Today is the last day of my job. Quite a sad affair, but it was another reason to celebrate. I’ve pretty much had a lot of pre-drinks tonight at a bar nearby, and just to make my friends happy I have sorted out a guestlist for The Vault tonight, as most did enjoy it last time, so here we go!
My little reserved area
Velvet Fridays @ The Vault
NB: Tonight I was pretty drunk..
Assessment Time: 11:25PM – 02:15AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM(?) – 03:00AM
Lockout: Unknown tonight
Address: 122 Pitt St, Sydney. Opposite the Westin Hotel (1 Martin Place) Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.vaulthotel.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.velvetfridays.com.au
Occurrence: Every Friday since late 2010
Outside Line: 2 or 3 people outside the front. Friends who weren’t before were worried it was a representation of a bad night inside, but two floors can hold enough 🙂
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Casual is encouraged here – some of my friends wore just shirts and jeans with sneakers, and were able to get in. I had a blazer, jeans and clean white sneakers.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free before 10:30PM if on guestlist. $15 before 11:30 on guestlist, and $20 full entry. Tonight is the farewell of me and my job, so I’ve been granted free entry, a small reserved area by the bar and a bottle of Chandon sparkling wine .
Guestlist: Emailed mine to velvetfridays@live.com.au at 2PM earlier in the day, and received a response and confirmation, which was good.
Inside: Walk into the side alley entrance to be presented with the ground level dancefloor. Bar and Shots Bar on the left. Dancing floor area in the middle and right to hold 50 people or so. Close right corner is where the DJ is. On your upper left is a VIP area / lounge for maybe 20 persons. Bathroom is here. In the far corner on the right are a set of stairs that lead downstairs. Walk downstairs to enter the “cooler” underground level room where speakers play music from the DJ on ground level. Podium for 6 people are on the left side. Lounges span the length of one of the walls and a bar takes up the other end of the room.
Cloak Room: I remember pulling out a $5 to pay for the cloak room but I don’t know if I got change.
Bar Prices / Line: Line in the upstairs bar was not long – probably 2 deep for a 5-10 minute wait. Same for the underground level.
DJs: Unknown, but probably the same ones as last time.
Music Style: Mostly RnB the entire night.
Crowd & Ratio: Mostly Asian Australian tonight. I don’t remember encountering any other nationalities, though amongst my personal group tonight were some backpackers from Korea and Brazil
Entertainment: MC to keep things going.
Atmosphere: Half the time I was upstairs, but during the time the floor wasn’t too busy, you could get your own spot and room to dance without being squished, but there were always people around you when you danced. Downstairs was much more of a busy affair throughout the night, where you are kind of restricted to your own spot – however more people were down here which added to the good vibey atmosphere. Tonight kind of glad that there were no fights that threatened the club to be shutdown, unlike last time I was here.
Video Montage: Walkthrough ground, under ground level, and music sample of the night. 
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Crowd upstairs early in the night - Velvet Fridays
Velvet Fridays @ The Vault
Assessment Time: 11:00PM – 02:15AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM – 03:00AM
Lockout: Unsure. however there is an internal 2AM lockout to go downstairs again, unless you are getting your stuff from the cloakroom.
Address: 122 Pitt St Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.vaulthotel.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.velvetfridays.com
Occurrence: Every Friday
Outside Line: On arrival, there were probably 3 or 4 people ahead of us, so it was a very short wait to get inside.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Strict Dress code – Guys to wear collared shirts, clean sneakers ok – and ladies should wear something dressy, but can get away with casual. Most stuck to the dress code here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free before 10:30PM if on guestlist. $15 before 11:30 on guestlist, and $20 thereafter.
Guestlist: Sent mine to velvetfridays@live.com.au . Fast response, all queries answered.
Inside: Have you ever been to Haymarket Hotel? It’s exactly the same. If you haven’t been … Walk inside the side alley entrance to enter the middle level main room. The Vault was formerly a bank years ago, so there is a high ceiling, and with it is an upper level DJ area which also doubles as a lounge for whoever is allowed up there. Back in the main floor, there is a bar, a ‘shots’ bar, podium for 2 or 3, and carpeted dancefloor for 100 or so people. Tucked away in the right corner is a set of stairs that lead you downstairs to the underground dancefloor area, which also has a bar, ‘shots’ bar and dancefloor for 100 or so patrons. There is also a dancepole here.
Cloak Room: $4 per item. Very reasonable.
Bar Prices / Line: $16 long island teas, $24 or something for three tequila shots? Basically there is the main bar for all your orders, but if you are only here for shots, there are specialised smaller “shots” bars on each floor, serving tequila, jagerbombs, and some other kind of shot. It’s a very clever concept. There wasn’t much of a selection but if this is what you were looking for, then you didn’t have to wait long. otherwise waiting at the bar may take some time – upto 5 to 10 minutes.
DJs: Peter Gunz, Flipsta, Hyper, Biggie, Stunna, Stib
Music Style: Primarily RnB, mostly American Black contemporary RnB. Mixing is done well, some repeated tracks due to the nature of multiple DJs. Bleh.
Crowd & Ratio: Pretty much almost everyone here is Asian Australian, there are some caucasian girls in corsets but they are here for tonight’s promotion, whatever it was.
Entertainment: Dancing pole, MC to keep things going.
Atmosphere: During the early hours of the night, most people are on the ground level as you walk in.. drinking, chatting, and what not. It’s quite noisy. Anyway as the night wore on and people danced more.. the upstairs got warmer and warmer – people could only hide downstairs, where the aircon was more efficient here in the smaller confined space. By 2AM, pretty much everybody is downstairs, and less than a handful of patrons can be found upstairs, either relaxing or dancing. You would think a large room such as this wouldn’t heat up, but it has. Kind of like St James Hotel’s main room when it got packed.
Video: 360 upstairs
360 underground
Walkthrough both levels
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