I’ve been living in a country town. I’ve made a special weekend trip to Sydney to visit friends, family, and a new club event. Let’s check it out!
Mink @ Martin Place Bar
Mink has been running since July 2014
Essentials:
Opening Hours:
10:30?? – 2:15AM
Address:
51 Martin Place, Martin Place, Sydney
Parking:
Come later in the night and you can find street parking within 2-3 blocks around.
Website:
Event: https://www.facebook.com/minksaturdays
Venue: http://www.martinplacebar.com.au
Promoters: Clique: https://www.facebook.com/cliquesydney
Occurrence:
Every Saturday since July 2014. Prior there was another short-lived event, #Fabric run by competitors Syndicate Events
Dress Code / Door Policy:
Theres no dress code enforced tonight. People wore whatever they wanted.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge:
Paid $25 at the door.
There are weekly free entry specials so long as you enter the venue before 11:30 or before midnight.
Guestlist:
mink@clique-ent.com
Cloak Room:
Didn’t use cloak room facilities tonight, but based on earlier events, you are probably looking at $5 / item.
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Just walking back from watching the Mardi Gras.. and out of the corner of my eye I spotted – flashing lights!! It’s a dancefloor just above the pub/bar named Strattons Hotel, so against the will of my friends I dragged them over here .. here we go!
Crowd - Strattons Hotel
Dropping by: Mardi Gras Saturday @ Strattons Hotel
Assessment Time: 11:35PM – 11:50PM
Opening Hours: Unknown
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 249 Castlereagh St, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.strattonshotel.com.au
Promoter Website: This was self promoted
Occurrence: Unsure, it may be either a weekly or a monthly event.
Outside Line: No line outside.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Anything goes. People were coming from Mardi Gras dressed up and were allowed to the downstairs pub area. It is assumed that they were also allowed to go upstairs to the dance level
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free all night
Guestlist: None required
Inside: The Hotel is a two level affair where downstairs is a normal regular pub. Upstairs is where you want your dance fix – the flight of stairs to the right of the bar lead you to a carpeted room which is probably a dining area during the day. On the left corner is the DJ, the dancefloor area in front of the DJ to hold 20-30 people. There rest of the room is dotted with chairs, stools and tables. It’s like the dance party at the end of the wedding, but its instead very dark.
Cloak Room: None
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink here tonight.
Music Style: Commercial House during the time I was here.
Crowd & Ratio: Besides us, it was an entirely young and caucasian crowd. this reflected in the patronage in the pub downstairs, where everyone was also Caucasian but of mixed ages.. About 50/50 but it varied wildly due to the small number of people upstairs. Probably at most 10 people were up here at the same timme.
Entertainment: None
Atmosphere: Pretty empty most of the time. It was dark as well, so it was okay to go up and dance without being judged too much. Otherwise… wasn’t feeling it. The DJ set was on a set of foldable tables – it was very low key here tonight.
Video: 360 of the dancefloor
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Special K wanted to give this place a visit with me. I haven’t heard much about it, so why not give it a ago. So off we went with our friends – here we go!
General crowd shot 12AM
Gossip @ The Gypsy Lounge Nightclub (Havana / OneSixNine)
Note: Gypsy nightclub was formerly known late last year as gay club OneSixNine, while before that it was known as the straight club ‘Havana Club de Luxe’, where Fridays was a regular Asian RnB night. The promoters for tonight are different from the previous RnB promoters.
Assessment Time: 12:00AM – 01:45AM
Opening Hours: 10:30AM – 02:00AM
Lockout: None
Address: 169 Oxford St
Venue Website: Unkown
Promoter Website: http://www.xclusivproductionz.com http://www.facebook.com/pages/Xclusiv-Productionz/24109750459
Occurrence: Every Friday since late last year.
Outside Line: None
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual was okay tonight. Some guys wore t-shirts, some wore collared shirts. Girls wore their typical dresses and stuff.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Oh I wish I remembered how much I paid tonight, but I didn’t keep a mental note. Silly me. It certainly wasn’t $25. Either $20 or $15.
Guestlist: At time of writing, the official contact is bee (at) xclusivproductionz.com
Inside: Layout hasn’t changed at all since last year under the Havana name – You walk upstairs to the second level of this building, where you are in the back of the club – on your left are bathrooms, the close right has the back bar with 2 tables in front. Far back right corner is the VIP room, with its own bar to hold a small party of 40-50 people. On the front left is a sofa area split into 4, with its own bar, and likewise for the front right. The dancefloor is at the middle front, with floorspace to hold 200 or so people.
Cloak Room: I didn’t check, but the small corner where they typically had cloak room services was closed.
Bar Prices / Line: No lines at the bars, you were getting service right away.. A Smirnoff double black costs $13.
DJs: Unknown
Music Style: Primarily American RnB tonight
Crowd & Ratio: Our group were all mid 20’s and above. The rest of the crowd were under 25. It was approximately 50%-60% Asian with the rest being European with a trickle of Pacific Islander. Considering there were about 20-30 of us in total, it is not a very good representation of what this place would be like if it were to reach capacity.
Entertainment: None. Tickets were offered to Good Vibrations Festival on the promotional poster, but these never materialised into any sort of competition in the club while I was there. I might have missed out by coming late.
Atmosphere: Depressingly dead. Everything was set – bars, DJ, lights, even a photographer, but there was a distinct lack of humanly bodies. We were hoping it would pick up later at around midnight to 1AM, but it only marginally increased in population
Video Montage:
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Are they real?
Today I am avoiding RnB – and I have never been to Club 77, so lets check it out – Here we go!
