Fresh after ceasing the Flow Fridays @ World Square Event, the promoters have moved their Friday nights to Pontoon bar, resurrecting the old ‘Perfect’ tag as their event name, I suspect to continue with their love of alliterations. I wasn’t too big a fan of Pontoon Bar in the past, but tonight they had the upstairs open as well, which I hadn’t seen yet. It also coincidentally is my friend’s birthday here tonight.. so it’s the ‘perfect’ (ha!) reason to give it a visit – here we go!

Perfect @ Pontoon - Punking it out

Perfect @ Pontoon - Punking it out

(Event Name Resurrection) Grand Opening: Perfect @ Pontoon Bar (Level 2 only) Darling Harbour Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:30PM – 02:00AM
Opening Hours: Unknown. From past experiences at Pontoon it should close at 03:00AM. Opening time unknown.
Lockout: There was no lockout at 2:00AM, but it might have been put into place later.
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 level is not ground, but the upper level. It is accessed externally via a set escalators in the courtyard area of Pontoon Bar. (It almost is like the old World Square Pub venue, isn’t it). Ground level doesn’t receive so much attention here.
Venue Website: http://www.pontoonbar.com
Promoter Website: Run by Syndicate Events in conjunction with Colab Entertainment, and Intouch events- specialised webpage at http://www.theperfectnight.com.au
Occurrence: Tonight was Grand opening night, and is set for a weekly Friday occurrence.
Outside Line: A line of approximately 20 people were outside. Luckily some friends of mine had lined up prior and were close to the front. We waited about 5 minutes before getting in.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Hats allowed. Theme is to dress to impress. Guys: Smart Casual recommended. It was strongly advised that all men must wear collared shirts or entry would be denied. I did see some guys inside with t-shirts on, so I am not sure how strict the policy is. I had a t-shirt but with a blazer which got me in, but I took off the blazer once inside. Girls: Recommended to dress sexy/chic, and so happy to report overall almost everyone dressed well tonight.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 full price. Kills me every time, but appears to be standard for the Asian oriented nightclubs. $15 on guestlist before 11:30PM. No midnight love tonight. I think ground level was free entry for the public to dance their socks off, and that only upstairs was charging. Do correct me if I am mistaken.
Guestlist: Expires 11:30PM. Send guestlists to perfect.pontoon@gmail.com or colab.entertainment@gmail.com – tell ’em I sent ya!
Inside: The event covers two levels, but the focus is of the upper level, with the ground level not getting much love.
Downstairs: Walk into the back of the dance area for about 100 or so people. it is just a roundish room with DJ in the far back wall. To the left is the open bar area for all users with tables, lounges and what not taking up half of the ground floor area.
Upper Level: Outside pontoon is a courtyard area to which patrons can sit down and relax. Escalators from here take you upstairs to the upper level. Walk inside to see a view of Darling Harbour to your left. This immediate area is of lounges and chairs, for people to mingle but not dance. Probably for 40-50 people. Move in to the right where there are a zone of 2-3 small lounge areas for birthdays or what not, then followed by the main areas – dancefloor on the left to hold 80-120 people, and a single bar to the right to hold about 15 people along its length. At the furthest end is the cloak room and bathrooms.
Cloak Room: I did use it but I don’t remember the price. It was reasonable, so I would say it would be $5 or less.
Bar Prices / Line: I didn’t drink, so pricing was unknown. However to get water, there was no simple jugs of water to be around, so I had to line up. After about 10 minutes I gave up, because the line did not move one bit! People were coming in left right and centre to get a piece of the bar action. I could have had better luck going downstairs to use the bar there, but I was too lazy to go outside in the rain. A friend of mine stayed in line for a drink, and she reported it took her 30 minutes for a glass of water. That is really messed up. I secretly hope that future events will have easy jugs of water at the bar, or even better – someone running around with buckets of bottled water giving it away. Oh wait, that did happen! A man came by with a bucket of bottles of water, handing it out for FREE. He was definitely the most popular person of the night. Seriously free – usually bars charge $2 or something for a bottle of water. Am sorry that we didn’t get to see the bottle guy for the rest of the night.

