand
Venue Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Club-22/121971104547871 There are no other websites.
Promoter Website: Self Promoted
Occurrence: Every Saturday since the club opened in April 2011. Club 22 is also open on Thursdays, Fridays as well. 
Outside Line: I don’t recall any line there. We got in after showing our Australian Passports. Security were friendly enough to give us some flack for being Aussie
Dress Code / Door Policy: The dress code was promoted as casual. Pretty much anyone can get in wearing their pajamas if they wanted to. Most people dressed casually or dressed smart casual. There were a handful of guys who had top hats. Marty has my punk wig on and it seems to be accepted. After 5 minutes inside the club I got asked by a second security guard if I was allowed in with wearing of my pirate hat, and I said yes. I was pretty sure I was targeted for being too sexy. So the hat policy is questionable. 
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $5 for both men and women after 10 O’clock. Before 10PM it was free entry tonight. Not sure if this was a short promotion or a permanent entry fee thing. Regardless, as I have mentioned in another post, $5 is ridiculously cheap compared to $20/$25 in Sydney, but the locals still don’t like it, as every single other bar/pub/club in the area country is free entry. The club is still also haunted by the scandal of $22 entry fees for guys and free entry for girls when it first opened. 
Guestlist: Unsure, but very unlikely as entry is only $5. You can try club22club@gmail.com and ask if they have bookings, but what would be the point. 

Inside: Walk inside to enter the main open room. Bar right on the opposite end staffed by 2-3 personnel, and to the right along the wall is an elevated area for about 8-10 lounges. The ceiling is quite high and on the far right wall is a floor-ceiling dance pole. Smoking and seating area is behind here as well. There is little barrier between the smoking area and the immediate area inside the club, so you will get a whiff of the smoke if you hang around here. The main dancefloor is contained within a room to hold approximately 160-200 people. Entry is via two doors, one at the entry and one near the bar. Within the room there is a second bar attended by 2 staff members. Along one of the walls is a bench but it pretty much is used as a podium. DJ booth is on the opposite wall to the bar.
Cloak Room: Cloak service is available according to the website, but I couldn’t find a cloak area. It is probably done at the bar, but I can’t tell, as I didn’t use the services tonight.
Bar Prices / Line: I didn’t drink tonight, but I did have to line up for water. The wait at the main bar was quite long at about 10 minutes. Inside was the same story. It was just a matter of waiting it out. We were told by some of the regulars that if you knew some the bartenders then you could get lucky and get a bit of extra alcohol for your buck! Oh damn.
Bathroom Facilities: Appeared quite clean, I didn’t have to wait.
Eviction Count: There were a handful of evictions that I did see, in particular one of a guy who was just drunk, and standing against the wall with his beer in his hand. Security were quick to kick him out, even if he wasn’t causing trouble. Me and Marty had a bit of a dance outside the main room as well, in the general bar area – but we danced a bit too vigorously and were asked by security to basically slow down the pace of the dancing for the sake of other people. Haha to be asked to stop dancing in a club.. amazing, but I guess it had to be done for the sake of the general public who weren’t here to dance. Theres quite a heavy police present inside and outside the club – the club has been noted to attract a lot of drunk people who wander the streets, urinating on innocent residents property, as well as to start trouble.
DJs: Resident DJ Mike T all night. Hooray for no song repeats!
Music Style: This was a mix of house and rnb i believe. Unfortunately my camera ran out of juice so I couldn’t sample the music tonight. Later in the night it was mostly house a mix of commercial and unknown stuff. It kind of turned me off when I wasn’t familiar with the tunes, and I wasn’t going to hang around in the stuffy room.
Crowd: Mostly a younger crowd here teenagers, low 20′s kind of crowd. The majority, if not everyone, are locals here, not many backpackers / foreigners were here. This is truly also a mixed crowd – Indians, Africans, Kiwis, us Aussies, Asians, Wogs, whatever goes, goes.
Ratio: A tremendous sausage fest ratio early in the night, but it did get a little better as the night picked up. Initially the girls were in the dance room but nearing the end of the night they were more in the lounge area of the club.
Entertainment: Hired professional pole dancers go up and do a show for us, and the way they dance… Oh My Lord-Of-The-Rings, they are good at what they do. A must see.
Atmosphere: initially early on in the night there isn’t much going on. People are slowly tricking into the club, and it only starts to seriously pick up in the dance room at around midnight. The whole venue is indeed purpose built for a club-like atmosphere. The lounges are here, the strobes and flashy lights, loud soundsystem, no smoke machine though. In the main dance room, the ventilation is quite poor here, and combined with the bustling crowd it gets pretty hot, very quickly. Just standing around and slowly swaying left and right is enough to get you sweaty and uncomfortable when the place gets packed. People are generally quite friendly and here to dance and have a good time. Outside in the lounge its more chilled, people are generally chatting or just .. chilling out.

Timeline
Outfits
We still had out outfits from New Years Eve – Wheres Wally, Punk Wig, Captain Jack Sparrow. It was the last night so we might as well dress up for the fun of it, ahha. Martin dons the Pink punk wig and I go for Jack Sparrow, without make up. I really wish that they had a socially accepted man version of eye-liner, but unfortunately they do not have such items yet. Regardless, the sole purpose of the outfits was to rip it up the only way we know how and leave New Zealand, before New Zealand makes us leave. Needless to say hooray these simple little costumes work wonders, and we are the life of the party damnit! Not only that, we created the damn party since everyone else wasn’t dancing at all. 

A brief history of Club 22 (as summarised by the many people who shared their stories with me)
- Earthquake hits Christchurch. Nightlife is gone
- Club 22 opens, 22 being the location on the street as well as the coincidentally the date of the earthquake
- Initially $22 for guys and Free for girls. A few weeks later it was $5 even after government intervention. Patrons have never let this down and the stigma still lingers, that that this club is out to get your money.
- Lots of drunk people can be found outside
- Huge fight late 2011 resulted in an increased police presence for patron safety.
- This is still the only good club in Christchurch.
- Some of the people don’t like coming here, but have no other choice and come here anyway. Whether people love it or lump it, they won’t forget this club for sure.
- We arrived.

