Satisfaction @ Tao Ultra Lounge - Masquerade Night

Pre-text: Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar, Funky Buddha @ Sanctuary Hotel
Looking for a Club. Walked to Bamboo and it was packed. Way too packed. We would not have stood a chance being able to dance. We left before paying at the counter.  Walked to Funky, and about 2 metres before entering, you could feel it hit you – it was a gust of Body Heat dissipating from the venue. We walked inside and pretty much felt like a sauna on mild, and by dancing in here it would be the equivalent of someone splashing more water onto the coals turning it up to full blast. We left before we paid at the counter. There isn’t much else to offer at 1:00AM. Pumphouse is shit and Cherry @ Shelbourne I have yet to check out, so off we went to Tao Nightclub, where reports was that it is not so busy these days. The last two times I went I did enjoy, so here we go!

Satisfaction @ Tao Ultra Lounge (Mr B’s Hotel)
Assessment Time: 1:00AM – 3:45AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM – 4:00AM
Lockout: Bouncers advise patrons the close club closes at 3:00AM and that is not worth getting in, but you can still get in if you want.
Website: http://www.syndicateevents.com.au
Address: 396 Pitt St, Corner of Goulburn St (Old Mandarin Club)
Dress Code / Door Policy: Advertised as “dress to impress”, but seemingly more relaxed about it at the door. Almost all guys inside though had a collared shirt, and the girls were all in dresses.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 full cover charge, $10 on guestlist before midnight.
Guestlist: info@syndicateevents.com.au
Inside: Beneath Mr B’s Hotel (former Mandarin Club), Tao Bar/Nightclub is a small area split into even smaller areas – A carpeted area where most dancing occurs. It holds 50-80 people. There are two lounge areas on either side of the dancefloor. A DJ is along the wall. The wooden floor area is the general ‘lets stand around and chat each other up’ area with bar and some tables and stools. This particular area has a green and red spotted light thing dotting the area. It’s trippy.
Cloak Room: $4 per item
Bar: $5 Promotional specials for drinks before 11pm or midnight.
Music: Contemporary RnB, with some commercial house / electro mashups
Crowd: Dominantly Asian. Handful of caucasians/euro people who were lost.
Entertainment: an MC to keep things going. Photographer as well. Also tonight was Masquerade night – so some people brang masks to wear. Promoters also handed out masks for the rest of our poor souls to wear if we forgot to bring one or, in this case, had no idea tonight was a masquerade night.
Atmosphere: Upon entering, it was pretty much what you would call ‘dead’. Nobody was at the bar, and there were about 20-30 people on the small dancefloor / lounge areas. Half the crowd here were from a Hen’s night. However the dancing area is so dark and small you can’t really tell that its that dead when you are inside the carpeted area. It never picked up from that point – probably reaching a peak of 40 or 50 people during the night.
Video: 360 video (Dark)

Timeline:
Free masks
Just so that nobody was left out, promoters bought everyone a masquerade mask. Pretty cool.

Mask!

Greek man
I only met one Greek guy. He was doing the traditional greek dance around the place, which is way too slow for a club – opa!!

Oldies in the club
Greek man 32 years old. another asian dude was 35 but he did look old. He was drunk as. There was a hen’s night. The girls were easily late 20’s or early 30’s. I was probably one of the young ones in here.

Nick the bamboo dude
Nick was a guy who we met that night. He offered us to go to Bamboo later that night, but we ended up staying at Tao for the entire night. Nick stayed as well and tried to crack onto my friend, lol.

Dancing with a hen
There is a hen’s night tonight. This seems to be the only party happening tonight. We only know of one other birthday going on, as there are people dressed in outfits and uniforms, but only less than a handful of these people are in the lounge. I went up to the hen, and danced, but she just stood there and said ‘no’. Fine, walk away. Turn around and she is dancing with a white guy. FML – go to Star Bar to celebrate if you want non asians. Danced with a hen’s friend, and she said ‘yes’, and we danced. Win!

Dancing with the fun ones
2 fat girls and one pretty girl. Danced in front of them. They love it, except the pretty one. She doesn’t even want photos. Screw her, the fat chicks are lapping it up and loving us, and we dance happily. Fat chicks definitely are having more fun tonight.

MC Bored
Ask the MC for a photo. He looks so bored and grunts. Take a photo and he just lifts his finger to point at me. Even the deadness of the club has gotten to him.

with MC Bored

Arrivederci
Kicked out at closing time.

Recommendation
Pretty disappointed in tonight – there should have been more people. However the lack of people allowed us to dance more freely, and almost the entire crowd stayed from when we entered to when we left. The promoters previous incentive to give ladies free entry before 11pm have since been matched by the promoters of Bamboo, and now they have not much to offer to differ except an older more mature crowd, and a venue that isn’t hot and smelly. Something needs to be done population wise.

Satisfaction @ Tao Ultra Lounge – 3.5/10