I was at Shark Hotel and I heard music coming from the club upstairs! I had to check it out..
Naked (Thursday nights) @ Space Nightclub (Shark Hotel), Sydney
Essentials:
Opening Hours:
9:00PM – 4:00AM
Address:
127 Liverpool St.
You need to enter Shark Hotel first on the 1st floor, and from there take another flight of stairs to the 2nd floor, where Space is.
Venue Website:
http://www.spacevenue.com.au
Event Website:
http://www.facebook.com/nkdthrsdys/
Promoters:
http://www.tarantulamusic.com.au/
Occurrence:
Every Thursday night since October (was at another venue prior to this)
Dress Code / Door Policy:
Anything goes. Casual is okay, everyone (almost everyone) is wearing t-shirts or whatever is comfortable. Singlets everywhere. Saw a guy in a bear costume as well as a backpacker wearing a pair of thongs. I had sneakers/jeans/shirt/jacket.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge:
Free entry all night.
Guestlist:
See facebook page for info
Cloak Room:
None
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A birthday at Arthouse tonight. We kind of debated for half an hour outside in the cold, outside the venue, to whether we should go in or not. Of course, we went in eventually. A second visit for tonight’s event, let’s see how it fares:
Flirt Saturdays @ Arthouse Hotel – Saturday Night – 11th August 2012
(some content will be similar to last week’s review)
Assessment Time: 11:35PM – 3:55AM
Opening Hours: “10:00PM” – 3:55AM. The quotes are subject to how long it takes for these guys to setup the DJ equipment and venue for the event.
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 275 Pitt St, Sydney (near Town Hall Station)
Venue Website: http://www.thearthousehotel.com.au
Event Website: http://www.fb.com/flirtsaturdays
Promoters: Urban Agent in conjunction with 1nitestand, VIPList, Eso, and others.
Occurrence: Every Saturday since July 2012.
Outside Line: There is a general line and a guestlist line. When we were debating whether to go in or not, there was a line of about 10 people. After deciding to go in inside, the line had been cleared by then – we got in without trouble. Considering the rain, at least they put one small table canopy up for whoever was standing in the front of the guestlist line.
Dress Code / Door Policy: There was no enforced theme/dress code, so casual was definitely okay. I had a long jacket with a double layer t-shirt (Breaking some fashion crimes there) with cardigan, jeans and casual shoes. I looked very daggy, but I was cold, and I didn’t care how I looked today. Half the crowd were casual and half were dressed smart proper.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 on the guestlist before 12:00AM, otherwise $25. I would recommend getting your name on a discount guestlist.
Guestlist: Send lists to your preferred promoter or check the Facebook page for details.
Inside: Main Room: Enter via the cashier entrance and you are at the back of the room- It’s a large, tall, long-ish room – now split it as such. The whole left wall is lined with lounges, tables and stools. The right wall is the main bar to hold about 5 bartenders at a time, with a secondary “shots bar” with a small selection of shots. This leaves a narrow path in the middle for which people line up and mingle. Right at the front the area widens for what is the general dancefloor area to hold about 40-50 people comfortably. DJ is right at the centre front, with a sight adjustment tonight – there is a large-ish podium in the middle. This was to be reserved for AJ Rafaels performance. Guys and girls were not allowed up on here. Arthouse has gone through a few additions since my last visit, to make it more ‘club’ friendly. There has been a proper segregation between tables/lounges and the mingling area with an open panel wall in the middle – people can dance and others can drink in peace. Also laser lights and squares of LED colour lights have been installed. Let’s also chuck in a few ribbons as well to break up the space – this defintely helps in making the place feel a bit more intimate as the ceiling is like 10 metres high. There is also a common back area for smoking, general chit chat.
Inside: Second Room: Again, the second room had a private party! Luckily the party was to end at midnight so I had the chance to finally get my grubby feet into the House music. Enter the room via cashier entrance and you are at the front. DJ on your right and bar on your left on the far end wall. In between is just dancefloor with lounges lining one wall, with large barrels (literally those barrels you see on pirate ships) along the middle length of the dancefloor to break it up. Also a tall room, and its pretty dark in here.
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Promoters have launched a new event at the refurbished Arthouse Hotel! Lets check it out – Here we go!