Once Upon a time in Christchurch
This entire trip, pretty much every club that was visited in New Zealand was all Caucasian with perhaps some Maori people. However tonight was the first time we saw A GROUP OF ASIANS. Not just one group, but MULTIPLE GROUPS OF ASIANS. It only took until the last day of our trip to find out that Asian people were also hiding in Christchurch! What amazement. Imagine not eating rice for 10 days, and then suddently you see rice. (Obviously this entire paragraph only makes sense if you are Asian. Otherwise replace the word “rice” with your ethnic food of choice, be it savlouki, kebabs, hot dogs, samosa, etc. ) You can’t help but say hello.

I had to talk to these rice people, so we did. Later we find out one of the girls is from Sydney, CABRAMATTA… of all places! Amazzzing! hahahahaha it was almost like we were having a conversation with a random girl at Verandah Bar or Martin Place Bar on an Asian clubbing night – because there was a bloody good chance she would be from Cabramatta or Bankstown. LOL Her guy friend wasn’t from Cabramatta, but judging by the way he was giving us dirties, he might as well have been! My lord of the rings, he wasn’t friendly at all, even though I tried my best. So after about 5 minutes of one-way dirties, I think we made the wise decision to mingle somewhere else, before we got glassed or something.

We also met a handful of Internationals here, and they are exactly the same as in Sydney: “No English” is the reply when you talk to them. Ah yes, the universal phrase of “go away” exists here too.

Arrivederci
Eventually the stuffiness of the room was too much to bear. The ratio also dropped considerably after 1AM, so it was just a matter of dancing and making the most of it. We gave up trying to keep dancing while sweating, and left at 1:30AM.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
This was the only purpose club we could find here in Christchurch, so definitely come here for a dance. If you aren’t a fan of the occasional drunk person, stuffy rooms, or cover charge, an alternative venue is the Running Bull about 10 mins drive away, but not much else.

Despite all this, if you are able to take care of yourself and are with a group of friends who want a serious dance, then come here. I wouldn’t mind coming back here as I had a nice time, but only as there isn’t much else – do keep in mind the place doesn’t pick up until around 11:30ish, but the non-drunk crowd is quite friendly and ready to party in this somewhat city still trying to rebuild.

Rating : 6.5/10

Money Shot

“Kiwi Crawl” Pub Crawl, Queenstown, New Zealand:
Website: http://www.KiwiCrawl.co.nz
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20. Includes 6 free drinks, pizza and entry to the venues that we go to.
Music Style: Most places had house/RnB, while some places were just bars to have a drink at.
Crowd: For tonight’s crawl, we had 2 Kiwis, and the rest were Australian, except for one American.
Ratio: 2 girls to 1 guy, though there were only 9 of us tonight, as it was immediately after new years
Entertainment: Our host was a big life of the party for sure.
Atmosphere: Lots of drink challenges and random street antics as one does when inebriated.

Timeline (of the various bars)
Started in the World Bar, Queenstown. Let me tell you, it is exactly like the World Bar in Sydney! Cocktails are served in teapots and everything, but this World Bar is more spacious than the Sydney one, albeit it’s only on one level, while Sydney’s Word Bar has three levels. A strangely familiar sight it was. So we just chilled out here and the organiser came up and told us only 9 people signed up for the pub crawl – but 6 were girls. Oh yeah!!
And so it began, the 9 of us on a pub crawl. A vast difference to the 500+ people who signed up only days earlier for New Years. We did our intros and well I don’t think I was going to go far. The advantages of a smaller group was that we got to have some double shots at the venues, hooray!

Random bar #1 – Double free shot on entry. Bought a “Money shot” where you shake the cocktail in your mouth and it tastes like PANCAKES! Amazing

Me: hello
Her: Hello! Blah blah blah blah
Her Friend: Hey! what are you doing? Remember what we said earlier? (wiggling eyebrows in a “you know what I mean”)

Oh dear lord, a pre-prep talk to watch over each other? On a PUB CRAWL?? Puhhlease!! 

Random Bar #2 – Free shot on entry. Got a $6 NZD Jagerbomb. Choice. Played some Strip Pool against a girl and I lost.. hard.

Strip Pool, halfway through

Bar 3: Altitude Bar – Double free shot on entry. Didn’t drink anything extra. There’s a dance pole right at the front of the dancefloor. Only a handful of people are dancing here and we just dance and do poses. This place wasn’t very busy as I thought it would be. Then again its a weekday. Top 40 here.

Bar 4: The Buffalo – A shot on entry. Can’t remember if it was double. Getting pretty sloshy and friendly. This place pretty much was the only consistent place that delivered some form of crowd and top 40 music, every night. Probably the general recommendation for the backpacker in this town. It was a lot of dancing, but the dancefloor is only of a medium to small size, and it does get a little warm in here.

Bar 5: The World Bar – Yet another free drink, and the night ends here. Surprisingly there are more people here than at the Buffalo. The larger dancefloor space is much better, with a dedicated DJ booth as well. Earlier in the night there is usually a Live Band playing popular Top 40 tunes for people to dance to, but right now its House.

Arrivederci
I sustained a minor injury the other day and had to retire early. Boo hoo.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
For $20 and guaranteed 6 drinks and entry to all the clubs listed (All the clubs were free entry anyway) it’s choice. Do it.

Anyway, I asked a foreign backpacker where the place to be is at on a Thursday night. “The Rimming Bull”, he proclaims! I’m sure in proper English that meant “The Running Bull”, which is, coincidentally is across the street from where we rented our hotel. So much win! Let’s check it out!

