A venue I’ve always wanted to visit. I made plans, cleared the night, and tonight was the night. Here we go!
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.
Prologue: The Roxy Paramatta
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.
Everyone is working on Friday, except for me and another unemployed friend. So let’s go clubbing on Thursday and spend what little money we have left – always a great idea! So headed to Kings Cross and looked for some places to go. Trademark looked dead when we entered, so we changed to Sapphire Lounge. It looked pretty dead as well from outside, but it was smaller, so it might be a cosier atmosphere. That’s the thinking anyway. Paid our cover charge and in we went – here we go!
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.
Thought you might like this irrelevant photo (Back Room)
I’ve heard bits and pieces about the redesigned place, and the opportunity came to visit it tonight – time to check it out!
Saturdays @ FakeClub (Empire Hotel Level 2), Kings Cross : formerly “Plantation Bar “
Review Note: This is the extended, personalised, version of the short review written for the Best Clubs In website, found at http://www.thebestclubsin.com/sydney/fake-club .
Assessment Time:11:40PM – 1:35AM
Opening Hours: 09:00PM – 06:00/07:00AM
Lockout: I don’t think there was any form of lockout, partly due to the extended opening times.
Address: Roslyn St. It’s on level 2 of Empire Hotel. This is the same venue/event formerly known as The Temple, formerly known as Plantation (Bar).
Venue Website: http://www.fakeclub.com.au
Promoter Website: Self promoted.
Occurrence: Every Saturday. The event is also open on Fridays, Sundays as well for other events with different music styles.
Outside Line: There was nobody in line as we entered. There was, though, a small crowd outside having a smoke, so at least you knew the place was at least populated.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty much you could wear as you please, excluding thongs. The relaxed dress code today might have been influenced a big chunk of the patrons coming from Creamfields festival earlier in the day, with whatever they were wearing – they are easily spotted with their singlets and shorts. . The rest of the crowd wore casual or smart casually dressed. The door policy was pretty relaxed – we were not scanned by security for any dangerous items.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 was entry. $15 entry if you wore a Creamfields wristband. Discount/Free before 10PM, which isn’t much leeway.
Guestlist: Guestlist ended at 10PM.
Inside: After walking up the (what appeared to be) fire exit stairs, you will be presented with a room which resembles a large garage or a small warehouse. High ceiling dotted with stability columns around the edges. To the left is the dance floor area to hold probably 100-150 people, with DJ on the West wall. Large LED screen intallation spans the DJ booth and rises up 3 metres or so close to the ceiling. To the South side are a handful of medium sized reserved lounge areas to hold parties for 20 people or so. To the right is the main bar for length of about 10 people. The North side is just pure wall, and the bathroom. The back room, hard to find, is located just adjacent to the main bar via a closed door. Walk inside to enter a smaller room – it can only hold 20 people squishily on the floor itself. DJ on the far end, while a makeshift bar on a table is on the left. Futons and lounges dot the walls here.
Cloak Room: None Found. Noted were people leaving their stuff around the place.
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight but the line was pretty busy – it would be at least 15 minutes of waiting time at the bar. It’s also in thoroughfare between the two rooms so you’re awlways moving and bustling around.
Eviction Count: None that I spotted. It was pretty dark.
DJs: Resident Fake Bratpack DJ/s, Teenage Terror Squad, Bangers and Mash, Oh Glam, and more.
Music Style: Main room played different flavours of electronic house (this is not the same as electro) and dubstep, (except notably commercial flavours) during the time I was here. During times, there were a good 10-12 minutes of ‘dull’ time where the beat/rhythm of the music being played was not sustaining the crowd at all, and you could tell people were getting bored. I don’t think the DJ sensed this – or it was just a part of his plan to not have the crowd jumping around and have them relaxed instead? Who knows. The secondary room is Old School Rnb, Hip Hop and Rap, with some old boy band songs too. Think Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Eminem, Backstreet Boys – A tribute to the 90s and early 2000′s hip hop/rnb scene you would say. The mixing in the back room was non-existent here, as the DJ used a standard form of slow-stopping the track and moving on to the next one. She made up for the lack of this by picking some good tunes and even dancing up and singing with the crowd.
