Heard word that the closed Moulin Rouge club had been bought, refurbished, and reopened for the public as O Nightclub! Time to check it out!

Costume Party

Friday Nights (Private Party) @ O Nightclub
Assessment Time: 11:55PM – 2:30AM
Opening Hours: 20:00 – 03:00 AM
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 39 Darlinghurst Road, Potts Point / Kings Cross
Venue Website: http://www.onightclub.com.au
Event Website: http://www.fb.com/onightclub
Promoter Website: Appears to be self promoted ?
Occurrence: Every Friday, Saturday
Outside Line: No line outside upon approach.
Dress Code / Door Policy: It was pretty much whatever goes. Tonight is a costume party, and we were caught unawares without wearing a costume at all.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: It was $20 with a free drink included, but we did a bit of negotiation and got it down to $10 without the drink. Not much of a difference as I end up buying a drink later worth about $10 anyway.
Guestlist: None
Inside: Did you ever visit Moulin Rouge / The Rouge before it closed down and became O nightclub? The layout is exactly the same but the refurbishment job done has made it look very new and more club like. No more is the moulin rouge / dirty feel of the club. It’s more open and “clean”.

Through the doors on ground level, walk down the lightened stairwell down underground to enter the lower lounge area. On the direct left corner is the 3 sided corner lounge to hold a large contingent of perhaps 20 people. Bathrooms on the right and a bar on the remaining corner of this lower level. Walk up the half-flight of stairs to get to the “middle” floor which is the dancefloor. It’s not a large dancefloor at all; perhaps 5 by 5 metres. DJ booth in the left far corner. Behind the DJ on both corners are jail-like bars to which there are lounges behind, looking down upon the dancefloor. On the right is another set of stairs to take you up to the upper bar and the lounges behind around and behind the DJ. The upper lounge area could probably hold 100 or so people.
Cloak Room: None tonight.
Bar Prices / Line: I can’t remember pricing, but it was less than $10 for a normal drink. The lines – well there wasn’t much of a line all night at either the upper or lower bar – service was guaranteed right away.
Bathroom Facilities: Pretty decent. Clean. I accidentally walked into the girls bathroom and I’m happy to report that it was also clean.
Eviction Count: None spotted.
DJs: Resident DJ
Music Style: Mostly Top 40, RnB, Commercial House tunes.
Crowd: Tonight appeared to be a private party for an ESL school. So pretty much everyone was a backpacker / International student. 
Ratio: 2 Guys to 1 Girl most of the night.
Entertainment: None extra.
Atmosphere: Upon entering at midnight, the dancefloor was indeed full, but the rest of the venue was not so busy. The upper lounge areas were closed off entirely to the public and only workers were seen chilling out on the upper lounges. Well, they told me they worked here anyway. As mentioned here everyone here is in costume and pretty friendly.
Video: Walkthrough and Music Timeline
YouTube Preview Image

Timeline
A bathroom exchange
In the urinal doing my thing and next to me, this guy asks if I have gum. That’s a first. I dig around pretending to look for gum, and turns out I actually do have a stick of gum, and I kindly gave him a piece. In return he offered me his drink! It was just sitting there on the sink. Looked full, the place wasn’t dirty so I had a sip.
“No, have some more!” he says. Another sip
“No, more!”. So I gulped about half of it. He seemed very thankful after that, though I mean he spent probably $7 on that drink, it would have been cheaper to run across the road to the convenience store and buy it for $1 or $2

The costume party nobody told me about
This appeared to be a private party but was open to everyone off the street. The school was an English Learning school from downtown and a lot of the students are here. Everyone is pretty friendly and dressed up in various costumes. Pretty cut up that I didn’t know tonight was a costume party. Sheiks, bumblebees, angels, devils, some green thing (I think it was a frog)… pretty much me and my little entourage had nothing to show.

Met heaps of the people at the party, including someone from Ecuador who obviously hadn’t been doing her English homework, compared to her Japanese colleague who had heaps better English. Asians are definitely more studious.

Arrivederci
Gone at 2:30 after everyone suddenly left. We partied on at Tunnel Nightclub.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
Throughout the whole night the venue never got to full capacity – though since everyone knew each other it was still a good vibe here, especially with the costumes. Though I must say that if it were not for this party, I am not sure what would have happened. This place could have been dead. It certainly has the setup all set for a good lounge/club, but it is truly lacking the people. With people down the end of the road giving away free entry to rival club The Tunnel (it was packed when we got there) to pull crowds, it’s going to be hard.

I cannot recommend to go to this place until crowds pick up on the Friday.

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3 Responses to Friday Nights @ O Nightclub: 27th April 2012

  1. Dan says:

    That was a private party, No promoters but the organizers were collecting door charge for the ones that did not have tickets.

    It was a great night thou.

  2. Jemima says:

    Say my name at the door “Jemima” for half price entry $10 on saturday’s i’m one of the promoters

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