Crowd 11:30PM

Thursdays @ The Running Bull, Riccarton, Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand

Assessment Time: 11:10PM – 12:45AM
Opening Hours: Open during the day as a restaurant / Grill – 12:45AM
Lockout: Unknown, but there was one a lockout at 12:30 when I checked
Address: 1 Riccarton Road, Riccatron, Christchurch City, Canterbury, New Zealand. Map: http://g.co/maps/njtg8
Venue Website: http://www.runningbull.co.nz
Event Website: http://www.facebook.com/TheRunningBullBar
Promoter Website: Self Promoted by the venue
Occurrence: Every Thursday. DJ events also available on Fridays and Saturdays here
Outside Line: 2 people in front but we were in within seconds. We had to use our passports to be accepted entry. The drivers licenses were not accepted. 
Dress Code / Door Policy: Boys are pretty casual, with a handful with collared shirts with jeans. Girls in most part did wear their going out dresses and heels for a dance here. It is encouraged for guys to wear collared shirts and to not smell like B.O, and for girls to wear dresses. (According to the facebook page anyway)
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free all night.
Guestlist: None
Inside: Walk into the bar / dining area where tables and stools are aplenty. Bar is at the back opposite wall. This are has about 4-8 tables. To your left are some lounge spaces for 10 or so people. On the right is the “dance room” is how it is best described. It really is just a walled off room from the rest of the bar, where you can walk in and suddenly you are in a rectangular box to hold maybe 100 or so people where there are lights and a podium.
Cloak Room: None
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink.
Bathroom Facilities: Pretty clean.
Eviction Count: None spotted
DJs: Sole DJ tonight. No song repeats thank god.
Music Style: Mostly Top 40, RnB and probably after 12:15ish the reggae / some other esoteric music was put on. Total mood killer, but it was apparently approaching closing time so that was how it was done.
Crowd: A mix of Christchurch locals and backpackers such as Marty and I, with the Irishman and his friends as well. But definitely a majority would be locals. Ages varied but mostly we are dealing with a young crowd – teenagers, low 20′s.

Ratio: Pretty even ratio through the night and it held its ground.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: In the room itself there was barely enough people to get “lost” in the crowd, but it was definitely dark enough to be able to dance on your own without having too many eyes look at you. The volume isn’t as loud as proper clubs so you were able to have a chat as well, but still you could dance on your own if needed. Surprisingly it was pretty damn warm in here though! A lot of times throughout the night I had to come out for a bit of a cool down and breather, so take it easy on the dancing would be my advice here. The bar is quite the oppposite where its bright and pretty friendly. It’s not hot either and there are TV screens around so you can catch up on the latest Cricket scores. If you don’t like cricket, then suck it up. It’s bustling at the bar and people are pretty open for a chat.
Video: Very short music sample and walkthrough

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arrivederci
Left at closing time, which was 12:45!! Holy shit, that was early. An abrupt ending.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
I would say this is more of a bar to have drinks and a good dance afterwards. It’s suited for anyone who wants to come for a drink or just dance, as the two areas are almost separated from each other, so you don’t get too disturbed by the loud music. If you aren’t into the modern day music or young crowd, it would be better to try Fox and the Ferret down a few blocks  (I don’t think there is much dancing there, just a live band with a small area to dance).

Police shut it down for an unknown reason. Patrons were pissed off, and I was a little upset as well as I had literally just got there when everyone started getting kicked out. It’s 11:30PM, in the middle of bloody Parramatta.. nowhere close to any club (The Albion has been done so many times now).

Hopped back into the car. Considered going home, but I verbally assaulted myself into driving out towards the bright lights of the CBD, in the search for any decent place that was open…

Sunday Night Nightclub Search: (over the course of 1 hour):
Star Bar: No DJ nor people. Dead.
3 Wise Monkeys: Wildcatz Rock band night – no dance music. Dead.
Cheers: Dead with a population of 20. Dead.
Scubar – closed. Dead.
Side Bar: Non-Dance night. Dead.
World Bar:  Two rooms but only about 15 people per room. 2 of those people were women. aka Dead.
Trademark Hotel: Closed. Dead.

The only places left that looked decent were Hugos, The Piano Room (from the outside), and Goldfish, which happened to have Groove Terminator as their guest DJ. Oh hell yeah, GT, a personal favourite of mine! Let’s do it.

Martini Club Sundays @ Goldfish Lounge, Kings Cross
Assessment Time: 1:00AM – 4:00AM
Opening Hours: 6PM – Late (Definitely past 5AM)
Lockout: Unknown, possibly none.
Address: 111 Darlinghurst Rd, Kings Cross (at the corner traffic light where the Coke sign is). Google Maps: http://g.co/maps/jjb8b
Venue Website: http://www.thegoldfish.com.au/kingscross
Promoter Website: Self promoted
Occurrence: Every Sunday night.
Outside Line: There was a group of 3 drunk guys trying to get in, and they were rejected. Other times that I checked, there was virtually little to no line.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Tonight is pretty easy going with the Dress Code. Hats are okay, casual attire is okay, and later in the night two ladies in heavy make up and costume were allowed in as well (angel wings, chainsaws, or something). More than half the guys tonight are wearing just t-shirts rather than collared shirts. Some singlets are spotted here as well. The girls are generally well dressed, but not all are glamarous, there are some just casually dressed women here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free all night.
Guestlist: N/A
Inside: Walk inside to open up the back area of the bar. To the left are lounges for 3-4 small groups of people. to the right are tables, stools. Further up left is the outdoor smoking area which remains behind the mesh-like wall facing the pathway. Right in the middle of this back room area is the bar, which is manned by 4 or 5 staff members at a time. On the far right are 2 areas for lounges. In the front room area is the dancefloor area. This is almost a circular like area where there are lounges lining the walls and disco balls dotting the ceiling. Actual dancefloor room could hold 25 comfortably upto about 40 people. A small elevated podium exists for the band to play later is cleared out to make room for a dancing podium for the patrons (it could hold about 8 people). Behind the podium sits the DJ set in the corner of the room.

