A friend is hosting a party here, so after my black tie event, I dropped down to Cargo and brought some friends.. here we go!

Saturdays @ Cargo Bar
Assessment Time: 02:00AM – 04:00AM
Opening Hours: Open during the day – 04:00AM
Lockout: Unknown. Probably 03:00AM
Address: 52-60 The Promendade, King Street Wharf, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.cargobar.com.au
Promoter Website: Self Promoted
Occurrence: Every Friday and Saturdays
Dress Code / Door Policy: Dress code is enforced. Too casual and you won’t be let in. At minimum collared shirt and no sneakers. You can get away with casual shoes if the rest of your outfit looks good. I was wearing a tuxedo. M was wearing one too. The girls accompanying us wore heels and dresses. All of us are Asian.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free all night.
Guestlist: None really needed, but if you are given the ‘guestlist’ reason for not entering, then you have sadly failed to pass the entry criteria.
Inside: Walk in the rear of the bar. The area is half dancefloor at this time, and half outdoor seating area of tables and chairs. There are some tables inside, but only standing room. Some lounges in the middle along the walls, and a bar to span the entire length on the far side of the entrance. DJ booth right up at the front with accompanying percussion drummers. Upstairs is usually reserved for a private function and not open to the general public.
Cloak Room: None.
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight.
DJs: Resident DJs, with percussions. Percussions being bongo drums most of the time.
Music Style: Mostly house music with occasional pop and rnb mashup. The percussionist adds a bit of that live feeling to the music, even though there is no live singer. It definitely makes for danceable music for the general music listener.
Crowd: Primarily a white crowd. Ages vary between early 20’s and late 30’s here. A mix of backpackers and locals. There are a minority represented by Asians and Europeans.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment besides percussionist.
Atmosphere: At the time we entered at 2AM things were going pretty well here in the dancefloor. Outside, it was still busy. Around 3AM the outside area was getting pretty dead, but inside was still kicking dance-wise. From then on it gradually went less and less busy. The darkness of the whole place kept the mood going. Some areas of the floor were a bit sticky from spilled alcohol though.

Continue reading »

Tagged with:
 

Prologue

Tonight was a birthday. The venue – Se7en. Se7en I heard was good on Fridays for Asian RNB for Melbourne, but what about Saturday? Saturday is House. That’s fine, I like house.
“Are you on the guestlist?”. A bad sign already.
Well what do you know, the birthday girl HAS organised a guestlist. The ratio of girls to guys is 2:1. However theres about 20 of us. Oh boy and let me tell you, we looked pretty sexy.
“I’m sorry, there is no guestlist under that name”
Oh wow – $10 for anyone who can guess why we were turned away. Oh, here’s a CLUE. Look what happened to them. They’ve moved onto a new event already! Some Melbourne house clubs are just as dodgy as Sydneys.
Ok, so now that was out of the way, there was only one venue left to try that I had a such a lovely time last time – Lavish @ Watermark Bar .. So here we go!
Lavish @ Watermark Bar (Melbourne)
Assessment Time: 11:00pm – 2:30am (closing time)
Address: 8/800 Bourke St, Docklands, Melbourne
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Casual, but its safer to err on the Smart side. Large groups of guys are likely to be rejected here. Luckily we were with a posse of girls.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20, $15 on guestlist.
Guestlist: See facebook page for details. A friend knew one of the promoters and she managed to get us in.
Inside: Tonight as you walk in it is still the same setup. Main small room to hold 100 or so people. It’s a tight squeeze with the bar on the right side. DJ at the back. Tonight the back area behind the DJ was closed off. Upstairs there was another two rooms, one pretty loungy to sit 30 or so and the top level was just a lounge with a bar – with lots of people – presumably for a birthday. Good views to match.
Back downstairs there is a second external room with a second DJ. The room is also a smaller tight of a squeeze than the main room to hold 100 or less. Bar is also in here. Just outside is a smoking area of equivalent size. Phew.
Cloak Room: Yes, there is a cloak room
Bar: 3 bars. Prices unknown
Music: RnB in the main room. Modern contemporary RnB you hear on the radio. It’s good and people dance to it. In the other room is commercial/electro house. I liked it here as well but my asian friends are always in the RnB area.
Crowd: Asian to the max.
Entertainment: No extras to entertain us tonight. No MC as far as I can remember.
Atmosphere: When we came in it was good, but not packed or too busy – after an hour or so it did pick up and eventually the place became booby trapped with asians. Became very packed. I would imagine the line outside being busy still.
Tagged with:
 
Sensation White Melbourne 2009

Sensation White Melbourne 2009

Sensation @ Etihad Stadium Melbourne: 31st December 2009
Assessment Time
: 10pm – 5am
Website: http://www.sensation.com
Address: Etihad Stadium, Melbourne
Dress Code: You have to wear white, pants, top, skirt, everything.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $149 (from memory)
Inside: This years theme is the Ocean of White.

One central area where the DJ spins around. The theme of tonight was the Ocean – Two platforms extend out to either side of the stadium, to hold where ten or so water geysers are installed. Huge octopus hang from above. There is also a trance room and a VIP dance room.

Never got into the trance room. The line was massively long and the room was PACKED and probably hot and smelly – just as I like it. Sadly never got to check it out, it really looked good.

VIP room was pretty clean in comparison as there was not as many people as the trance room, but was pretty good, because here you would have enough room to dance around in! It was pretty loungey here.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: $10 cans of Smirnoff blacks
DJs: Caz James, Roger Sanchez, Sebastian Ingrosslo in the main stage. There
Music: House in the main arena, and trance, funky house in the other rooms. Compared to last year, the music tonight was much better and ‘tolerable’ I suppose. Megamix was awesome and did not disappoint and well basically it was pretty pretty good.
Crowd: People of all types were here.
Entertainment: The whole setup was a show – dancers on the water, fireworks, laser lights, bouncing balls.. it was pretty decent
Atmosphere: Very white. We had room to dance. The event didn’t sell out but it didn’t get squashy packed, regardless it was still a crapload of people here tonight. The atmosphere is buzzing before and  during the opening, then we dance. Buzz goes up again around new years midnight, then slowly dissipates as people head home, leaving the hardcores behind until the end.

DJ to the left, fountains cut into the crowd.

DJ to the left, fountains cut into the crowd.

Opening to Sensation Melbourne video
YouTube Preview Image

Continue reading »