It’s a grand opening, some friends were going and I had some time – so let’s check it out!
#Fabric Saturdays @ Martin Place Bar
It appears the promoters Syndicate Events and their friends have decided to end the old Kinki event and go with two separate events next door to each other. Tonight let’s suss out the offering at Martin Place Bar – #Fabric (One assumes the hashtag is silent)
2:15 // Main Room
Essentials:
Opening Hours:
10:00PM – 3:00AM(?) unconfirmed
Address:
51 Martin Place
Venue Website:
http://www.martinplacebar.com.au
Event Website:
http://www.fb.com/ClubFabric
Promoters:
Syndicate Events, Colab
Occurrence:
Every Saturday since March 2014
Dress Code / Door Policy:
There is no longer a dress code recommended or enforced tonight as per previous events here. Half the crowd was casual and the other half, smart casual. I got in with just a t-shirt, pants and shoes. My friend Marty got in wearing his hat. It would probably be too much to ask patrons to dance to EDM in a business shirt. Or is it?
Entry Fee / Cover Charge:
$20 Full cover charge, and $15 for guestlist entry! Wow, no longer $25 entry? $20 is back on par with other ‘premium clubs’ (barring Ivy/Marquee) but these guys were previously charging $25 for other events. Perhaps people are getting tired of clubbing, or perhaps there is lots and lots of competition. Perhaps they make all the money with bottle service.Perhaps paying $20 for a small venue like Martin Place Bar is more appropriate.
It’s probably a mix of these factors and, in the end, the average tight ass punter wins.
Passouts/Lockout:
Passouts/Stamps to re-enter are fine. However 1:30AM lockout laws apply to this venue.
Guestlist:
Visit the Facebook page for details.
Cloak Room:
$5 for checking in your item
$2 for recheck.
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This review includes tonight and two revisit summaries (14th Dec 2012, 28th Dec 2012) at the end.
Just here with some friends for a dance – let’s check it out. Here we go!
Lights!
Cubic (Fridays) @ Space Nightclub (Sydney)
Background: The promoters previously closed two of their Friday events, I guess in order to combine the two crowds for tonight’s event . The name Cubic is most likely based on Club Cubic in Macau.
Essentials:
Opening Hours:
Fridays 22:30 – 04:00AM
Address:
127 Liverpool st – enter via the second line to get your name marked off guestlist etc. Otherwise you may enter via the normal Shark Hotel line and walk in. After entering the Shark hotel floor, you may proceed to level 2 where Space Nightclub is. (The lift is preferably no longer in use by promoters)
Venue Website: http://www.spacevenue.com.au
Event Website: http://www.fb.com/cubicsydney
Promoters: UrbanAgent, Infinity Productionz
Occurrence:
Tonight is the second week of opening, while the plan is to have this event on every Friday.
Dress Code / Door Policy:
There was no specific dress code requested by promoters – as a result casual was the minimum required to get in. T-shirts were ok and so were sneakers. Most guys though wore collared shirts with jeans / fancy shoes. Girls generally looked good as well with their going out dresses or whatever they are called.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge:
$25 for entry. $20 for guestlist entry for guys. Tonight was “ladies night” and all girls who “liked” the Facebook page got free entry before Midnight and discounted entry after midnight. In order to qualify for discounted / guestlist priced entry you were required to line outside to mark your name off and obtain the “VIP card”
Passouts:
No passouts before midnight.
Guestlist:
cubic@urbanagent.com.au / joe@infinityproductionz.com
Cloak Room:
$5 per item. On the expensive side.
Tonight:
Assessment Time: 11:30PM – 3:15AM
Outside Line:
None outside the venue. Inside the Shark Hotel entrance there was a short line of 10 people or so – the line moved pretty quickly at this time.
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Another birthday, and the birthday girl has been convinced by a promoter into going to Soho. My honest opinion was to not go here (she was an rnb lover), but I didn’t press the issue – didn’t want a bad venue choice be blamed on me – so lets go!
club stamp
The Usual Suspects @ Soho
Assessment Time: 11:15PM – 2:45AM
Opening Hours: Unknown (I think it opens pretty early at 9PM and closes at 4 or 5AM??)
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 171 Victoria Street, Potts Point (It’s a few places down from the rear Kings Cross Station exit.