The Party @ Club 77
Assessment Time: Part I: 10:30-11:00PM, Part II: 02:15-02:30AM
Opening Hours:10:30-4:00am
Website: http://www.myspace.com/club_77, http://www.myspace.com/mrparty
Address:77 Bayswater Road, Kings Cross, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual is the norm here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: I haggled the guy to $5 each, under very suspicious circumstances.
Guestlist: None
Inside: The entrance to Club 77 is a typical black wooden door, with the party smoke gashing out of it. The Club itself is underground, so you got to walk down the smokey stairs to enter the area licensed to hold 280 people. Bar is on the left, DJ at the front, and a handful of lounges at the corners, where it is very dark.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: $3 for a lemonade as far as I can recall
DJs: Who knows, and more importantly, who cares?
Music: I can’t put my finger on the crap that the DJ was playing. It wasn’t quite house, and it wasn’t quite retro and it wasn’t quite pop. It made me feel uncomfortable. You would try to dance to it, but the music was such that you couldn’t go hard at it – you were forced to relax to the thumping noise. Imagine being at a gay bar and hearing this kind of music…
Crowd: Part I: Entirely Asian. Yes, can you believe it? Easy to explain – It was just me and M for the first 30 minutes. Part II, it was more mixed now – half asian, and the other half were two caucasian guys. No females at all.
Entertainment: None
Atmosphere: Dead, dark and shit. I would rather go have my fingernails pulled out to get my adrenalin rush than to be here.
Walkthrough Video of Club 77
Read on about the travesty that is Club 77 – porno, cockroaches and more.
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Highlife - Favela Podium
I’ve always wanted to go back to Favela. With Privilege Bar closed, their Friday RnB nights moved to Favela – It was time to check it out – Dance buddies C and M are with me tonight – here we go!
Highlife @ Favela Nightclub Sydney
Assessment Time: 12:50am – 1:50am
Website: http://www.favela.com.au, http://www.paulstrangepresents.com
Address: 1 Kellet Way, Potts Point, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok. Hats were ok in here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20
Guestlist: send to guestlist@paulstrangepresents.com
Inside: This is a two room setup. As you walk in, you will see lounges and a central bar. On the lower level is a tiny dancefloor area for 20 or so people and a DJ. This is where the old school and funky house is playing. There are two separate flights of stairs to go up to the main room. Here is a slightly larger floor for 50 or so people. Bar, DJ, and lounges along the side. There is also a VIP room if you choose to borrow.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: $4 Tap Beers, $6 House shots. The wait was about 5 minutes for a glass of water.
DJs: Moto, Tikelz, Samurai, Mo Funk, Maurice Beats
Music: RnB, Hip Hop, Old School, Funky House. No real complaints.
Crowd: Mostly white. I think we were the only asians in here. Everyone here is young and good looking.
Entertainment: There is an MC in the main room to help out with the atmosphere. The lights help as well.
Atmosphere: It was pretty crap throughout the whole place. I heard Saturdays are packed, so I assumed Friday tonight was to be awesome as well. Well, it wasn’t. It was pretty shit. There were no more than 5 people on the dancefloor below, and no more than 10 in the main pit of the dancefloor.
Videos:
Walkthrough:
Video of the ceiling lights:
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Fridays @ Kings Cross Hotel
Assessment Time: 12:00 – 12:15am
Location: 248 William St, Kings Cross
Website: www.kingscrosshotel.com.au
Inside & Music: Bottom level general area band/pop music/bar (small), Level 3 chillout (small), Level 4 RnB (medium), Level 5 Private Function.
Cover Charge: Only on Level 4 there was a $10 charge
Dress Code: Casual OK.
Atmosphere: Dead. See timeline below for details.
Crowd: White
Video:
If you managed to watch that whole video, you would have noticed the club was missing a little something to make it better. Can you guess what it is?? Can you? Why yes, my dear Watson. It’s missing people. Elementary.
Timeline
– Had to walk up the stairs to get to level 3
– Level three only had 2 people when we go there – the DJ and the bartender. NO PUNTERS WERE INSIDE.
– Walking up to level 4, there were about 5 people who somehow got sucked into coming here. So shithouse.
– When we reached level 4 – The DJ stopped playing music.
– When the DJ stopped playing, M makes his own music in his head and waltzies right in. “Shouldn’t we charge him?” one of the cash register guys say.
“No, we can’t charge him. We can only charge cover if the DJ is playing music.”
Recommendation
Let’s cut to the chase. Avoid this place for general dancing at all costs. This goes in the scrap alongside Golden Palace (GP always has drugs.. and violence to the level where police have to be called in). Drinks are ok here though, but that’s not why you’re on this website.
Kings Cross Hotel – Zero (0) out of however many marks you want. This place sucks.
Friday RNB Special @ Home Nightclub
A small mention on the radio of an RNB night on Friday at Home Nightclub. The last time I went to a RNB event at Home bar, it went off! Sounds good, so I dragged my friends along. Here we go!
Assessment Time: 10:30pm – 12:30pm
Address: Cockle Bay Wharf
Door Policy / Dress Code: Casual ok
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: $20. $10 on guestlist.
Guestlist: Unknown, but one was available
Inside: Only the main room was open for tonight’s one-off RNB special. Main floor could hold a few hundred people.
Bar: $12 Yagerbombs
Music: RNB. Typical RNB tunes playing. Regulars to sublime trance event only had the upstairs rooms tonight.
Crowd: There was nobody here, but the crowd that was here, was Mixed. Indian, Asian, Black, Aussie, Euro. Our group represented the only asians.
Atmosphere: Dead.
Timeline
Home nightclub – an empty shell
There was no line for our RNB event. Bad sign, but it was early. We walked into the main floor and this is what we saw:
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