Cloak Room: None
Bar Prices / Line: $9 for a GT (Gin and Tonic, get it?… GT?… Pah.)
Bathroom Facilities: Still the same as before. It’s a unisex bathroom! But before you get ANY ideas – the unisex bathroom is manned by a staff member to make sure you don’t get upto any hanky panky, as well as ensuring that you women don’t get raped or something. The hand washing thing with a foot pedal is still awesome, and easy to use. There is even a waiting lounge chair in the corner while you wait for your friend to finish doing his number 1, 2 or 3.
Eviction Count: None. Most people were quite well behaved.
DJs: Groove Terminator, aka one half of Tonite Only was the main act tonight (1:40AM – 3:40AM). Martini Club, There was also another DJ after (3:40AM onwards) Groove Terminator finished, but no idea what his name was.
Music Style: Martini Club set: (early in the night – 1:30AM) The resident band were playing live versions of popular Top 40 music – with the lead singer most of the lyrics, backed up with a drummer, guitarists, and DJ’s behind. The crowd always love this live version of music. Groove Terminator (1:40AM – 3:40AM): GT played an Old School set – which pretty much gave him the excuse to play all of Tonite Only’s hits (which I bloody love), as well as their remixes and anything else with their name stamped on it. Also some other classic commerical House music songs were thrown in as well.
Crowd: A mix of backpackers and local people. Keep in mind as well that tonight is Sunday, so there would easily be a higher ratio of backpackers who don’t work to locals who do have to work. The backpackers are less rowdy than that of classical bars such as World Bar, but there was some douche who thought it would be nice to smoke inside. Piss that smoke off away from my clothes and hair. Ages varied wildly here from young 20 year olds to 40++ year olds. Around 30% I’d say of the people here were over 30.
Ratio: Upon entering, the ratio was about 2:1 and it got worse at around 3AM to 3:1 Guys to girls.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment. The main act tonight was GT
Atmosphere: The floor was always busy but not packed where you were squished – everyone had a little room to dance. It’s quite dark as well in here and often due to the small area and overhead, it could get warm quite quickly if you were dancing heaps.
Video: I got the timestamps wrong in the music sample video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
Too romantic
It’s only midnight and the vibe is pretty good… for couples. FML At one point I was surrounded on all four sides by a couple dancing away, making out… you know, doing coupley things. Just gross out. Well, I was a little jealous but seriously, yuck.

The Indian Mac
Well, I’m not sure if he was Indian or Sri Lankan, but there was a guy who just stood there and macked on all the girls. He had the cojones, but not quite the charm. Especially when he was sweating profusely. However the important bit was he had cojones. Respect. I don’t think he understood what the word “no” meant.

Arrivederci

Left soon after GT finished the set.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
Not a place for real clubbing, but a pretty nice place to bring your partner or a small group of friends, if you aren’t really into the doof doof and want more of a lounge setting with a side dancefloor to go with it.

Martini Club (Sunday Nights) @ Goldfish Lounge, Kings Cross Sydney: (For the chilled out type) – 7/10

[I was originally not planning to write a review and so no photos/videos were taken as I was pretty tipsy. I have no idea how I managed to get in. Then I just literally decided just now to write a review up at the end of the night, for record keeping sake... so it's just a quickie]

Quickie: Taboo @ Civic Hotel (Level 1 Rooftop), Sydney 
Assessment Time: ~1:30 – 4:00AM
Opening Hours: Unknown – 4:00AM
Lockout: Unknown
Address: Level 1, 388 Pitt Street (Corner Goulburn Street), Sydney.
Venue Website: http://www.civichotel.com.au
Promoter Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/TabooSaturdays
Occurrence: Every Saturday night.
Outside Line: There was a line of about 12 guys and 1 girl upon entry. Keep in mind that this line is combined for both the Taboo event upstairs and “The Clinic” separate event happening downstairs. Took about 5 minutes before we got in.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty okay door policay. I had my mini afro-wig on. Most people wore smart casual. Girls wore dresses and looked their best here. hats are also allowed here. Saw some gentlemen with hats.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 is the full cover charge. Apparently guestlists were still valid at this time, but I wasn’t acknowledged as on being the guestlist. I be sad.
Guestlist: taboo.saturdays@gmail.com
Inside: Just the upper level of Civic Hotel is used on a regular night.
Cloak Room: None.
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight, I already had pre-Christmas party drinks. Drinking four nights in a row isn’t good for me at all.
Bathroom Facilities: Not utilised.
Eviction Count: None spotted.
DJs: Unknown
Music Style: Mostly RnB, Top 40.
Crowd: Pretty much all Asian here, with less than a handful of Caucasians here. Ages ranged from 18 year olds to 30+ year olds I met. You can’t tell what is what anymore when you look at the Asian genes of youth.

Ratio: Ratio was expected to be more guys than girls at this time, seeing that most of the girls would have gone home by now. It was approximately 70:30. I’m sure the ratio was better earlier in the night.
Entertainment: An MC was here. Photographer.
Atmosphere: It was a good turnout for this small venue. The floor wasn’t too packed, but may have been even worse earlier. However half the lounges were not populated with people. You could get a seat anytime. Most people who are dancing are right close up to the DJ in the corner, while everyone else be chilling or standing around not doing much at all. At least 100 or so people were here.

Timeline
I was pretty tipsy from the Christmas party beforehand and pretty much chatting to every girl I could see. Grinded a few, what’s new. Then i ran out of girls and started talking to all the guys. For the final 30 minutes, all the dancing girls had left, and me and some guy friends were just grinding each other instead.

I met a reader as well as part of my world talking tour. Fun times. Had a bit of a dance too.

Met some friends as well, it was quite the night actually. Going out is always more fun when you have friends around you. Always have friends guys, always have them.

Hmm… that’s about it. OK, there’s more, but I shouldn’t write about it here.

Arrivederci 

Left at closing time.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation

I can’t really say much, except that it’s quite a small dancing space, while more than 75% of the space is lounges or chill out areas. It’s good music though. Some girls were a bit cold though. Place could deal with more people/girls.

Too inebriated to give a rating.