View of the bar (lit by the purple light) and the crowd line

View of the bar and the crowd line (11:50PM)

DJs: Edo, Moto, Bonniez, Flipsta, et al.
Music Style: Mostly contemporary commercial RnB tonight.
Crowd & Ratio: Upper Level: Pretty much mostly Asian Australian here. There are some Caucasians and Indians in the mix, from either downstairs or here for birthdays. There were a slight more number of guys than girls, but that said, a lot of the guys were lined up at the bar, presumably buying drinks for themselves or for some girls – so that left the rest of the venue in a kind of even-ratio.
Entertainment: Just the MC to keep things going. Also CD giveaways were had, and a friend won a copy. Awesome 🙂
Atmosphere: Upon entry it was pretty busy, it took a while to cut through the crowd to get to the other side. This included the dancefloor, where people are dancing their hearts away. On the dancefloor itself, there is not much room to dance, but it isn’t sardine packed, it is what a typical busy dancefloor is – enough room to have your own little circle, some simple dancing and that’s about it. Throughout the night it was indeed at least busy on the floor – but somehow , I had the feeling the lounge areas weren’t so alive – people were sitting around being .. people. At the time of departure the place was still indeed busy. Throughout the night even though there were a sizable amount of people, it never got heated up and sticky as in the previous venue, so props to the promoters for that. The vibe was pretty good throughout the night.

View of the dancefloor

View of the general dancefloor area (12:30AM)

Video: Walkthrough the main area and music sampling from the night:
YouTube Preview Image

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The suggestion was Brooklyn Hotel for Shanghai Nights. Half of us were like, nah, and the other half were like yeah. We were standing right outside World Square Pub debating this. Why? So we went inside World Square Pub for the Flow Fridays event.. here we go!


Flow Fridays @ World Square Pub
Assessment Time: 12:00AM – 12:15AM (lining up), 02:00AM – 03:00AM (what this particular review is based on)
Opening Hours: Unknown (probably 10:00PM) – 03:00AM
Lockout: No lockout
Address: Upper level of World Square pub, 680 George St Sydney (Old Equilibrium Hotel)
Occurence: Every Friday
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Casual. Guys are usually dressed with collared shirts, though there are a small handful of tee-shirters. Girls are dessed in pretty dresses.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 non-guestlist. $15 on guestlist before 11PM .
Guestlist: Submit your guestlist via the website. Horrible, I didn’t get any confirmation after sending the email. They need to fix that.
Inside: Once you enter World Square Pub, there are a set of stairs going up – these take you to the actual Flow Event. I believe the DJ downstairs may be the one hired by the World Square Pub people. anyway, walk upstairs and you are presented to a room with a bar, a medium sized dancefloor with carpeted area around to hold 100 or so people. Lounges dot the walls.
Cloak Room: Easily missed, the cloak room can be found while turning left at the top of the stairs and into the tucked away corridor. Prices unknown.
Bar Prices: I didn’t drink tonight.
Music Style: RnB/Hip Hop. DJs mixed well tonight. Was only here for an hour so am not sure how it was earlier in the night, but there were no hitches. Typical modern RnB tunes being played.
Crowd: Dominantly Asian, possibly entirely Asian. A mix of local Asians and International Asian Students / Fobs on holiday here.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: It’s dark when you get up here. People love that. When we arrived at 2:00AM, it was pretty packed, but it wasn’t sardine – you had about 50cm of room around you to sway your arms – but you couldn’t go nutbag krumping safely. It was enough to allow people to walk through the crowd without interrupting your circle or your grinding session.

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1AM looking for a place to dance…..

Clubs that were rejected tonight
Flow @ World Square Pub / Equilibrium:
We planned to go here tonight. There is no line outside. That’s good. $20 entry. Though as we got to the door, the internal line inside to go upstairs was packed. there was about 50 people croweded at the base of the stairs waiting for their turn to go upstairs. Oh hell no – we are not going in! So walk off we go…

Tourism @ Tao Lounge:
There was an event on tonight. The bouncer said “Don’t even bother coming in here.” We wanted to see what it was. Bouncer: “Go in for a bit of a laugh if you want. Nobody is dancing in there”. So we went in side. It was free entry anyway. There was about……….. 17 people including us 4. A guy and girl were on the dancefloor. She is standing doing nothing, and he is moving his arms up and down, like he is perforing curls on an invisible 1kg dumbell. It is ridiculous – and so is the music. We left after a wasted 10 minutes.

V Bar had cover charge so we didn’t go in, but it looked dead.

Puls8 @ Shark Hotel was dead as well tonight. (Saturdays are better).

Our final destination – random private party @ Burdekin Hotel
Continued the merry walk down Oxford St, where we strike up some ye old conversation with the patrons outside Burdekin Hotel. They were nice enough to invite us to their private party upstairs at the top level! Booyah!

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We have just left a birthday party at a warehouse, and its 3:00AM. Have been asked to go to Tao Ultra Lounge… haha why not, so here we go!

