Prelude: We just survived a crazy set from DJ Shogun at Manning Bar. We met Shogun afterwards and asked what he was doing after? It was already 1:30AM. “I’m going to the Shanghai Nights thingy to party! Come and party with me!” Oh my god. Shogun wants us to come with him. Anything you say Mr Shogun. Time to go!
Shanghai Nights @ Space Nightclub
The name Shanghai Nights has been resurrected as a replacement for the Cubic event. It’s the same promoters, but the obvious target audience now are Chinese expats, rather than Cubic trying to attract both the locals and expats. Memories of Shanghai Nights at the previous venue conjour up images of busy crowds, cigarette smoke and asians everywhere. Probably not going to be the same here tonight but it’s always good to find out!
Essentials:
Opening Hours:
10:30PM – 4:00AM?
Address:
127 Liverpool st – enter via the second line to get your name marked off guestlist etc. Otherwise you may enter via the normal Shark Hotel line and walk in. After entering the Shark hotel floor, you may proceed to level 2 where Space Nightclub is.
Venue Website: http://www.spacevenue.com.au
Event Website: http://www.fb.com/shanghainightssyd
Promoters: Urban Agent, et al.
Occurrence: Every Friday since February 2013 at Space Nightclub.
Dress Code / Door Policy:
I was really casual. Jeans, running sneakers, t-shirt, leather jacket and I was let in.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge:
$25 after midnight. Cash only accepted.
Passouts:
No passouts before midnight (??)
Guestlist:
rob@ua.com.au
Cloak Room:
$5 per item.
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Visiting a friend for a birthday… nothing special – here we go!
DJ and dance area (about half the floor)
Dropping by: Babyface @ Tao Ultra Lounge
Assessment Time: 12:00AM – 12:45AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM – 04:00AM (More likely 10:15PM to be pedantic)
Lockout: Determined by security at around 2:30AM
Address:396 Pitt St, CNR Goulburn St (underground to Mr B’s Hotel)
Venue Website: http://www.mrbshotel.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.infinityoz.com
Occurrence: Every Friday night since late 2010
Outside Line: I waited for about 15 minutes before getting inside. The line was about 15 people long.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Casual is promoted, but guys wear a mix of casual and smart casual, depending on their mood. Girls as usual have to look their best. Considering the crowd type, even more so.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: I paid $25 full price to get in.
Guestlist: Try to submit at least one day before the event – http://www.infinityoz.com/guestlist
Inside: Situated beneath Mr B’s Hotel, Tao Ultra Lounge is setup as one room segregated by sofas and lounges,and foldaway columnar wall-like arch things. As you walk downstairs ito the club, you are on the right end of the club, where it is a standing and drinking area. Tonight the entry area has the huge banner for a professional photo with the promotional girls. The middle section is mostly the dancefloor area to hold 50-80 people . the latter third is again, standing room and lounge area, while the bar stretches along the farther two thirds of the room.
Cloak Room: $10 large items. $5 small items. I had my humongous bag with about 4 textbooks, laptop, ipad, clothes, and whatever other junk I had in there from uni. It was entertaining to see her struggle with my bag to the back of the cloak area. I got my $10 worth.
Bar Prices / Line: I didn’t drink tonight.
DJs: No idea.
Music Style: Primarly commerical Pop RnB tonight.
Crowd & Ratio: Everyone here is of Asian descent. It is a mix of Australian Asians and International Asians, skewed to the latter if I had to choose one. There were also quite a lot of guys here clumped around like red blood cells in a clot.
Entertainment: None extra
Atmosphere: It’s a dark atmosphere in the front half of the club near the DJ area. It’s a little bit more lit in the back area. It’s loud and its hard to talk as per in a normal club (as advertised). Lots of people in here in the dance area. Smoke machines and laser lights add to the dance aspects of the venue. It’s a good club feel to it – but only within the small dancefloor.
Video 
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Shot of the dance DJ area
Nothing scheduled – thought I’d have a look at the new Friday event at Tao Lounge, which recently moved away from the always disappointing Pumphouse. Guestlists sent in and so here we go!
Babyface (Bubble party) @ Tao Ultra Lounge (Me B’s Hotel)
Assessment Time:12:15AM – 03:30AM
Opening Hours:10:00PM (?) – 04:00AM
Lockout: Possibly 3:30AM or just before it closes. You can come in anytime though.
Address: 396 Pitt St, Corner of Goulburn St and Pitt. Below Mr B’s Hotel, and opposite World Square
Venue Website: http://www.mrbshotel.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.infinityoz.com
Occurrence: Every Friday
Outside Line: The line looked about 20 deep when we arrived at 12:15, and so we went to eat some pies at Pie Face across the road. BTW, Pie Face is a freaking rip off. Better to have just walked a few more metres went to the Asian supermarket downstairs at World Square and bought something there. Anyway, the line was gone at 12:30 and so that’s when we decided to go in.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual accepted but not encouraged. Collared shirts and dress attire for the men and girls. Korean/Honkie hairstyles optional but is seemingly what most people guys here have. Dressy for girls but casual also accepted.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: I can’t even remember anymore. I think it was $20 on guestlist and $25 for everyone else. I remember now – I remember being relieved it wasn’t $30 as a previous joint event by this promoter spruiked. Unsure on what early bird prices were.