Promo poster

Me2 @ Home Nightclub (The Terrace Level Only Upstairs)
Assessment Time: 11:20PM – 3:15AM
Opening Hours: Unknown (10:00PM?? – 4:00AM ??)
Lockout: I asked security at 2:30AM if there was a lockout. “What would you like it to be?” is the sly response. Definitely not a lockout.
Address: 101 Wheat Road Darling Harbour, Sydney. Home Nightclub is next to IMAX theatre. BE CAREFUL about entry! Entry to the Terrace is on to the RIGHT of the main entrance. It is NOT the main entrance. I am sure a handful of people have stumbled into the main entrance to find themselves amongst the Sublime crowd. RnB lovers in a trance room. That is an experience I’d like to see.
Venue Website: http://www.homesydney.com
Event Website: http://www.facebook.com/me2sydney
Promoter Website: Dynamic Entertainment http://www.dynamicau.com , Mizuya Entertainment http://www.MizuyaEntertainment.com.au
Occurrence: Every Friday since July 2011
Outside Line: No line outside, just the promoters. After 5 minutes of the door girl desperately trying to find our names, she gave up and let us in anyway after I showed her our confirmation email. It was quite interesting as she had at least 10 pages full of names of 100 names each page, and yet my name wasn’t on there.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart casual is encouraged, but there were people (guys AND girls) who came in casual t-shirts / singlets without any issue. Hats, I didn’t see anybody wear, as everyone here had some blown up Asian hairstyle, and when you have a crazy hair style, you don’t want to ruin it by putting on a hat. Nobody likes hat hair.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 full charge. $20 on guestlist.
Guestlist: I sent a guestlist the evening prior, and got confirmation pretty quickly from two different promoters the same night. It was a shame that when we rocked up tonight, our names were NOT on the guestlist. What a shock. Luckily I had my brand new spanking smart phone (which was NOT an iPhone, haha) and showed her the two confirmation emails. She let us in with discounted entry. But seriously, if I didn’t have those emails, I would be pretty upset at this point knowing I’d have to pay $25.Inside: Walk upstairs to the top level to enter the small atrium where you can push ahead into the main room or back room. The main room has a bar on the left manned by 2-3 staff at any time, a door to the outside smoking are and the general dancefloor. The floor can hold a small crowd of about 40-80 people. The DJ is on the far end of this dancefloor, where the walls converge to form a triangle like shape wall. There is a podium for about 4-6 people right in front of the DJ booth. The back room is mostly of lounges to hold two large groups of people of 10-15 each. Small bar as well manned by one person. There is also a smaller lounge room to hold 10 or so people nestled away near the bathrooms.

Cloak Room: $5 for each item, and $2 for re-checks.
Bar Prices / Line: Early in the night its quite easy to get a drink right away, but after around 1AM, there was always going to be a wait of at least 5-10 minutes to get an order in. Southern comfort and Lemonade – $9 each. Agwa Bombs – $12 each (?), 2x Vodka Orange + 2x Vodka Raspberry + 2x Vodka Lemonada – $51. Use the back bar if you can as barely anyone comes here and you can usually order right away or within 5 minutes, but ensure the order in front of you is that of a small one, as it is only manned by one bar staff (a serious bottle neck as we experienced, waiting for an order of 10x Agwa Bombs and 10x shots and 10x mixed drinks to be poured up and served). The main bar, waiting would be between 5-10 minutes during peak.
Bathroom Facilities: They finally removed that annoying broken foot fountain thing in the terrace! Half the time people had no clue how to use it, and the other half of the time at least one of these things were broken. They were replaced with the standard 3x shared washing trough thing. It was a shame that the electric hand dryers were not operating. Everyone walks out with wet hands … gross.
Eviction Count: None spotted, but Marty spotted some guys who were started trouble with the staff the week prior. Definitely stayed away from them.
DJs: Siera, others.
Music Style: Commercial RnB / Top 40 tunes.
Crowd: Pretty much every single person here, except for 2 European girls, was Asian. Out of the Asians, roughly 90% were International travellers from Hong Kong / China or spoke some Chinese dialect. It’s a Chinese crowd. The rest of other people I met were locals here. The local Asians were easily outnumbered.
Ratio: About a 65:35 Male:Female ratio. Earlier in the night it was a pretty even ratio, but it could have been just a fluctuation upon time of count. Though, throughout the peaking part of the night it is definitely heaps more guys than girls.
Entertainment: Tonight’s main promotion was none other than the MC himself, MC Victorious, “returning” after I guess a hiatus. He did a fine job upon his return.
Atmosphere: Upon walking in, it was pretty much dead. We’re talking about 10-15 people in the whole place. Everyone was in the outside smoking area and nobody was inside, besides the bar staff. It was quite worrying as the time was almost midnight and the club usually shows signs of peaking. There was none of that. It slowly picked up more and more people from around midnight, to finally reach supposed peak at around 1:30AM – quite late. Crowd mostly keeps to themselves in their own groups, or they’ve arrived already coupled up. It’s not easy trying to start conversations with people here. EVERYONE is speaking chinese. Literally nobody spoke English in here, except for the MC. They only way to suss it out was to talk to these folk, and find out if they spoke English or not – it turns out some did, but most did not speak it at all.

The club oversees the south end of Cockle Bay wharf, so you do get some sort of sea-breeze, and a nice view of Darling Harbour. The involvement of the crowd jumping to the music was limited to the front portion of the floor, where the podium was. The rest of the patrons were just moving and chatting around. The chill out room was pretty dead most of the night. the lounges supplied would seat anyone who chose to sat down. It’s a place for the non-dancers to go.

Video: Walkthrough / Music Timeline

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
Why did it take so long for it to peak?
Why was there nobody here at midnight?? I have a working theory. Imagine you are a person of Hong Kong/Chinese descent having dinner with your fellow Honkers/Chinamen. Your dinner could finish from between 11PM to 1AM. If you finish early, you have an hour or two of Karaoke and drink some Green Tea/Hennessy. Then after someone would yell 让我们去跳舞！ (“Let’s go dance!”), and well, Me2 seems to be the default place to go for this crowd.. I think that’s how it is anyway. Someone please explain!

How to blend in with the crowd

A lonely dance
Marty and I had a nice 15 minute dance alone in the main room and nobody, or anybody who saw us in this dead room would immediately walk to the outside room. I bit my tongue during this mini dance session. It bled, but I didn’t die.  

Showing the girls a good time. Fail.
Met some guys who were showing 2 girls from PERTH a good time in Sydney. They chose Me2, and well.. it was only 11:30PM and the place was as dead as my puppy who got run over 2 months ago. The poor unfortunate girls looked so bored, and well actually they all looked bored. One of the guys even said he had come across my site once! Haha, the poor folk, we asked them to dance with us, but they preferred to sit down and not do much for now.

It was so shit at this time, I actually told my other friends who were going to come, to go somewhere else. Well, they did. Some friends they are!! They went to Pontoon and told me afterwards they said it was going off. LOL. I wasn’t leaving though. I’m committed to see the promised peak rush of people come in.

Sexist photographer
If you go out reguarly, you would have experienced sexism before entering a club, or when trying to get served at a bar, but the photographer here – jesus christ he was just photographing with his penis. So it was the empty room of Marty, myself, and a group of girls. He took the photos of girls, and didn’t even want to look at us!! SEXISM! Throughout the night I saw him ask many girls for photos, but not one group of 100% guys. I think this guy was just only half doing his job, and half hitting on girls. Well, I tried to get a photo, but he was such a fast walker I could never get a photo. So, so sexist. I suppose their website needs to promote the number of girls that come here, but not the larger number of guys either. All I have to say is we need more female photographers willing to do the hard yards.