Crowd & Ratio: Primarily local Australians / Caucasians here. We are one of two Asian groups tonight, and there are some islander groups. Gay friendly. The ratio was 65/35 male/female from best estimates. A good proportion of the crowd here are also from the Creamfields festival event earlier. This helps keep the average age here at about…. 19. haha.. well in all fairness the crowd was pretty young anyway. There are some folk in late 20′s and I saw a bloke who was definitely in his 30′s, but the place is pretty dark so its hard to spot anyone else older. Pretty OTT amongst some of the crowd here, with crowd surfing and people dancing on the speakers here.
Entertainment: MC for the main room to keep things going.
Atmosphere:
Pretty dark atmosphere here in the main room, with the LED light wall providing the main source of photons. It’s a blur of noise, the LED lights from the DJ area as well as constant strobic lighting giving the passive person’s first time out a very overwhelming experience. The people in this room seem a bit cold.. had a girl with ADD shove me and other people aside to get to the front without apologizing or anything – shameful. Otherwise the music is the focus here tonight. Also the first thing I wanted to do was take my jacket off when I walked in, so be aware of the warmth here.
In the backroom, it is more well lit and as the room is smaller, it does have more of a cosy vibe but can be overrun with the amount of people trying to fit in here. The atmosphere is more vibrant with people singing along to the music of years gone by. Sadly though the room died at around 1:30AM, arouns the same time the DJs were switched. Unknown how the room progressed later in the night.
Video: Main Room and Back Room: Walkthrough and Music Sample Timeline
I wanted to visit the new club Beach Haus, but I was told by security at 11PM it was closed. I could claim the race card but to be honest I think you have to pay for membership to get in here. Backup clubs The Temple and TheClub were closed as well – Even on Christmas Eve, many places are closed, and Kings Cross looks desolate. A lady promoter nearby handed us free entry cards to Trademark Hotel. I didn’t like it as the last time I attended the Eve event but, I really had no other choice, so with our free entry cards, there was nothing to lose, let’s check it out!
The central bar and lounge area at Trademark hotel
Eve (aka eVe) @ Trademark Hotel
Assessment Time: 11:40PM – 02:15AM Continue reading »
Opening Hours: Unknown – 4AM?
Lockout: Did not appear to be a lockout. The cashiers were still there when we left.
Address: 1 Bayswater Road, Kings Cross, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.pianoroom.com.au/trademark/index.html
Promoter Website: http://www.boymeetzgirl.com.au
Occurrence: Every Friday
Outside Line: There was no line outside and we got straight inside. I was told by the lady I had to hide my wig and then put it back on inside, as they may not allow it past the door.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual seemed to be ok tonight as numbers were low. I would suspect the dress code to be more strict on busy nights, but tonight, it was casual ok. I wore a green t-shirt, black clean sneakers. Majority of males wore collared shirts with jeans/pants, while girls wore mostly dresses, though there were a handful of girls wearing jeans, as it was a cold and rainy night. However the vast majority of girls looked their best. There were some people in Santa hats as it was christmas eve.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $15 standard full entry. One of the promoters/managers gave us a free entry ticket for use before 12AM. During a break just before 1AM, she was still outside giving out her cards, so I am not sure how that works.
Guestlist: info@boymeetzgirl.com.au, or through the various individual promoter facebook pages which are easily found.
Inside: Enter ground level to walk halfway upstairs to the cashier. Walk all the way to the first level to enter the main bar area to your left. To the right are lounges and a separate sectioned off lounge area to hold 50-80 guests – a possible VIP area on busy nights. Bar sits in the middle of the whole setup, within lounges surrounding the North, East and Western sides. The southern side of the bar is where the DJ is located, complete with dancefloor, podium, and mirrors in the far corner to give the place a bigger feel. It needed it, as the floor was quite small at about 30-50pax.
Cloak Room: None could be spotted or found.
Bar Prices / Line: The drinks are not cheap here. The prices escape me, but think along the lines of Ivy, Establishment. This is what Trademark is about. You needed to order water from the bar, so the wait was around 5 to 10 minutes. A bit long. At times as i wait for my water right in front of the bar, other people would just cut in and order. So rude.
