Thought you might like some spreading action

Thought you might like this irrelevant photo (Back Room)

I’ve heard bits and pieces about the redesigned place, and the opportunity came to visit it tonight – time to check it out!

Saturdays @ FakeClub (Empire Hotel Level 2), Kings Cross : formerly “Plantation Bar
Review Note: This is the extended, personalised, version of the short review written for the Best Clubs In website,  found at http://www.thebestclubsin.com/sydney/fake-club
Assessment Time:11:40PM – 1:35AM
Opening Hours: 09:00PM – 06:00/07:00AM
Lockout: I don’t think there was any form of lockout, partly due to the extended opening times.
Address: Roslyn St. It’s on level 2 of Empire Hotel. This is the same venue/event formerly known as The Temple, formerly known as Plantation (Bar).
Venue Website: http://www.fakeclub.com.au
Promoter Website: Self promoted.
Occurrence: Every Saturday. The event is also open on Fridays, Sundays as well for other events with different music styles.
Outside Line: There was nobody in line as we entered. There was, though, a small crowd outside having a smoke, so at least you knew the place was at least populated.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty much you could wear as you please, excluding thongs. The relaxed dress code today might have been influenced a big chunk of the patrons coming from Creamfields festival earlier in the day, with whatever they were wearing – they are easily spotted with their singlets and shorts. . The rest of the crowd wore casual or smart casually dressed. The door policy was pretty relaxed – we were not scanned by security for any dangerous items.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 was entry. $15 entry if you wore a Creamfields wristband. Discount/Free before 10PM, which isn’t much leeway.
Guestlist: Guestlist ended at 10PM.
Inside: After walking up the (what appeared to be) fire exit stairs, you will be presented with a room which resembles a large garage or a small warehouse. High ceiling dotted with stability columns around the edges. To the left is the dance floor area to hold probably 100-150 people, with DJ on the West wall. Large LED screen intallation spans the DJ booth and rises up 3 metres or so close to the ceiling. To the South side are a handful of medium sized reserved lounge areas to hold parties for 20 people or so. To the right is the main bar for length of about 10 people. The North side is just pure wall, and the bathroom. The back room, hard to find, is located just adjacent to the main bar via a closed door. Walk inside to enter a smaller room – it can only hold 20 people squishily on the floor itself. DJ on the far end, while a makeshift bar on a table is on the left. Futons and lounges dot the walls here.
Cloak Room: None Found. Noted were people leaving their stuff around the place.
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight but the line was pretty busy – it would be at least 15 minutes of waiting time at the bar. It’s also in thoroughfare between the two rooms so you’re awlways moving and bustling around.
Eviction Count: None that I spotted. It was pretty dark.
DJs: Resident Fake Bratpack DJ/s, Teenage Terror Squad, Bangers and Mash, Oh Glam, and more.
Music Style: Main room played different flavours of electronic house (this is not the same as electro) and dubstep, (except notably commercial flavours) during the time I was here. During times, there were a good 10-12 minutes of ‘dull’ time where the beat/rhythm of the music being played was not sustaining the crowd at all, and you could tell people were getting bored. I don’t think the DJ sensed this – or it was just a part of his plan to not have the crowd jumping around and have them relaxed instead? Who knows. The secondary room is Old School Rnb, Hip Hop and Rap, with some old boy band songs too. Think Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Eminem, Backstreet Boys – A tribute to the 90s and early 2000’s hip hop/rnb scene you would say. The mixing in the back room was non-existent here, as the DJ used a standard form of slow-stopping the track and moving on to the next one. She made up for the lack of this by picking some good tunes and even dancing up and singing with the crowd.
Crowd & Ratio: Primarily local Australians / Caucasians here. We are one of two Asian groups tonight, and there are some islander groups. Gay friendly. The ratio was 65/35 male/female from best estimates. A good proportion of the crowd here are also from the Creamfields festival event earlier. This helps keep the average age here at about…. 19. haha.. well in all fairness the crowd was pretty young anyway. There are some folk in late 20’s and I saw a bloke who was definitely in his 30’s, but the place is pretty dark so its hard to spot anyone else older. Pretty OTT amongst some of the crowd here, with crowd surfing and people dancing on the speakers here.
Entertainment: MC for the main room to keep things going.
Atmosphere:
Pretty dark atmosphere here in the main room, with the LED light wall providing the main source of photons. It’s a blur of noise, the LED lights from the DJ area as well as constant strobic lighting giving the passive person’s first time out a very overwhelming experience. The people in this room seem a bit cold.. had a girl with ADD shove me and other people aside to get to the front without apologizing or anything – shameful. Otherwise the music is the focus here tonight. Also the first thing I wanted to do was take my jacket off when I walked in, so be aware of the warmth here.