Blondies
Just dyed my hair blonde. It’s so good. Well I like it anyway. When you dye your hair, you immediately notice other people who have similar hair colour to yourself and you can’t help but compare if you or they are better looking. I reckon I did okay considering it was my first time.

Guy didn’t wanna be winged
This guy was chatting up girls and needed help, I sensed. This is when Super James jumped in and played a good wingman and got my grind on with some girl. Sadly the girls had enough of grinding and went to the TOILET. That excuse never gets old. Anyway, the guy decided to camp outside the toilet waiting for them to come out LOL. If that isn’t creepy, I don’t know what is. I came up to talk casually with him, but you know what he did? He GAVE ME the toilet excuse and walked off. Oh my god! Are you serious?? Getting rejected by a girl hurts, but getting rejected by a guy with the TOILET excuse.. it goes straight to the heart and cuts it into a million shards, sending sharp pulses of pain into my chest.

Arrivederci
A friend was waiting for me outside, so I left. The venue was reasonably still busy at this time, as a surprise. Though, there aren’t any new people coming in.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
It’s a Chinese crowd, but the music is still RnB and the MC speaks english so its okay. I would try to sort out a guestlist because $20, let alone $25 is always expensive in my books. The trade off is that the crowd won’t pick up fully until 1AM, so don’t come here earlier than Midnight/12:30, or you will be in for a bit of a surprise, especially if you were gonig to show people from Perth what the Sydney clubbing scene had to offer.

Tonight’s rating – Before 12:15AM - 2/10. After 12:15AM – 6/10

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

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

Scubar Sydney Downunder - Monday night

Mondays @ Scubar Sydney Australia
Assessment Time: 10:30PM – 12:15AM
Opening Hours: Midday – 03:00AM
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 4 Rawson Place, Sydney central (Next to the YHA Central) Google maps: http://g.co/maps/kz2gn
Venue Website: http://www.scubar.com.au
Promoter Website: Self promoted
Occurrence: Every Monday (The venue is open everyday)
Outside Line: There was a LINE outside. Omg, people lining up to get inside Scubar, what is this madness? Line was about 15 people deep and took about an equivalent 10-15 minutes to get in as it was already at capacity.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty casual today, most people were casual. Didn’t spot anyone with hats. Thongs are a no no, even here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free all night
Guestlist: N/A
Inside: Walk downstairs underground to enter the entire scubar. On the left is the bar attended by 2 or 3 people. Standing room and tables for about 40 or so people. In front and to the right is the dancefloor area. Its quite small in comparison to proper clubs, but tonight it seems to be holding quite a number of people to the tune of around 60-100 people.
Cloak Room: None
Bar Prices / Line: $5 foster cans. This must be one of the last places on earth that you can buy Foster cans, because I definitely don’t know where else I can buy them. 4x Jagerbombs + 4x Tequilas = $66.

Bathroom Facilities: Not utilised.
Eviction Count: None spotted.
DJs: Unknown
Music Style: Top 40, Pop, Classic Retro hits.
Crowd: Mostly backpackers today of many, many nationalities. Ages vary between 18 to 30 somethings.
Ratio: More guys than girls here, for sure. There are about 65% -70% guys. Kept the same throughout my time here.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment
Atmosphere: The first impression was again, jesus this place is packed to the max. Not just the dancefloor, but the standing bar areas, podiums, etc as well. Everyone is chatting, drinking, or dancing. It’s surprisingly not as messy as I thought either, compared to say, Side Bar, which always manages to get a slippery floor. The DJ tonight is playing a safe choice of music that everybody knows and sings along to. Makes for a good vibe here. Shame about the many guys around.
Video: Music Sample / Tour (Forgot my camera so I resorted to my 8MP shithouse mobile phone thing)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
Everyone is already coupled up
When you walk in on the scene, people are already making out and doing bad things. It’s only 11PM. I think this is just the backpacker way of doing things. Already people were hitting on our female company. I think one of them was indicating to me to save her from this good looking drunk guy, but I left her to writher in the grasp of the guys arms and advances. It’s quite funny. Eventually though she was saved.

The brownside to dancing in cramped conditions
Places that are packed, are always fun. So we’re having a fun time, and someone decided to drop a huge fart near where we were standing. Kind of sucked as we then had to move somewhere else. Seriously if you have to fart, don’t do it on the dancefloor. It’s so gross, and everybody starts blaming each other. This is how wars start.

Arrivederci
Friends had work tomorrow and had to leave. WEAK SAUCE. I had to drive one of them home so I had to leave as well.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
As much as I thought Scubar was a disgusting place to go, it’s actually not too bad for a Monday night, consdering there is really.. nothing much else out there that is open and full of people.

I would recommend you to come here if you want to mingle it up with backpackers / fellow party people on a Monday night. It’s close to buses/taxis/Central station for your ride home, just in time for work/uni/school the next day. Nothing to lose for free entry anyway.

If you wanted something classy – this place IS NOT for you. Save the LBD for another day.

Tonight’s rating for the backpacking party animal- 6.5/10

Jesus

An Intimate Night with Armin @ The Metro
Assessment Time: 12:00AM – 3:00AM
Opening Hours: 8:00PM – 3:00AM
Lockout: None
Address: 624 George St. Google Maps:  http://g.co/maps/pn6tg
Venue Website: metrotheatre.com.au
Occurrence: Once off show, which was only announced after his Stereosonic gig the Saturday prior – Sly Dog. 
Outside Line: We got in right away at midnight. 
Dress Code / Door Policy: It’s pretty open, most wore casual tonight. 
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $90 at the door. $80 pre-paid online. 
Inside: It was held in the main theatre
Cloak Room: There may have been one but I didn’t use it. I doubt it. 
Bar Prices / Line: Didnt drink here tonight, I had pre-drinks at Star Bar next door – much more cheaper. 
Music Style: Trance
Crowd: All ages (above 18 of course), all nationaties were here. Mostly 20′s and low 30s crowd. Basically people who aren’t working on Friday, or who don’t give a shit about being a little tired on a Friday morning. 
Entertainment: Some acts prior, but I skipped them. 
Atmosphere: Definitely a packed house – people were forced to party on the stairs (which was a fire hazard but nobody seemed to care). I was on the moshpit and it was pretty rocking but OMG we probably stood in a bad spot right in front of the speakers. Ear plugs I wore only helped a little bit. People were all into the songs, dancing, cheering etc. Wasn’t too hot at all here, just only got warm from all the dancing. 
Video: Music  summary of what I heard tonight.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Video: The final song played “Burned with Desire” / Armin getting flowers and saying goodbye to the crowd. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
Only for the fans and general progressive trance fans. It’s definitely much more better up close and personal rather than 100 metres away, outside of a moshpit at Stereosonic.

