I just finished Stereosonic, still upset I wasn’t able to wear my bubble wrap suit, as it got rejected at the gates. So where is a place that could let this outfit in? All I knew and all my friends knew that was there was a beach theme for Verandah Bar tonight. Oh well, I suppose let’s make the most of this thing shall we – here we go!

Some people have serious bubble wrap fetishes

Vanity @ Verandah Bar
Assessment Time: Entered late at 01:00AM – 03:15AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM – 04:00AM
Lockout: Around 2:30AM
Address: 55-65 Elizabeth St, Sydney.
Venue Website: http://www.verandah.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.eso.net.au, http://www.viplist.com.au, http://1nitestand.com.au (I believe they are backed by http://www.urbanagent.com.au )
Occurrence: Every Saturday
Outside Line: There was no line at this time when we arrived, but we had to wait about 5-10 minutes before we could get in, either due to being it busy inside or to keep up appearances outside to anyone walking by – it was the latter.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Today was a beach theme, we saw people walk outside with their thongs on, even though it was advised not to. Also people were allowed to wear singlets inside as well as hats.. anything beachy. Half the guys here wore casual and the other something dressy. Girls mostly wore dresses here, unless they were here for the podium dance off .
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 Full Entry. $20 guestlist before midnight. Free before 10:30PM if you are on the guestlist.
Guestlist: See websites above, and on facebook. Last time i sent mine to wendy@1nitestand.com. (still valid at time of writing)
Inside: After paying entry, you can visit the gambling room, which served no other purpose, or head straight into the main area where you are frisked before entering. Walk into the main dancefloor area separated into two distinct areas by columns and central podium – A dancefloor half that is kind of narrow .. about 10 people wide while spanning the length of the entrance to the bar, which would be about 40 people, and a second half of primarily people dancing, standing around, and others walking through. Walk to the back half of the club where a bar on the right serves the entire venue, and on the left are lounges to hold approximately 3-5 birthdays for 10 people. At the far back is the “Verandah” itself, a 2 person by 40-50 person smoking area where you only have standing room.
Cloak Room: $5 per item. Cloak area is located on your right as you walk inside the the main venue.
Bar Prices / Line: I didn’t drink tonight. Last month though, 5 Malibu + Lemonades and a Smirnoff double black would cost $52.
DJs: Unknown tonight.
Music Style: Primarily RnB with house and hip hop mash up later in the night. No complaints here, as I was only here for a short time and didn’t experience repeated songs.
Crowd & Ratio: Tonight the crowd is majorly Asian Aussie. There are a handful of people from stereosonic.
Entertainment: Theres a bouncing inflatable dice ball being thrown around the venue. Fun times, but eventually is taken down by security at around 2:00AM. There are also podium dancers, both guys and girls, which is good.
Atmosphere: On the dancefloor itself it was pretty busy and vibing. Out in the back half of the venue where the bar is, it is quite busy, but people here are more or less standing around and talking, and not dancing. The back area here is not suited for dancing as there isn’t much dancefloor space. Some of the lounges, chairs, etc are free for people to sit on. The outside narrow area for smoking is very busy/packed.
Video: 360 view just after 1:00AM

Timeline

A reflection on the human condition

I learned many things about people by wearing the bubble suit: 
– Strutting around in the bubble outfit
– Fending off bubble popping scavengers 
– Fending off bubble wrap stealing scavengers

This last point merits a bit of a discussion on some of the raw emotions exhibited in humans. I walked around in a bubble outfit. It basically consisted of the bubble shorts, bubble blazer, velcro to connect the two, and 4 extra rectangular sheets of bubble wrap which here hanging off my waist by velcro and tied down by sticky tape. Nice people would ask me if they could pop me, which is always pleasant. I suppose it is always nicer to ask permission before doing. Most people would just come up and pop some bubbles for fun and then walk away, which is fine cos I could have a conversation with them and photos and whatever. People just want to talk and be civil these days with their fellow people, but sometimes they forget to approach it the right way – it takes forgiveness and an acceptance of non-askers to help foster friendship and non-animosity with your fellow human being to make the world a better place.

Then, there are people who came up, and tried to rip pieces of the bubble suit off! Seriously what jerk offs. Probably 3 or 4 instances of people trying to claim their own piece of the bubble outfit. Some times the tape held the thing in place but other times it did fall apart and I was forced to spend some time putting it back together, which was a huge hassle. Then when i put it back together, yet again the suit is harassed to the point where pieces have fallen off permanently.

It’s quite sad, and kind of reminds me of a scene in Lord of War, where Nicholas’ Cage’s plane crashes in africa, and within the space of 24 hours, the African locals have dismantled the entire plane to the point of only the chassis remains left. Am I comparing my suit to the almighty commercial symbol of flying, the almighty jumbo jet? Yes, i am. Am I comparing the rude poppers to simple-minded (in comparison to western society) African locals. It’s kind of not fair, but I am. If the Africans asked if they could pop my bubbles, I would certainly let them, but I wouldn’t let them keep any piece of it. This is my precious!!! And thus ends my rant.

Go on, pop it, like I care (I did care)

NB: (21/12/2010: I’m re-reading this and I realise my mind was in a strange place at the time of writing, but I’ll leave it in anyway so I can laugh at myself later. )

MC can’t believe it
The entire time I danced near the MC. He would stare in disbelief that I would probably wear such a thing. It’s just bubble wrap.

The whistle can be useful in a club (Women: READ) 
This entry is all about the bubbles. Now to the rude people who would not ask to pop the bubbles, I actually had a nice little solution. My beach whistle! Hells yeah. If I felt someone pop me, I would easily spin around and blow my whistle at them. This, combined with a stern look and a wagging of the index finger stopped criminals in the act red-handed. If I were a chick at a bar, I would keep a whistle as well in case a random dude decided to grind you. It would be really helpful indeed, you can show them horny bastards who’s the whistler now!

Arrivederci
With a combination of me being tired from Stereosonic earlier in the day, me being here too many times already, me being overheated and sweating like a pig inside the bubble wrap outfit or whether it was the lack of people, we left at around 03:15AM.

Recommendation
Still good, but keep in mind I was only here after 1AM, so I probably missed out on experiencing a more balanced night ratio wise as well as missing the peak capacity of the event. My wallet also always hurts when I pay full cover charge of $25. Meanwhile next door at the Bamboo event, it was still pretty much going off. Insane. I would still send you here, just come a bit earlier to take advantage of the probable better crowd and cheaper cover charge. I’m personally getting a little tired of coming here so many times in such a small space of time so I will be holding off coming here voluntarily. If it is your first time, definitely still visit it.

Vanity @ Verandah Bar – 27th November 2010: 6.5/10