DJs: Unknown tonight.
Music Style: Mostly contemporary American RnB tonight, with some top 40, hip hop and some house thrown in. It was good enough to dance to all night.
Crowd & Ratio: The majority are Caucasian from a Aussie-European background. Some Aussies here, some Asians, some Africans, some Indians. A bit of everything. All appear to be well dressed so its not the sleazy type you would expect. There are a number of people here to keep the dancefloor busy. The ratio was probably just about even or 40:60 Women to Men, so nothing to complain about. Also spotted some other people here who were earlier walking around the streets of Kings Cross looking for a club to go to.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: On the dancefloor itself it wasn’t too packed, so it never overheated. You did have your own space and at times, there were spots on the floor where you could express more bold dance moves if your heart desired. The dancefloor and lounge area directly next to it were the busiest, with people mingling there. People are friendly here. The rest of the club was pretty desolate, with about 40% of the club being completely void of people.
Video: 360 of the main dancefloor
Major fail tonight as I was wearing no collared shirt and just sneakers. Got some promoter cards to go to Soho for the new event tonight, alright so here we go!
The Usual Suspects (Opening Night) @ Soho Bar Sydney
Assessment Time: 01:00AM – 03:00AM
Address: 171 Victoria St, Potts Point (Kings Cross) Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.sohobar.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.usualsuspectsblog.net/ Hard to tell if this was self promoted but it probably was.
Occurrence: Every Saturday
Dress Code / Door Policy: Clean sneakers and t-shirts are ok. At the door it was 3 of us guys and 1 girl. The door bitch told us straight out we needed more girls in our group at this time, which was fair, but the way in which she said it was with such attitude, it didn’t make me happy or sympathetic to the cause. We got in anyways after her question of ‘So do you want to go in or not??’. Oh such attitude (!!), but that’s a door bitch for you. I’m surprised we were not given the guestlist treatment excuse. They do try to encourage more women to come here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 for all persons all night. Promoters on a nearby corner are giving out discount cards which gave guys $15 entry and women free entry. These promoters specifically were only giving out the cards to women on the street and we had to interrupt one of the guys chatting up a girl to ask for cards.
Guestlist: Guestlists can be sorted out through the websites listed above.
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: I couldn’t find one. Assumed non-existent.
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight. The lines were very short – you could order right away or at max wait for 1 or 2 orders.
DJs: Main Ground Level Room: Bingo Players (Netherlands), Jaxx da Fishworks (Japan), Allep Oop, Oakes n Lennox, Fat Cue DJs. Upper Level Room: Rogers Room, Here’s Trouble, Bangers n Mash, Kristiano
Music Style: Main Room appeared to be house, electro while I was there. I had Jaxx da Fishworks on set here playing down here, and he mixed songs well and keep the beat going. I was really able to shuffle and dance around like a mad man here. Upstairs was more top 40 and pop. Lady Gaga and things like that were being played. Difficult to dance to, and not only that, the DJ during this time often slowed down or increased the tempo of the song currently being played for about 5 or 10 seconds before going in to match the tempo of the next song. This was absolutely a show stopper everytime this happened. Even though I am not a DJ, I am sure there are better ways for a DJ to transition into the next song being played without killing the rhythm. This was pretty much why I was downstairs most of the night.
Crowd: Dominantly caucasian. Younger crowd of teenagers and low 20′s. There are a handful of Asians as well – appeared to be a mix of local and international students. Crowd can be friendly, but certainly not cold I suppose. There were more guys than girls in here tonight. Probably 65:35 ratio
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: Both rooms on the dancefloor everyone is dancing happily away, and was always busy until around 2AM when people started to leave. Upstairs, the dancefloor was very sticky due to spilled drinks / lack of cleaning up, so difficult to dance well to. Also both rooms had a dark atmosphere with minimal lighting. In the chillout rooms/areas there were plenty of seats to go around – so the club wasn’t at capacity.. but these were just chillout rooms – we shouldn’t go clubbing just for the opportunity to relax all night.
Video: 360 of the main room
Video: 360 of the upstairs room
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)
Continue reading »
Video: 360: Dancefloor from the corner where the DJ is (12:30AM) 