Venue Website: http://www.sohobar.com.au
Promoter Website: Self Promoted – http://www.usualsuspectsblog.net/
Occurrence: Every Saturday
Outside Line: There was no line when we approached.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Hats allowed, casual is okay and is the norm here. So much so, singlets are okay as well inside. That’s for the guys. Girls are all usually in their nice one piece dresses hey.
Guestlist: info@sohobar.com.au
Inside: Walk through the hallway to enter the main bar on the ground level, where lounges are on the left and right. Keep walking through to the main dancefloor to hold about 100-200 people. Elevated dance podium at the back of the room. DJ at the front, some lounges along the far end walls and behind the DJ. Go back and upstairs to the second main dancefloor with a smaller floor for about 30-40 people and bar in the same area. In surrounding rooms are other reserved rooms for parties and various lounges to chill out. Also a smoking area upstairs.
Cloak Room: None
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight. An attempt to get water upstairs was aborted after waiting about 10 minutes upstairs. It was much easier to get drinks downstairs as downstairs there were two bars.
Eviction Count: None seen
Music Style: Primarily House / Electro downstairs. Upstairs is also dominantly house but also some RnB and Party tunes mashup. Someone off the street would probably like upstairs better. Some good party tunes were being played upstairs later in the night.
Crowd & Ratio: Dominantly young Caucasian crowd. Ratio is pretty even during peak, or seems like it anyway. I don’t remember thinking at all that tonight was a sausage fest. The guys and girls are pretty friendly here if you talk to them nicely. Girls are pretty good-looking I dare say.
Entertainment: None
Atmosphere: Downstairs downstairs is pretty club-like: Dark, lights, loud and crowded, but there is enough room for everyone. People kept within their own circles or to themselves. Upstairs there are perhaps a few more lights (LED lights that is!) and combined with the mirrors around, makes more for the atmosphere. The crowd here was also more jubilant and into it – singing along to songs and what not. Unlike downstairs though, there is much less room to move around, and the floor is sticky most of the time. Yick. Mind you, the dancefloor areas are roughly one third to one half of the floor area – the rest are made from rooms scattered with lounges and chairs.
Video: 
crowd upstairs
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Intent on going to Empire Hotel tonight but it was dead as – there were already cleaners cleaning the place up! Strange for only midnight. Random promoters for Ladylux give us free entry passes on the street, so the matter of ‘what venue do we go to next?’ was pretty much sorted out – here we go!
Robin Hood with M's Russian Commisar hat
Fridays @ Ladylux Nightclub, Kings Cross Sydney
Assessment Time: 12:10PM – 01:45AM
Opening Hours: 9:00PM or earlier ~ 03:00AM (facebook page states 06:00AM, but Dj set list lasted until 2AM.. so I wouldn’t know to be sure)
Lockout: No lockout.
Address: 2 Roslyn St, Potts Point (Kings Cross), Sydney.
Venue Website: http://www.ladylux.com.au
Promoter Website: Appears to be self promoted
Occurrence: Every Friday and Saturday is open. Saturday are the more heavily promoted nights while Fridays rarely get a mention.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok. Half the guys wore casual t-shirts while the other half wore collared shirts. Girls were mostly in dresses. Hats were allowed. I was dressed up as Robin Hood with feather hat.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $10 is the full cover charge. We were given promoter cards on the street to get free entry all night. A very fair deal here.
Guestlist: Submitted via the website. The existing link at time of writing is at http://www.myguestlist.com.au/mgl/ccp/ladylux/index.html
Inside: There’s not much of a giveaway that the entrance is of Ladylux. It’s just a doorway in the side of a building with 2 security guards outside. As you walk inside, there is a private VIP room to the immediate right. I didn’t go in there, but I would be making an educated guess based from the outside walls that it would only hold about 10 people. Continue walking past a small lounge area on the left – as you look around note the wallpapers – white with fuschia-coloured flowering patters on the walls. Continue to the next small area which is the bar. Once you reach the bar you are now at the edge of the dancefloor, which takes up probably two fifths of the entire floor area of the venue. DJ corner in the far right. The dancefloor area is about 5-6 people width by 15-20 people long. There are sofas along both sides of the dancefloor as well. At the far end wall are a set of lights that flash around looking pretty. The video below will walk you through the setup.
Cloak Room: No cloak room. Well I didn’t ask, but I didn’t see any signs indicating presence of a cloak room.
