I have literally finished with the Stereosonic Festival and ready to clunk out at home. On the way to my car, a friend calls me: “PARTY IN THE CITY TONIGHT JAMES!”. The problem is that I’m wearing this giant toothpaste costume, and its covered in dust, dried sweat, and spilled drinks from the hours prior. “Don’t know if your costume will get in, but try anyway!” is the reply to my question. Okay, good enough.

An hour later and I have arrived. Dress code here is Smart Casual, but I have a strong suspicion that they are very lenient tonight regarding dress code, due to Stereosonic removing pretty much more than half of the crowds from the city’s clubs tonight. Suspicion confirmed, as the security allows the giant toothpaste costume through without any questions. The toothpaste party continues! Here we go!

Most of the crowd @ 2AM

Sassy Saturdays @ World Square Pub (Formerly known as Equilibrium)
Assessment Time: 12:50AM – 3:00AM
Opening Hours: Unknown (Facebook page states 8PM, but I think 10PM?) – 3:00AM tonight.
Lockout: Unknown.
Address: 680 George St, Sydney. Google Map Link: http://g.co/maps/wvqjz
Venue Website: http://www.worldsquarepub.com.au
Promoter Website: Appears to be a multiple promoter event. Dynamic Entertainment (http://www.dynamicau.com) &  SyndicateEvents.com.au and others.
Occurrence: Every Saturday since September 2011
Outside Line: A handful of people, but we got in within 5 minutes.
Dress Code / Door Policy: As mentioned before, usually a no daggy clothing policy applies, but due to Stereosonic being on, the dress code was pretty much open. Costumes and hats were freely allowed in. Though marty was asked to remove his wig when he was inside.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: You would have thought I remembered how much the charge was here. Last time I was here at this event (no review was written) it was $20, but from the depths of my memory it MAY have been $25, but I cannot remember. Either way, it is at least $20 for full entry. If you are on the guestlist, a discount probably applies before either midnight or 11PM. You will need to contact a promoter for exact details on this one.
Guestlist: If you can find a promoter, go through them, otherwise send an email to: Youngnsassy.saturdays@gmail.com
Inside: Previous weeks had the event held upstairs but tonight it appears that only downstairs was open. Perhaps they expected a low turnout tonight. Regardless, enter into the ground level to enter the “stand around” atrium like area, with dancefloor on the right to hold about 80-120 people. In front of you is the corner of the bar. It extends down the left side where there are lounges and tables. On the left is the outdoor smoking area. it’s a long space and enough for most people to get a lounge seat or a table.
Cloak Room: No cloak room facilities tonight.
Bar Prices / Line: Unknown, but you could get service pretty much right away. 
Bathroom Facilities: Pretty clean and maintained well tonight.
Eviction Count: None spotted. There were not that many people here tonight anyway.
DJs: Dirty Dex for most of the night.
Music Style: Pop, House, RnB , and many “Songs dedicated to the people from Stereosonic” – mostly LMFAO songs or something house related lol. All from the same DJ so minimal song repeating, if any.
Crowd: Mostly Asian tonight. It’s a mix of local and international Asians. also as the night progressed on, the crowd became more and more comprised of people dropping in from Stereosonic. I would suspect that without the Stereosonic crowd, tonight would have been pretty dead, as are the clubs out there. Rest of the crowd were a handful of South Asians/ Indians, and some Caucasians. 
Ratio: Despite low numbers, the ratio was fairly even throughout most of the night.

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It was either the Hollywood event tonight or the Korean night at V Bar nearby, both being grand opening nights, but this venue looked like it had more promise, so off we went – here we go!

Hollywood @ world square pub: Crowd at the Upper Level - 12:27AM

Crowd at the Upper Level - 12:27AM

Hollywood (Grand Opening) @ World Square Pub (22nd January 2011)
NB: (World Square Pub was formerly known as Equilibrium under the old owners)
NB2: Don’t confuse this with the event named ‘Flow’, which is held here on Fridays only and run under a different promoter.