In the backroom, it is more well lit and as the room is smaller, it does have more of a cosy vibe but can be overrun with the amount of people trying to fit in here. The atmosphere is more vibrant with people singing along to the music of years gone by. Sadly though the room died at around 1:30AM, arouns the same time the DJs were switched. Unknown how the room progressed later in the night.
Video: Main Room and Back Room: Walkthrough and Music Sample Timeline
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Line up looked really good, so we thought it would be very good value considering other festivals were 20-30 dollars more expensive. So got some tickets and off we went.. here we go!

Stereosonic Festival Sydney 2010 @ Sydney Showgrounds: Saturday 27th November
Assessment Time: 02:00PM – 11:00PM
Opening Hours: 12:00PM – 11:00PM
Lockout: Entry at anytime.
Passouts: No passouts at all.
Address: Sydney Showgrounds, Olympic Park. Basically walk out of Olympic Park station, walk down to the road and turn right.
Venue Website: http://www.sydneyshowground.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.stereosonic.com.au
Occurrence: Once a year.
Outside Line: It probably took longer to queue in the train station to get out rather than queuing to get scanned to get in – aka there was plenty of people to scan you in. There was only one person in front of me when I was going in.
Dress Code / Door Policy: There is no dresscode, you can pretty much wear anything. Most people wore causal gear and every person here also wears sunnies. It’s a necessity. Taking your shirt off is frowned upon especially in the moshpit areas. Police were ordered to refuse entry to anybody not wearing a shirt upon entry. It didn’t matter as heaps of guys were walking around inside with their shirts off, albeit they almost all had shirts tucked away somewhere just in case they were asked to put them back on. In terms of costumes – there were the Mario brothers, a dude in a a full body red spandex suit thing, a dude walking around with a twister board around his neck, and Lil Jon. It was either me or there wasn’t much creativity in terms of dressing up. I was forced to take my outfit off before entering the venue. See more for details below.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $120 1st release, $125/130 second, $135 3rd and final release.
Inside: Basically if you have been to the Easter show here at Homebush, its all the areas converted to DJ areas. There were 7 stages including the main Stereosonic stadium itself. 2 of the rooms were enclosed, and the other 5 were in open plan areas. Needless to say all had large capacities. Thank god the weather held up today. There was surprisingly no silent disco area, despite some other cities having it. Complete setup at the website PDF map
Cloak Room: $3. This is probably the only fairly priced thing here today

Bar Prices / Line: Bar lines went very quickly if you went to the right ones. Some bars had massive long lines eg the ones outside Creamm stage, but other ones barely had anybody lining up, and you could just walk straight to the bar eg the bar outside Carl Cox stage near the DJ Hero playing area. Pricing was $9 for a Middie of Smirnoff. A total blatant rip off!!! Previous festivals had them at $10.50 for full strength Smirnoff black and we are hit with Middies. Stupid angry alcoholics who ruin it for everyone. Even so, its still a rort and a half – I didn’t feel the effects at all from the drinks. 
DJs: Tiesto, Calvin harris, Sebastian Ingrosslo, Benny Benassi, Wiley, Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano, Andy Murphy, Carl Cox, TV Rock and more. Complete line up found on the PDF map .. with about 50 acts listed
Music Style: Mostly Soft/Uplifting Trance, Dance, Electronic, various different House styles of music here. 
Crowd & Ratio: Mostly Anglo-Saxon crowd. Pretty much an even ratio here all around. 
Entertainment: Besides the main stages, there was a DJ Hero play area, a riding bull, human ten pin bowling (you are strapped inside a huge inflatable bowling ball) a passion pop photography area, food stalls, water cool down areas. There were also some amusement rides. 
Atmosphere: Pretty good/vibrant everywhere. Early on before 6PM most stages were at about half capacity or less. Browntown, OneLove and Sneakerpeeps stages experienced it the worst, where no more than 30 or 40 people would be dancing there at the same time. Of course, these were the smallest stages. I’m not into the Carl Cox style of funky house, but the people there who were into that really enjoyed themselves, and there were plenty of them. Main arena was atrociously packed near the mosh pit, and I never got a chance to go inside (they actually have a sealed off moshpit area here, quite generous in size). Outrage was openly busy throughout the day thanks to its location right next to the entry gate. Also Cream(field) stage was also full of patrons throughout the day and night, you couldn’t go wrong here. Tiesto atmosphere fizzled after a stage power blackout near the beginning of the set. Very unfortunate.

Video: Ten pin bowling
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Stereosonic main stage during Calvin Harris set – just before Tiesto
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