A friend’s birthday. Thank the lord the venue isn’t a packed Asian club because I had a horrific experience over the Easter weekend trying to get to any club. Tonight it’s Zeta Bar, and we are let in – here we go!

Dancefloor area at 12:30AM

Saturday Nights @ Zeta Bar Sydney
Assessment Time: 10:45PM – 2:55AM
Opening Hours: Bar opens at 5PM, but DJ music is up from 7:30PM
Lockout: Unknown, but probably 30 minutes before closing.
Address: Level 4, 488 George Street, Sydney, NSW 2000. The entrance is via George St – take the elevator up to Level 4.
Venue Website: http://www.zetabar.com.au and http://www.fb.com/zetabarsydney
Event Website: See venue website above.
Promoter Website: Self Promoted (?)
Occurrence: Every Saturday Night
Outside Line: The line on ground level was minimal, and we were let in right away.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty much as the website states, it is a sophisticated dress code. Smart casual is the minimum to be here. Pointy shoes, collared shirts, vests for guys.. girls should look their best.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 for everybody. Even though a guestlist was sent in, the price was the same.
Guestlist: drink@zetabar.com.au
Inside: Take the elevator up to the 4th floor. Walk out past the register and on your right is the dancefloor to hold perhaps 50-70 people comfortably. An open wall separates the floor from two large U shaped lounges each to hold probably 20 people. On your left is the long bar along the wall, while opposite the bar are curtained off lounges for private parties. In between is the narrow walkway spanning the length of the bar upto the secondary bar on the far northen end wall. As you walk up to this particular area, there are spotted lounges along the walls, and note the outside courtyard on your left, with some trees in the middle of it providing you with a plentiful source of leaves. Courtyard could hold another 50-100 people.. very tightly though – there isn’t much room to move around here.

Cloak Room: None
Bar Prices / Line: $18 for a Dirty Martini
Bathroom Facilities: Very immaculate. There is even a girl up in the bathroom who sits there all night, individually giving you hand towels, in case you have no idea how to use the paper towel dispensers. After I took 3 paper towels she stood up and showed me that there were heaps left. I suck. 
Eviction Count: None spotted, though I suspect people didn’t come here to get smashed, as it would be too expensive to do so here.
DJs: Resident DJs: DJ Antonio Zambarelli , DJ Ian Drabble earlier int he night
Music Style: Best described as light house, non commercial, turned up loud at the dancefloor, definitely not for the younger children of the dance scene. The video below may help what to expect.
Crowd: Mostly Caucasian crowd, plus some other Asians/ Europeans. It a small mix of birthdays and get togethers tonight. The crowd age is an older crowd. We met a group of people celebrating their 30th. Actually, I was here for a 30th as well. Everyone is dressed well and looking pretty good. Pretty friendly if you had a chat with them, In my experience anyway.
Ratio: It seemed pretty even, 60/40 Girls to Guys at worst.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment tonight
Atmosphere: Early in the night the dancefloor is very empty. This is, a cocktail bar, and people are mingling amongst themselves. Most of the crowd are outside in the smoking courtyard overlooking george st. It is only until just before 11PM that the lights that pervade the entire bar are dimmed down very low, providing for a more intimate/club-like atmosphere. The music is quite loud on the dancefloor. Throughout most of the night I wouldn’t say the place was packed, but there were enough people to be able to dance out front without being noticed. However the dancefloor shenanigans only really picked up at around midnight. The rest of the venue was quite chilled inside, while the courtyard remained busy until it was closed off. At the end of the night the bar undergoes a phased closure area by area.
Video:

Timeline

Happy Birthday, to us all 
So one of my friends convinced a group of women that it was my birthday. Oh hey, it was their birthday as well! It was her 30th and so naturally I said it was my 30th as well.. AND THEY BELIEVED I WAS 30 :((

Anyway I spotted their ginormous cake! It was a really big one; There was no way that they were going to finish that chocolate cake amongst 6 girls. I asked for a piece and they were more than happy to give me a huuuge piece, and let me tell you, the icing was bloody delicious. Cakes, cocktails, and chicks. Brilliant.

Having your cake and eating it too

Internet Friends

Listen to the song above for the words alone! That song is non stop in my head right now. Anyway, late in the night I did a short run up and jumped right into the middle of a dancing circle, (something I don’t usually do). Anyway everybody is very encouraging and cheering to my repertoire of crappy dance moves.

That’s when I spotted her.  This girl added me on facebook, and later on deleted me, probably because we never hung out. Oh let’s hang tonight! I’m pretty sure she was ignoring me until I went up and said hello to her. Then after she slowly recognized me, I told her a line from the song: “you blocked me on facebook, and now you’re going to die”.

Actually, I didn’t say that, but it would have been hilarious in hindsight.

Arrivederci
The place was starting to die from around 2AM and this was evident with the phased closing of the venue, to keep numbers together. Eventually I left just before 3AM as the place was going to close anyway.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
Well, its certainly not for the young teenager looking to get smashed or wanting to get their shuffle on. It’s a night where you want to dress up look good, for a bit of a casual dance as well. This is almost a lower key version of the Ivy. It would be nice to come here every once if you had some spare pocket change, but probably not every week. So rounding off, it’s a great bar, not so much for club dancing.

Addendum: (15th Aug 2012)
The last event was August 3 2012, and Zeta Bar will be moving in a “different direction”. Entry will now be free, with I guess, musical changes as well.