An hour later and I have arrived. Dress code here is Smart Casual, but I have a strong suspicion that they are very lenient tonight regarding dress code, due to Stereosonic removing pretty much more than half of the crowds from the city’s clubs tonight. Suspicion confirmed, as the security allows the giant toothpaste costume through without any questions. The toothpaste party continues! Here we go!

Most of the crowd @ 2AM

Sassy Saturdays @ World Square Pub (Formerly known as Equilibrium)
Assessment Time: 12:50AM – 3:00AM
Opening Hours: Unknown (Facebook page states 8PM, but I think 10PM?) – 3:00AM tonight.
Lockout: Unknown.
Address: 680 George St, Sydney. Google Map Link: http://g.co/maps/wvqjz
Venue Website: http://www.worldsquarepub.com.au
Promoter Website: Appears to be a multiple promoter event. Dynamic Entertainment (http://www.dynamicau.com) &  SyndicateEvents.com.au and others.
Occurrence: Every Saturday since September 2011
Outside Line: A handful of people, but we got in within 5 minutes.
Dress Code / Door Policy: As mentioned before, usually a no daggy clothing policy applies, but due to Stereosonic being on, the dress code was pretty much open. Costumes and hats were freely allowed in. Though marty was asked to remove his wig when he was inside.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: You would have thought I remembered how much the charge was here. Last time I was here at this event (no review was written) it was $20, but from the depths of my memory it MAY have been $25, but I cannot remember. Either way, it is at least $20 for full entry. If you are on the guestlist, a discount probably applies before either midnight or 11PM. You will need to contact a promoter for exact details on this one.
Guestlist: If you can find a promoter, go through them, otherwise send an email to: Youngnsassy.saturdays@gmail.com
Inside: Previous weeks had the event held upstairs but tonight it appears that only downstairs was open. Perhaps they expected a low turnout tonight. Regardless, enter into the ground level to enter the “stand around” atrium like area, with dancefloor on the right to hold about 80-120 people. In front of you is the corner of the bar. It extends down the left side where there are lounges and tables. On the left is the outdoor smoking area. it’s a long space and enough for most people to get a lounge seat or a table.
Cloak Room: No cloak room facilities tonight.
Bar Prices / Line: Unknown, but you could get service pretty much right away. 
Bathroom Facilities: Pretty clean and maintained well tonight.
Eviction Count: None spotted. There were not that many people here tonight anyway.
DJs: Dirty Dex for most of the night.
Music Style: Pop, House, RnB , and many “Songs dedicated to the people from Stereosonic” – mostly LMFAO songs or something house related lol. All from the same DJ so minimal song repeating, if any.
Crowd: Mostly Asian tonight. It’s a mix of local and international Asians. also as the night progressed on, the crowd became more and more comprised of people dropping in from Stereosonic. I would suspect that without the Stereosonic crowd, tonight would have been pretty dead, as are the clubs out there. Rest of the crowd were a handful of South Asians/ Indians, and some Caucasians. 
Ratio: Despite low numbers, the ratio was fairly even throughout most of the night.
Entertainment: MC to keep things going, and pretty girls dressed in white, giving out freebies, like cups and flashing light things. I put a flashy light thing beneath my toothpaste costume and .. well.. a flashing dancing bottle of toothpaste looks awesome
Atmosphere: It wasn’t as busy as one would be, but the people who were on the dancefloor were all dancing about. When I say it wasn’t busy – only enough people were here to fill up the dancefloor well, while the rest of the club (lounges, bar, etc) was deserted. Only a handful of people chose not to dance here tonight. It was a little warm in the middle of the dancefloor though. 
Video: Music Sample and a bonus ending of Marty and I dancing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
Shoutouts to Mr Toothpaste
There wasn’t much happening tonight, so when I walked on in (modest mode off) everyone was like BAM look at that guy! I could feel it. MC had a mixed look of amazement that I would dare wear such an outfit at a club, or perhaps he liked it, but it was a funny look. He then would sprinkle words of encouragement to the crowd to “Party like Mr. Toothpaste over here!”. Love it.

Get a room
It’s tolerable to watch two people kiss romantically. But O.M.G. It’s more disgusting than left over chicken in the car to see these two people tongue, grope and virtually dry hump each other on the dancefloor. Why weren’t these two kicked out?? Bloody hell, get a room guys. Really, before I vomit toothpaste all over you.

Arrivederci
Left at closing time. We were just here to dance it out to the end. 

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
The low turn out was expected, and even promoters here expected it too I suspect, to the point that I can’t even find a corresponding promotional poster for this night, as well as moving the DJ set downstairs (where its cheaper to hire I guess). Hoping future weeks will have back to normal crowd levels. My friends and I have been before on a regular Saturday and liked it, so its a safe bet to come here on a non-festival weekend. The freebies were a little bonus tonight. Despite this, it would probably have been better to go to a free entry venue  for a bigger crowd.