Assessment Time: 03:00AM – 03:30AM
Opening Hours: 10:30PM – 03:00AM
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=288588253950, http://www.syndicateevents.com.au/
Address: 396 Pitt St, CNR Goulburn St (Old Mandarin Club)
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Casual is recommended.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 after midnight. I scored free entry deceptively.
Guestlist: See websites for details
Occurence: Every Saturday Night.
Inside: Beneath the former Mandarin Club (Now Mr B’s Hotel), Tao Ultra Lounge/Bar is a small area split into even smaller areas – A carpeted area where most dancing occurs. It holds 50-80 people. There are two lounge areas on either side of the dancefloor. A DJ is along the wall next to the bar on the wooden area. The wooden floor area is the general ‘lets stand around and chat each other up’ area with bar and some tables and stools.
Cloak Room: Assumed to be at the counter, but I did not notice.
Bar: Didn’t drink tonight.
DJs: Unknown
Music: RnB, House Mashup
Crowd: Mostly Asians in their 20’s.
Entertainment: MC who seemed a bit tired of it all.
Atmosphere: It was average but do not expect much at this time. A handful of people on the dancefloor, some people lounging around. At least it wasn’t too dead on the floor.

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Desperately looking for a club to hit for Christmas Eve, and a lot of clubs are not open.. except for Flow, who are holding a once off Thursday event… nice – so here we go!

Flow Fridays @ World Square Pub (WSP): Thursday 24th December 2009

Assessment Time: 11:30 – 3:30am
Website
: http://www.flowfridays.com.au
Address
: 680 George St Sydney (Formerly Equilibrium)
Dress Code
: Casual / Smart Casual. Girls wore dresses, and most guys wore nice shoes with collared shirts.
Door Policy
: Tight on the female/male ratio. Bring girls with you if you are a guy wanting to get in. Many a man hath been rejected from Flow for being alone or by grouping with his fellow man. This in turn helps with atmosphere
Guestlist: See website
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: $10 tonight for all patrons. Only for tonight, as there was less patronage on Christmas Eve/ Thursdays.
Inside: The Flow event is only held upstairs. It’s a small room for 200 or so people.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: $5 Gin and Tonics
DJ: Typical Asian RnB DJs on rotation
Music: RnB
Crowd: Entirely Asian.
Entertainment: Not even an MC tonight, so it was just the DJ holding the show together.

Atmosphere: Very dead in the beginning – usually its packed on Fridays, but it *is* christmas eve. Around midnight it still isn’t packed, but it is getting busy. At around 1am the place is definitely very packed now, which was pretty good.

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Flow Fridays @ World Square Pub

Assessment Time: Midnightish – 2am
Website: http://www.flowfridays.com.au
Address: 680 George St Sydney (Formerly Equilibrium)

Dress Code: Dress very nice. All the girls are in dresses, the boys were almost all collared shirts. You could probably get away with casual if you were with some girls. Very tight when it reaches capacity or close to capacity. No groups of men were allowed in. The line was heaps long.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 normal, $15 on guestlist.
Guestlist: See website.
Inside: Two levels. Downstairs chillout area with DJ, but nobody really dances here. This is the free area. Upstairs is where you have to pay your cover charge to go. It’s pretty small in there.
Cloak Room: No
Music: Rnb. Contemporary Moden rnb. Good selection of rnb tunes.
Crowd: Dominantly Asian. A spot of indian, but they’re technically asians too.
Entertainment: A podium for us to dance on, but no podium dancers.
Atmosphere: Packed and occasionally getting quite hot and smelly inside, due to the small volume and lack of ventilation of the whole place

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Flow @ World Square Pub

Website: http://www.flowfridays.com.au
Address: 680 George St Sydney (Formerly Equilibrium)
Dress Code: Casual / Smart Casual.
Door Policy: Tight on the female/male ratio. Bring girls with you if you are a guy wanting to get in. Many a man hath been rejected from Flow for being alone or by grouping with his fellow man. This in turn helps with atmosphere
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20, $15 on guestlist.
Guestlist: Submit via the website above.
Lining up: Took about 20 minutes to get into World Square pub. another 10 minutes to get into Flow upstairs.
Inside: Basically one small-medium sized room to hold 200-300 or so people.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: 1 Bar on the side. The wait is approximately 5 minutes.
Music: Dominantly RNB
Crowd: Dominantly local Asians. 99.5% asian. Mostly young.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment. There was an MC though.
Atmosphere: Packed. Good. Thanks to door policy, its a good ratio of men-women. You would only like this place of course, if you were asian, or into asians.

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