Assessment Time:
Midnight 12:00AM – 02:15AM
Opening Hours: Security mentioned an opening at 11:00PM. Closing time unknown, but the Friday events close at 3:00AM – I would imagine tonight to be the same.
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 680 George St, Sydney (World Square, Corner of George and Goulburn St)
Venue Website: http://www.worldsquarepub.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.urbanagent.com.au
Occurrence: Commencing tonight and every Saturday thereafter.
Outside Line: About 10 people in front of us, but the line moved quickly as there was plenty of room inside.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Security had mentioned that the dress code tonight was much more strict than that of Friday nights. A friend of ours had not-so-clean sneakers on and was rejected. I had clean white sneakers and was okay to go in. (We didn’t dog our friend, he wanted to go home anyway, so it was alright)
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 Full Cover charge. $20 on guestlist.
Guestlist: bav@urbanagent.com.au
Inside: Walk into a foyer area for 20 people. The floor here is in an L shape configuration. On the left and continuing on down the length of the venue are multiple bars and lounges for probably 100 people. On the right is the dancefloor area to hold 50 or so people, also surrounded by lounges/chairs. Walk upstairs on the right to enter the proper dancefloor for 200-300 people. The floor is in the middle, DJ on a podium at the front, and bar on the far right. There are various lounges and chairs spotted along the walls of the room.
Cloak Room: $5 per item. If it’s your first time, the cloak room can be found at the back of the upper level. As you walk upstairs, turn left instead of right to get there.
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight.
DJs: Unknown tonight
Music Style: Rnb, House Mashup upstairs with mixing of songs done with the best bits only. There was also some American Rap. Downstairs was mostly songs played in their entirety – old school and house music.
Crowd & Ratio: About half the crowd here were Asian Australian. The rest were comprised of Caucasian patrons who were drinking earlier in the night here at World Square Pub, or Indians. Pretty Mixed. Age wise, a friend described it as “full of people who graduated from university already”. I would agree the crowd here was lacking in teenagers. It’s good for us older folk 🙂
Entertainment: MC to keep things going. Also there is an all-sexes podium near the front, while the sole podium at the back appeared to be female only, as I got quickly kicked off when I went up for some starjumping action. There are also podium dancers in white lingerie doing their thing throughout the show, which attracts the attention of everyone of course.
Atmosphere: Upstairs is a pretty dark area. With the spotlights providing the only form of lighting. This is where the dancing happens, and where everyone is most of the night. Most of the night the temperature kept okay, but at around 1:30AM it became a little unbearable and we retired downstairs. Downstairs, there is more prevalent ambient lighting and less people – probably at most 10 at a time. It was “dead” most of the night downstairs.
Video Montage: 360 of Lower Level, Walkthrough upper level, and Music Sampling throughout 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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Funky Buddha @ World Square Pub (Equilibrium): Saturday 26th December 2009

Assessment Time
: 23:45 – 1:30am??
Website: http://www.funkybuddha.com.au
Address: Address: 680 George St Sydney (Formerly Equilibrium)
Dress Code: Casual ok. Guys wore smart casual, girls wore dresses.
Door Policy: You will be rejected if you are a group of guys. You will be told to leave if there are not enough girls. This is apparently WSP policy. At least they’re honest.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: I forget. $20 I think.
Guestlist: See Website
Inside: Upstairs room to hold a small group of 200, dark. Also downstairs open area for Trance to hold 50 or so people. Well lit.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: $5 Gin and Tonics
Music: RnB upstairs, typical contemporary and classic songs. Downstairs area was the trance area, which was a welcome surprise.
Crowd: Almost entirely Asian
Entertainment: MC Upstairs
Atmosphere: Pretty packed. Pretty, pretty packed. The whole city was pretty packed – it always happens that Boxing Day never disappoints in terms of crowd attendance.

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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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