Bar Prices / Line: I didn’t drink tonight, but lining up would set you behind 2 or 3 other orders.
Music Style: Primarily Commercial House and Electro. The occasional RnB mashup song thrown in as well. I quite liked it as I knew the songs and people were singing along to it. Songs were mixed well without complaints.
Crowd: Almost entirely Caucasians, all young 20’s or teens. From the people we spoke with, backgrounds were a mix of locals and backpackers who mysteriously ended up in here. The ratio was about 35% women 65% guys. By the time we left at 2:00AM, it was almost all guys.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: It’s pretty dark in here. The entire first half of the place (lounge areas) have been decorated with various Halloween things hanging from the ceiling and what not. Pretty cool. However, even before you notice the decorations, the first thing that hits you is the pungent smell of the whole place. It kind of smells like a mix of dried up alcohol spilled on the floor combined with the results of a very poor urinal flushing system, or someone peeing all over the entire place. It wasn’t powerful enough to scare you out of the club, but at various points throughout the night your nose would be wondering… ‘What on earth is that smell?’. Kind of like when I was in India – the yucky smell was always there in the main cities, but you tolerated it. People wise, the dancefloor itself always had people on it, so there was no need to feel lonely. Most kept to their own, there were also a few drunk guys as well.
Video: Walkthrough: Starting at the cash register – walk through the lounge area, bar area and dancefloor. (12:11AM)
Video: 360: Dancefloor from the corner where the DJ is (12:30AM) 
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Miles Dyson, the German DJ I accidentally experienced in 2008, was in town again. I had been given copy of his Triple J mix up CD that night, and by now I was a fan of his music, so I thought I would check it out again, so we go!
The Main Room of Oxford Art Factory
Fridays (Miles Dyson) @ Oxford Art Factory
Assessment Time: 12:30AM – 03:15AM
Opening Hours: 8:00PM – 5:00AM or 6:00AM
Lockout: None
Address: 46 Oxford St, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.oxfordartfactory.com
Promoter Website: www.atmydestination.com
Occurrence: Every Friday
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual was the norm here. anything goes.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 for the main room. Free in the smaller room. After 2AM, it was free for all. I think this was total bullshit, as the main DJ Miles Dyson’s set didn’t finish until 3AM. People were able to experience one half of the DJ set. I wouldn’t complain if I was on the freebie side, but tonight I am on the paying side of things, and I wasn’t happy about it. The guy who was supposed to check for stamps via the back entrance was just hanging out at the other back door protecting the beer storage. Useless.
Guestlist: None
Inside: Walk inside and underground to the first room which was the main stage area for DJ acts. This room had an upper lounge area overlooking the dancefloor, which could hold 100 people or so comfortably. Bar on the right wall, and stools, chairs, lounges on the left side of the lower floor. Continue walking to the other room which is a bit smaller. Bar on the left, lounges on the right and a narrow strip in the middle to mingle around. This could hold about 80 or so people.
Cloak Room: Located in the smaller room entrance for $3 an item. Non-Asian venues get it so cheap.
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight, but in the small room the line was a few people deep, while in the main room, there was really no line at all – you could get service anytime you wanted.
DJs: Main room: 9PM-11PM Random Weapon, 11PM-1AM Datadex, 1AM-3AM Miles Dyson (GER), 3AM-4:30AM Karton (ACT), 4:30-Close Audiophilez
Music Style: Electro House, Breaks. I do like my electro house music. Miles probably played a lot of his classic songs and some new ones thrown in as well. You would enjoy this set if you were familiar with the music. There was a moment or two where I couldn’t feel the rhythm and dance halfway through the set but otherwise I was pretty happy with the set. The euphoria of having Miles come back was good enough to keep me going throughout.
Crowd: For the Miles Dyson set, it was the initial core of Miles Dyson fans and friends they dragged along. Mostly a 20’s crowd, caucasian. Spotted probably 4 other Asians in here.
Entertainment: No extra things here
Atmosphere: Initially only about half the dancefloor was packed, and I was surprised. Last time when Miles came down to play there was a noticeably bigger crowd, but it might have been today was a Friday. Who knows. It appears the crowd here was here for the music, and pretty much everyone was dancing away.
Video: 360 in the main room
Video: Jump from the second room to the main room
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