It’s our last day in New Zealand, and we got to be at the airport at 4am – So instead of sleeping, we have decided to pull an all nighter clubbing! Excellent plan, I say. We actually asked a taxi driver where drunk people can be found on a Saturday night and he highly recommended Club 22. After the disappointment of a dud club/bar last night, we hope tonight is better, so here we go!
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.
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Lucky old me won 2x VIP tickets to Godskitchen. What a good way to end a long weekend. 3 nights out in a row 😉 I invited a friend and off we went – so here we go!
Godskitchen - During the Cosmic Gate set
Godskitchen @ Hordern Pavillion Sydney
Assessment Time: 10:00pm – 3:15am
Opening Times: 9:00pm – 7:00am
Website: http://www.futureentertainment.com.au/wsite/future-events/92-godskitchen-2009
Address: Hordern Pavllion, Fox Studios Sydney
Dress Code: anything goes. I had dress shoes, jeans, fedora hat. Pretty inappropriate for a rave. Everybody else was pretty casual, and the hardcore shufflers had their leg warmers out with glowsticks and light spinny things ( I have no idea what they are called ) and shiny reflective pants.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Prepaid tickets for $60. Also available at the door.
Guestlist: VIP tickets available for express entry, and access to the VIP room.
Inside: Just two of the halls were open. One hall for Godskitchen main area to hold everybody, and the second hall to serve as a chillout space.
Cloak Room: Yes, available, but forgot the pricing.
Bar: $10 smirnoffs
DJs: Main acts were Cosmic Gate, Blank & Jones, and John ’00’ Flemming
Music: The first act was .. ‘meh’. Crowd wasn’t really into it, just swaying around. The boombox wasn’t on at this time. Next was Blank & Jones, and the ‘official’ start to the Godskitchen event. Music was good. Everybody here seemed to be waiting for Cosmic Gate to come on. Music not too bad either! But, being someone who hasn’t heard any of the DJ’s before, it wasn’t too alienating. Everyone else seemed to know how to sing along to the songs. Once John Flemming came on, the music started getting a bit too hard, and was starting to get very repetitive. That is not something I really liked.
Crowd: Just anybody who is into these DJs. Mixed crowd all natios and all ages.
Entertainment: The ‘boombox’ was the star of the show. In the main room, it was a huge projector screen spanning the width and height of the stage. Behind the projector were bright lights and the speakers themselves. Four projectors from the back scan down to push projected imagess into the screen for awesome effect. Boombox wasn’t activated until 11pm, when Blank & Jones came on. Also alongside the DJs on occasion were two dancers in the Boombox. Pretty cool
Atmosphere: Initially upto 11pm it was pretty tame. During Blank & Jones, and cosmic gate, the main arena got quite packed and the atmosphere was pretty awesome. After 3am I was just suffering fatigue from the thumping repetitive beats. This was not a sell out event, as opposed to the Melbourne show. Perhaps it was because it was the same day as Parklife, which had just finished at 10pm?
Videos: on the next section
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We finished a wedding out west. I am in my tuxedo and I feel awesome. I was also smashed. The city was 1 hour away. I didn’t care. I was in a tux – We were going clubbing!! Luckily I had some friends at Home Nightclub…
About Home Nightclub:
Location: Cockle Bay wharf, Darling Habour
Website: http://www.homesydney.com
Inside: All rooms except the mid-wall room was open. Main room on the floor, with upstairs balcony area and 2nd bar. Outdoor smoking area connected to this. A 2nd smaller room on the 2nd level. 3rd level are 2 extra rooms. This place is a maze of rooms.
About Homemade Saturdays:
Assessment Time: 1.30am-3.30am
Dress Code: Casual ok. I was wearing my tuxedo from the wedding. You also get fingerprinted and photo scanned on the way in.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25
Guestlist: See website
Cloakroom: Yes, at the bar near at the DJ eng.
Bar: $12 yaberbombs.
Music: House in the main room. Can’t complain, all the commercial house tunes were being played. Actually it was executed quite well here. There was also a saxophone player to add another dimension to the music – much like the Bongo players at Bungalow and Cargo Bar.
Supporting saxaphone player used to great effect with the music
RNB room – RNB of course – but I wasn’t there long enough.
Party tunes and retro at the top level. They seemed to have combined all the rooms into one major huge event.
Crowd: Mixed – Asians, Euros
Atmosphere: Party and vibing in the main room. However the other rooms seemed pretty dead. Especially the RNB room as nobody was there – it was the most dead room of them all. There were a hundred other places where you could have your proper rnb fix – and Home Nightclub doesn’t seem to be popular right now as the place to be for it.