Guestlist: Submitted guestlist 2 weeks prior to nicholas@infinityoz.com . You could also submit to nicholas@infinityproductionz.com – Didn’t receive any confirmation after a follow up email, so I sent my list to another promoter and I only got guestlist confirmation after a follow up message to the second promoter. 4 messages to get a confirmation.. really? Really. I had also queried about filming inside but no reply was given back about this. I can only say to you that if you are sending a guestlist, your guestlist was probably added.. just don’t be surprised if no reply comes back.
Inside: Nothing has changed at all since the last time I visited this venue. After paying, walk downstairs into the single room that is the Tao Ultra Lounge. The bar half is an open area of just woodfloor panels with the bar in the corner, with some stools to sit around on. About 100 people could stand around here. The other side is the DJ side. Half of the space is dedicated to the big fat lounges, and the middle section is for the DJ and direct dance area to hold 30-40 people.
Cloak Room: Available but I did not utilise tonight. Pricing unknown.
Bar Prices / Line: $5 (I think??) drinks offer before midnight , and afterwards standard club price pricing. 4 tequila shots for $20 something? My memory does not serve me well tonight. The bar does not take EFTPOS.
DJs: Unknown
Music Style: Primarily RnB tonight. There may have been some house mashup but I honestly cannot recall.
Crowd / Ratio: It is pretty much all Asian here tonight. A good majority are of the “fob” type, as you can tell from appearances, and the inclination to speak their local language, rather than english. Mostly these guys are hailing from China, and there are also some Koreans and other nationalities too. When we entered at 12:30 the ratio was probably 60:40 guys to girls but quickly dropped down to possibly 80:20 or worse from 1:30 onwards. I even spotted Eric Woo himself – head of Urban Agent promotions (Shanghai Nights, Bamboo, and the new QF nights) – Probably checking out the competition while he is on visit here tonight for whatever reason, and why not.
Entertainment: There are two podiums on either side of the dance area. Tonight is a bubble party, so there is an automatic bubble machine blowing hundreds upon hundreds of bubbles into the front of the dance area throughout the entire night. pretty cool.
Atmosphere: Dark in the dance half of the room, and to help in your quest to not be noticed, smoke machine directly spitting fumes of smoke into the crowd. People ended up staying directly away from the vicinity of the smoke machine, as everytime it blew out smoke, you were eventually unable to literally see in front of you. Smoke was also terrible for my camera shots. Oh well.
Video: Since the layout exactly the same, I’ll just post a better quality of another walkthrough when I was at Tao Lounge for another event. Just imagine the crowd to have more guys, less people and more smoke and a shitload of bubbles. Yes… do try your best: 
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119 @ St James Hotel
Friend has a farewell party and I’m a lucky 3rd invite. Unluckily the chosen event is 119, which has moved to St James Hotel, from the old location of Space Nightclub. Tonight is the opening night. So here we go!
119 @ St James Hotel Sydney
Assessment Time: 12:00AM – 04:00AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM – 04:00AM
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.infinityproductionz.com (At time of writing the website is not operational yet)
Address: 114 Castlereagh St, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok. Hats ok. People here are wearing mostly collared shirts and dresses.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 Full Cover Charge. $20 on guestlist before midnight. Free before 10:30pm if on guestlist (usually only the first 10-15 people in line manage to get in before 10:30 for any of these type of promotions)
Guestlist: info@infinityproductionz.com
Inside: St James comprises of 3 levels but tonight’s event was only held on the top level. Enter via the middle level for the bar and chillout area, where there are tables and stools aplenty. Upstairs walk to the main carpeted area, where there is a wooden dancefloor to hold about 100 people. A DJ in the far corner. More lounges around the place to sit down and chat. Bar on the opposite end of the dancefloor.
Cloak Room: $5 per item.
Bar: $21.50 AUD for three shots of absinthe. The wait was about 5 minutes.
Music: Contemporary RnB tonight
Crowd: One of the last remaining places where every single person is asian. Usually there is one or two unlucky white people who either have yellow fever or accidentally walked into here, but none could be spotted. The crowd is a half mix of locals and internationals. You can spot the fobs by their fobby hairstyles.
Entertainment: No MC, but a photographer. My favourite photographer Will the Kill was here tonight. He’s surprised that there are so many non-local fobby asians here tonight.
Atmosphere: If wasn’t that good. Previously when Urban Agent promoted, it was packed out like sardines and hot as hell. Tonight, it wasn’t that packed. I would say the dancefloor was pretty much filled out the entire night, and the lounge seats were taken, but you see, the dancefloor and seats only took up half the entire floor space, there was lots of standing room, and, only a few were standing around. Despite this, there were enough people here to warrant staying here the rest of the night. Still, there was something in the air that didn’t make it a lively atmosphere, it was kind of muted – it wasn’t as wild as you would expect a crazy club to be. It might be that there wasn’t an MC.
Video: Walkthrough to the main room
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