Major fail tonight as I was wearing no collared shirt and just sneakers. Got some promoter cards to go to Soho for the new event tonight, alright so here we go!
The Usual Suspects (Opening Night) @ Soho Bar Sydney
Assessment Time: 01:00AM – 03:00AM
Address: 171 Victoria St, Potts Point (Kings Cross) Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.sohobar.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.usualsuspectsblog.net/ Hard to tell if this was self promoted but it probably was.
Occurrence: Every Saturday
Dress Code / Door Policy: Clean sneakers and t-shirts are ok. At the door it was 3 of us guys and 1 girl. The door bitch told us straight out we needed more girls in our group at this time, which was fair, but the way in which she said it was with such attitude, it didn’t make me happy or sympathetic to the cause. We got in anyways after her question of ‘So do you want to go in or not??’. Oh such attitude (!!), but that’s a door bitch for you. I’m surprised we were not given the guestlist treatment excuse. They do try to encourage more women to come here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 for all persons all night. Promoters on a nearby corner are giving out discount cards which gave guys $15 entry and women free entry. These promoters specifically were only giving out the cards to women on the street and we had to interrupt one of the guys chatting up a girl to ask for cards.
Guestlist: Guestlists can be sorted out through the websites listed above.
Inside: Walk through the hallway to enter the main bar on the ground level, where lounges are on the left and right. Keep walking through to the main dancefloor to hold about 100-200 people. Elevated dance podium at the back of the room. DJ at the front, some lounges along the far end walls and behind the DJ. Go back and upstairs to the second main dancefloor with a smaller floor for about 30-40 people and bar in the same area. In surrounding rooms are other reserved rooms for parties and various lounges to chill out. Also a smoking area upstairs.
Cloak Room: I couldn’t find one. Assumed non-existent.
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight. The lines were very short – you could order right away or at max wait for 1 or 2 orders.
DJs: Main Ground Level Room: Bingo Players (Netherlands), Jaxx da Fishworks (Japan), Allep Oop, Oakes n Lennox, Fat Cue DJs. Upper Level Room: Rogers Room, Here’s Trouble, Bangers n Mash, Kristiano
Music Style: Main Room appeared to be house, electro while I was there. I had Jaxx da Fishworks on set here playing down here, and he mixed songs well and keep the beat going. I was really able to shuffle and dance around like a mad man here. Upstairs was more top 40 and pop. Lady Gaga and things like that were being played. Difficult to dance to, and not only that, the DJ during this time often slowed down or increased the tempo of the song currently being played for about 5 or 10 seconds before going in to match the tempo of the next song. This was absolutely a show stopper everytime this happened. Even though I am not a DJ, I am sure there are better ways for a DJ to transition into the next song being played without killing the rhythm. This was pretty much why I was downstairs most of the night.
Crowd: Dominantly caucasian. Younger crowd of teenagers and low 20’s. There are a handful of Asians as well – appeared to be a mix of local and international students. Crowd can be friendly, but certainly not cold I suppose. There were more guys than girls in here tonight. Probably 65:35 ratio
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: Both rooms on the dancefloor everyone is dancing happily away, and was always busy until around 2AM when people started to leave. Upstairs, the dancefloor was very sticky due to spilled drinks / lack of cleaning up, so difficult to dance well to. Also both rooms had a dark atmosphere with minimal lighting. In the chillout rooms/areas there were plenty of seats to go around – so the club wasn’t at capacity.. but these were just chillout rooms – we shouldn’t go clubbing just for the opportunity to relax all night.
Video: 360 of the main room
Video: 360 of the upstairs room
Timeline (Quickies)
– Friendly drunk guy saw us and danced and jumped and pummeled us with questions. Then he left to continue drinking.
– We were dancing in the main room. There was this tall swedish looking guy who was just standing on the dancefloor. He didn’t know how to dance or didn’t have the confidence. This was clearly a case of someone being dared to go to soho bar and to stay on the dancefloor. Anyway wherever we stood on the main dancefloor, he would be about a metre from us, facing in our direction, when there are clearly other areas he could stand around and not dance. It was really creepy.
– I danced out back and turned around. Random girl is staring at me. Pause dance and hold pose. Then we did a dance off and that was it. The End.
– Met a guy with a beanie. Not sure if the wind changed:
Beanie gang- M, random, and I
Arrivederci
$15/$20 is a real downer considering the free/cheaper entries they were doing before the event started. Clubbing promotions is all about getting as many girls as in as possible I suppose. Music and mixing upstairs was questionable, but this is of course from only one DJ. It’s a shame. Downstairs was much better.
Recommendation
If you haven’t been here before or like the DJ’s for the main room, give it a go, but I wouldn’t go here if you are a guy and have already experienced Soho and only found it average. Women, get a card for free entry by finding one of the promoters along the main strip.. or they will more likely find you when you walk by them. Just don’t pay full price or you will have been ripped off.
The usual suspects @ Soho Bar Sydney – 5.5/10