360 from the main podium
Timeline:
Kicked off the podium by the sexist DJ
There are girls up at the front dancing. Drunk old me wants a dance too! I went up and danced for a good 50 seconds. Then I hear a:
DJ: “OI!”
James: (turns around)
DJ: “GET OFF THE STAGE – NOW!!!”
James: (jumps off stage)
Man.. what a cold DJ. Given, he probably has a lot of drunk guys coming up onto his stage, but fuck you anyway Mr DJ, even if you played really good beats. A minute later I have my female friend go up and dance, and there was no objections. Total sexism!!!
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Friday RNB Special @ Home Nightclub
A small mention on the radio of an RNB night on Friday at Home Nightclub. The last time I went to a RNB event at Home bar, it went off! Sounds good, so I dragged my friends along. Here we go!
Assessment Time: 10:30pm – 12:30pm
Address: Cockle Bay Wharf
Door Policy / Dress Code: Casual ok
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: $20. $10 on guestlist.
Guestlist: Unknown, but one was available
Inside: Only the main room was open for tonight’s one-off RNB special. Main floor could hold a few hundred people.
Bar: $12 Yagerbombs
Music: RNB. Typical RNB tunes playing. Regulars to sublime trance event only had the upstairs rooms tonight.
Crowd: There was nobody here, but the crowd that was here, was Mixed. Indian, Asian, Black, Aussie, Euro. Our group represented the only asians.
Atmosphere: Dead.
Timeline
Home nightclub – an empty shell
There was no line for our RNB event. Bad sign, but it was early. We walked into the main floor and this is what we saw:
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Sunday night – our last night in the Gold Coast. Sin City is apparently the place to be. It also happens to be the ‘sister’ nightclub of “The Bedroom” Nightclub, which we visited the night before, and enjoyed.
A guestlist was submitted, and again as previous night, we had a truckload of drinks before we left, so here we go!
Sin City Nightclub
Assessment Time: 11:30pm – 1:45am
Website: http://www.sincitynightclub.com.au
Address: 22 Orchid Ave, Surfers Paradise QLD
Dress Code: Casual OK.
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: I’m not sure. $10 I believe. Free on guestlist. Free entry before 11pm if you obtained a voucher. Vouchers are obtained from a stand outside the club., making the whole process irrelevant.
Guestlist: A friend submitted the guestlist through the website. Guestlist also includes 3 free drink vouchers.
Inside: Walk in and you are faced with a seated area. To the right is the dancefloor that could hold about 100 people or less. Two podiums on either end. Elevated standing areas along one walls, and a DJ booth along the other wall. At the back is the bar, with lounges on either side. 2 or 3 VIP areas are in the very back corner.
Music: Commercial House
Bar: $50 Fishbowl Long Island Teas. Awesome. Waitresses in skimpy outfits. Double awesome. Photos below.
Crowd: Locals and tourists. Mixed nationalities tonight of Aussies, Euros, Asians and Indians. For some reason there were quite a few guys in here, I would say a 70/30 ratio of guys to girls in here.
Atmosphere: For a Sunday night, it was quite good. By midnight the bar and dancefloor were pretty packed. You could easily confuse it for a Saturday night out. People were pretty friendly too.
Walkthrough Video of Sin City Nightclub (Sunday):
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We were up in the gold coast, and a friend organized a club to visit – The Bedroom. Heard it was good, so here we go!
The Bedroom Nightclub Review
Assessment Time: 11:30pm – 02:30am
Address: 26 Orchid Avenue, Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast, QLD
Website: http://www.thebedroom.net.au
Door Policy: Casual OK. We were 10 asian guys and 4 girls, and had no problems getting in. No security scan.
Entry Fee/ Cover Charge: $10. Free on guestlist. God it’s a bargain here compared to $20/$25 in Sydney – I love it.
Guestlists: Send to the Marketing Manager – http://www.thebedroom.net.au/contact.html
Inside: Walk downstairs to a bar on the right, a seating area. Dancefloor and DJ on the left. Beds line the walls of the place, representing the VIP reserve areas. Dancefloor is of normal size to hold 100-150 people. There is another bar at the back as well and more standing areas to socialise. There are 3 or 4 podiums scattered around the dancefloor which surround the poles. There were even flashing tiles on the floor. This place had a bit of everything! Well thought out, I am impressed.
Crowd: Mixed, but mostly euros and aussies.
Music: House.
Atmosphere: Busy and loud on the floor. Everyone is dancing, its generally a very good vibe:
Closing Time: 5am
Video: Once we entered I had a look around:
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