Flirt @ Arthouse Hotel – 4th August 2012
Assessment Time: 10:00PM – 2:45AM
Opening Hours: “10:00PM” – 4:00AM. The quotes are subject to how long it takes for these guys to setup the DJ equipment and venue for the event. People were let in at 10:30PM.
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 275 Pitt St, Sydney (near Town Hall Station)
Venue Website: http://www.thearthousehotel.com.au
Event Website: http://www.fb.com/flirtsaturdays
Promoters: Urban Agent in conjunction with 1nitestand, VIPList, Eso, and others.
Occurrence: Every Saturday since July 2012.
Outside Line: There is a general line and a guestlist line. Nobody lining up at 10PM, so we were the very first! A bit worrying as I expected at least someone to be lining up. When the doors finally opened at 10:30, there were about 30 people in line, and I was literally beginning to shiver – it was bloody cold. I felt a bit sorry for the people behind me in line, as I hear the security guy whisper to his colleague “Let them in 5 at a time – keep it (the rate of letting people in) slow” – So it is true! promoters want to keep a visible presence with people outside, while said people freeze outside. I plead on behalf of us payees, please keep us warm with an outdoor heater or something. A general tip for any clubs with separate lines – if you don’t care about entry fees, line up at the general line to get faster access into the club – security purposely let full fee payers go in as a priority, for obvious reasons.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Tonight the theme is a school uniform party – so ties and shirts were seen, but most just wore whatever they had on. Casual was okay. Girls had their one pieces on and guys were a mix of casual and well dressed. It was more of a casual affair though – my impression anyway. I had some old converse chucks, pants, cardigan with a collared shirt and my old “Class Captain” pin from primary school.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $10 if you were in school uniform theme. Free entry before 10:30 if you had your student ID! Well, lucky old me had a student ID, so I got free entry. The promo girls were nice to come outside to give free entry cards to whoever was in line just before the doors open, despite it being after 10:30PM. $20 on the guestlist before 12:00AM, otherwise $25. Bit pricey in general but normal for the Asian events – I would recommend getting your name on a discount guestlist at the very least.
Guestlist: Send lists to your preferred promoter or check the facebook page for details.
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From the ashes of Cave nightclub of 10+ years ago, The Star has opened a new nightclub – Marquee Sydney, sister club of the original Marquee in Las Vegas. I have heard stories of many people being turned away from the door for various excuses – Bad shoes, bad attire, too many guys, not enough people, too many people and the unspoken one of too many ethnics. Tonight seemed like the best bet to try to get in. Dressed our best, so here we go!
Saturdays @ Marquee Nightclub Sydney (at The Star (City) Casino Complex)
Assessment Time: 11:15AM – 4:00AM
Opening Hours: 9:00PM – 4:00AM
Lockout: Unknown, but there are no pass-outs / re-entry once you leave.
Address: 80 Pyrmont St, Pyrmont. It’s within the Star (Casino) Entertainment Complex. Walk in through the main entrance on the Eastern side, and the entrance to Marquee is immediately to your right.
Venue Website: http://www.star.com.au
Event Website: http://www.marqueesydney.com , http://www.fb.com/marqueesydney
Occurrence: Every Saturday (and Friday)
Outside Line: Arrived at 11:15PM with about 60 people in the general line. The line has people regularly going through, but just not fast enough. The guestlist line is a separate line altogether, and people are actually legitimately being expressed through to the club without wait, as it should be. It took just over 30 minutes lining up here, quite long. Keep in mind though that tonight is a resident DJ night. If you wanted to come where when a huge DJ/band/act was playing, expect to queue up for 2 hours plus.