Tonight’s Rating: 4.5/10

FIrst impressions of the bowl

Stereosonic Festival Sydney @ Olympic Park Showgrounds
Assessment Time: 3:45PM – 11:00PM
Opening Hours: 12:00PM- 11:00PM
Lockout: None
Passouts: No pass-outs are allowed
Address: Olympic Park Showgrounds, Homebush Bay, Sydney.
Venue Website: www.sydneyolympicpark.com.au
Promoter Website: www.stereosonic.com.au
Occurrence: Once a year since 2007, held early December / Late November, held in different capital cities.
Outside Line: Transport via train was no hassle, while lining up to get inside the stadium was pretty fast as well – I walked all the way to the right of the multiple gated entry where there was no lines.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty much you can wear anything that is in good taste, but you can’t bring in alcohol, weapons, drugs etc. I was wearing a toothpaste costume.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $150 at the gate, while early bird ticket prices ranged from $110 to $135. The Sydney festival sold out a few weeks beforehand. A friend bought an e-ticket via a “promoter” and subsequently had his ticket invalidated at the gates – he was basically, conned and ripped off. he had to pay $150 at the gate for a brand new ticket. What luck. Always be careful when buying tickets not from Ticketek or Moshtix.
Inside: Think of the Easter show, and replace everything with music. Here is a map of the layout. In the stadium and some of the other smaller grassed stages, there are floorboards placed, so that you don’t stomp on the grass and get all muddy feet, in the event that it rained.
Cloak Room: There was one available but I didn’t use it today. Last year it was $3 per item.
Bar Prices / Line: I bought stuff but don’t remember prices – a can of Smirnoff red would be at least $10. These are typical for festivals.
Bathroom Facilities: At the stadium there were long lines for women, and not so long lines for the men. Outside there were plenty of port a loos for everyone (so as far as I am aware)
DJs / Artists: Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, LMFAO, Empire of the Sun, Afrojack, The Bloody Beetroots, Avicii, Benny Benassi, Ferry Corsten, Dirty South, Kaskade, Dash Berlin, and more.
Music Style: Artists primarily reflected on electronic dance / dance culture music.
Crowd: People of all ages are here from all backgrounds to see their favourite act or to enjoy the show.

Atmosphere: I was at the stadium most of the time and it was pretty much packed the whole time I was there. On arrival there at around 5pm the moshpit was full, and no longer people were allowed inside. The floor of the stadium was also full and people were only being allowed to trickle in as people left. I had friends who came here earlier at 2PM and were able to just get places within the moshpit area. The crowd steadily built up through Afrojack and Benny Benassi sets so that we could watch LMFAO. The LMFAO set was arguably the peak of the numbers in the stadium, as well as my personal favourite set – simply because people were singing along and the guys were really into it. Highlights include actually popping champagne (“Champagne Showers”) onto the crowd, and the cameraman zooming into all the crotches during “Sexy and I know it” – Total gross out but hilarious at the same time. It was pretty bad that they came late 30 minutes late on stage, at the expense of shorter sets from AvB and The Bloody Beetroots. We stood around for 30 minutes just thinking.. when *are* they going to come on? Thank god that they weren’t cancelled. After the LMFAO set, quite a few people left the stadium (probably to Dash Berlin, whose set I heard was bloody amazing) – the rest of the people here were sticking around for The last two acts, or just had no idea who they were, and wanted to experience. I missed the entire Bloody Beetroots set, but got to experience the Armin van Buuren set. It was pretty good, but it would have been better if I was in the moshpit.
Video: Music Sample / Timeline

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
Phone reception is simply atrocious
Pretty much from about 3PM onwards, I was unable to make ANY calls to ANY of my friends, just due to the amount of people here today. It totally sucked ass as I couldn’t meet up with my friends. So I just hung out with the friends I had already met earlier today. It was worse than new years eve, as new years eve call dropouts only last three to four hours – I was here for a good 5 or 6 hours! IT SUCKED HAIRY BALLSACKS.

Sydney is the biggest city, and so is this festival
Later in the evening, Stereosonic was declared Australia’s largest event in terms of attendance. I would say also probably the best overall line up in years for the general populace as well. I even had friends come out of festival “retirement” to come out for today. Never say never. You would be seriously missing out if you didn’t come out to see this line up. Like seriously. For the days upcoming beforehand, it was raining heaps, and lots of people sold their tickets, to the astonishment that today was a bright sunny day. A shame for them.

Packed to the rafters
All the main acts were at the main stadium, which was situated a few hundred metres away from the rest of the action. As mentioned earlier, this resulted in a lockout of the mosh pit area, the floor, and even a lockout of the stadium itself. I unfortunately got locked out of the stadium alongside some other folk. It was about a 30 minute wait of protesting and watching other people climb over the fence then we were finally allowed to be let in, under police supervision.

Video: The shitty side of Stereosonic (and other festivals): Lining up for ANYTHING. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

On someone's shoulders

Now I’m sitting raised on this dude’s shoulders, on the phone, looking out back at the crowd – the crowd are are all staring, cheering at me or however people react to seeing a toothpaste bottle arising into the air. My friend spots me (I couldn’t spot her) and finds me a few minutes later. That was awesome.

Condoms and other bad things
Here is a photo of one of the many condom balloons thrown around the place. Somewhere behind I could smell someone puffing on some sticky icky. A friend also got asked if he had pills. All in a typical day in a festival. LOL

Condom Balloon!

Life being a bottle of toothpaste
While a friend was being asked for drugs, people only were asking me if I had toothpaste. Then this was followed by people squeezing whatever part of my costume in order to excrete the wonderful, white, magic substance that is known as toothpaste. And the most common question I got was “where was the toothbrush?” – In my pants of course.

I didn’t get really hot until about after 3 hours, when I started to sweat profusely. It was quite disgusting, and I was glad that sunset finally arrived to cool me down.

Mixing it up with the crowd

Sticky, icky floor
Half of the time people are kicking cans away from themselves, to other people. So many people have spilled drinks in this heat, that the floor has become quite sticky. So sticky that beer cans are sticking to the bottom of the soles of my shoes. Yes, fucking BEER CANS ARE STUCK ON MY SHOE as I dance. It’s ridiculous.

Spotted by a fan?
Out of the thousands of people who came here today, surely one of them read this website. Well, someone did, and that someone found me. Haha! I was pretty amazed that I was spotted, but now that I think about it, I *was* in a Giant Toothpsate Costume

Arrivederci
Finished at 11PM. Transport out involved a long walk around the station, but we got on the first train right away, no waiting around. I was pretty exhausted and ready to go home. However, I got a call from a friend in the city….

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
A great lineup and as I said before one of the best I’ve seen that a festival pull. No idea how these guys will top it for next year, but I’m a shoe in for next year. Definitely a festival to go to.

Though I wish prices were cheaper as well as less of a requirement for people to have to be locked out of stadiums or be held up waiting for acts. I spent at least an hour of my time doing these things, when I could have listened to other acts.