Dress Code / Door Policy The door policy is probably the strictest or, if not, one of the strictest that I’ve been to ever. Dress Code: Guys – You really need to have at least dress leather shoes with collared shirts to have a chance of getting in. Avoid sneakers or simple shoes . Girls need to dress up pretty well. Smart casual you can probably get away with for both sexes on a normal night. Now that you have clothing sorted, the ratio is the next thing – you need pretty much an even ratio of guys to girls with your group. A group of 3 Caucasian guys and 1 girl were rejected (I couldn’t guess what the reason was) . We were let in with 5 Asian guys, 4 Asian girls and 1 attractive Caucasian girl. Door Policy: No bottles, sharps or whatever. They even checked my keychain, and I had to throw away my compact swiss army knife into the bin, which was understandable, but sad for me. After being patted down you get a photo taken and your ID scanned into their computer system in case you cause trouble. It felt like walking into a well dressed prison.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $30 is the standard cover charge on a regular resident DJ night. If you are lucky/unlucky enough to hit a night where there is an International DJ or Popular local act playing, the entry fee will easily jump higher. E.g. The weekend Avicii played, entry was $60, Above and Beyond were $50. In the future they will have a pre-purchasing system for tickets.
Guestlist: See the website. I did send an enquiry but as of a month later didn’t get a reply. Try to send them a few emails to make sure they read it. Or just mention you have a few grand to spare.
Table / Bottle Service: Table (or Bottle) service is quite a new thing to Australia, but is common in the larger clubs overseas. There are some other places that have attempted to do it but here this is the true implementation of table service. Basically its a small table for you and some friends to drink at and signal to everyone else in the club that you have, or have had, a lot of money. You get a big bottle of wine/champagne/vodka/whatever on your table ready to go. You also get very quick waitress service. It comes at the exorbitant prices from $3,000 $10,000, though I have heard more people say that it is $10,000 to get a table. Despite the prices, tonight all the tables were booked. Amazed.
Inside: After paying the cover, head up the escalators to enter the atrium / foyer where there is a cloak room and behind, a small open room to which there is a girl dancing with nothing but flowers and leaves on her. Ok, I’m impressed. On the left is a room (the “boom box”) which was unfortunately for a private party tonight, but on the right is the open main room of the club. Here the room is roughly divided into two areas – The bar at the rear and the main dancefloor down at the front. We enter through the rear to the main bar, which is a circular bar in the middle of this half of the room. Lounges line the walls here. It’s a medium sized bar and could probably hold 60 people around its circumference.
Stagger down to the next level (and the second half of the room) where there is a row of private tables with bottle service. Four tables on each the left and right hand side. It’s smaller than I expected. These tables are the only seats next to and on the same level as the dancefloor. The dancefloor itself is a medium sized floor approximately enough to fit 200 people or so in a packed situation. On the right there is a door to the outside smoking area, where there is a mini bar and some tables. On the left is a small passage that leads to an impressive bathroom. (more later). At the front is the DJ booth spanning the width of the floor. Podiums on the left and right. Above are concentric blinking led lights. The biggest thing you probably would notice though is the LED screen behind the DJ, spanning again the width of the room. It blurts out colours and shapes and what nots.
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After a short period of refurbishment (to which Sweet Saturdays moved to City Hotel as the Kin.ki event), Civic Hotel upper level reopens with a new event. Let’s check it out!
Yolo (You Only Live Once) Saturdays @ Civic Hotel (Rooftop)
Assessment Time: Midnight – 3:15AM
Opening Hours: Unknown (probably 10:30PM) – 4:00AM
Lockout: Around 2:30AM
Address: 388 Pitt St (oppposite World Square)
Venue Website: http://www.civichotel.com.au
Event Website: http://www.facebook.com/YoloSaturdays
Promoter Website: Unknown, but it could possibly be self promoted???
Occurrence: Today is Grand Opening night and it is to run every Saturday.
Outside Line: Didn’t appear to be a line. We got in right away without much trouble.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Nobody was wearing hats, except for the MC, so not sure on the hat policy. Guys are generally a mix of casual and collared shirts – you could get away with most clothing here. We were also a large contingent of mixed guys and girls and got in without issue tonight. Girls were dressed with their casual dresses and only a handful wore body tight dresses.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: One of my friends knew someone, who knew someone else, who got us free entry. So lovely of them. Standard cover charge ? we had no idea, but based on past history of Asian clubbing events at Civic Hotel and the cross promoting before the event launched, I would make the educated guess that it was $25 standard entry, with $5 discount if you were on a guestlist, and entered the premises before perhaps 11:30 or midnight.
Guestlist: yolo@civichotel.com.au , or check the facebook website for mobile phone contact details
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