As I write this review, news has come through that Tank Nightclub, after 10 years, will be shutdown after April 2011 and converted to a non-clubbing venue by the owners. It is sad to see one of the great club venues of Sydney go out like this, as it was definitely underutilised in recent years…
Here for a friend of a friend’s birthday tonight – simple enough.. here we go!
RnB Superclub / Not Myself @ Tank Nightclub
Assessment Time: 11:30PM – 01:15AM
Opening Hours: 10:30PM – 04:00AM ?
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 3 Bridge Lane, Sydney CBD, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.merivale.com/establishment/tank
Promoter Website: http://www.rnbsuperclub.com
Occurrence: Every Friday until April 2011.
Outside Line: About 4 people in front of us, but the line is held up FOREVER, so as to not have an empty appearance. Okay, it was more like a 15 minute wait – but when you’re out at the front it does feel like forever – you would access within 5 minutes.
Dress Code / Door Policy: You need to be pretty much at least smart casual. Casual won’t cut it, unless you are with company of hot girls.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: I don’t recall. Either $25 or $20 full charge.
Guestlist: See promoter website to submit guestlist details. Various forms and what not would need to be filled out
Cloak Room: None tonight. Strange as it usually is available.
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight. Oh wait, I did, but my friend bought drinks. He’s awesome.
DJs: Unknown
Music Style: Rnb in Main room (which only opened after midnight). Meanwhile some house tracks were being played in the upstairs small room and downstairs den area.
Crowd & Ratio: Mostly Caucasian crowd of Euros and Aussies with some other minor nationalities here represented. Mixed crowds of prior where Indians/Asians used to be a good part of the population are no longer tonight. Likely to blame is door policy. The age of the crowd isn’t teeny bopper but still looked young, but a little more grown up. I would hazard a guess to be a 21-25 year old crowd.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: Kind of empty at first, and it only truly picked up the pace after midnight when downstairs opened up and people flocked down here.
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Bounce @ Slide Bar
Assessment Time: 12:15AM – 2:00AM
Opening Hours: Opening Hours: 10:30PM – Unknown (probably 03:00AM)
Lockout: Just after 2:00AM – 2:30AM – the actual time is decided by the security personnel.
Address: 41 Oxford St, Surry Hills, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.slide.com.au
Promoter Website: Again, it appears the authoritative source of all things ‘Bounce’-y is http://www.facebook.com/bounce.kpop.party
Occurrence: Once every month or every two months depending how the promoters feel. always on a Friday night. Running since 2009/2010?
Outside Line: There was no line as we approached, but there were people outside. Typically a bad sign, but the place was pretty busy tonight.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok. Sneakers are ok. More people more are smart casual tonight. Girls wore mostly nice little dresses. Tonight was Valentines Day weekend, so yeah, most were dressed their casual best.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: I paid full price of $20 tonight
Guestlist: I didn’t send one in, but the email is redandblueevents@hotmail.com
Inside: Same as last time – Walk into an open floor to hold about two hundred people. The floor includes an elevated dance platform in which the tiles light up and change colours. Bar to the left. DJ in the far right corner. Overhanging the bar is a balcony for private functions and what not, to hold about 60 people squishily.
Cloak Room: $5 for all items
Bar Prices / Line: I didn’t drink tonight. A reader of this blog did come up and ask me tonight to ask why I usually dont drink – I actually go clubbing for the music and dance, not to really drink and pick up girls… *cough* Bullshit *cough* you may think, ok ok ok … but its true. To be fair though, there is nothing wrong with making the most of your time at a club and meeting new people, it enhances the experience when you’re out. In any case, I am satisfied either way so long as I get my dance fix. Plus nowadays I drive, so double the reason not to drink.
DJs: Unknown
Music Style: The main theme tonight was RnB with many Korean Pop songs thrown in as well during the peak hours of the night. Still nowdays, the only Korean song I know is the Nobody song.
Crowd & Ratio: Pretty much entirely all Asian. The majority being Korean or fans of K-Pop. A friend I brang along was a huge fan of K-Pop, and had no idea about these Korean Pop nights. Conveeeerted! Ratio wise was pretty even throughout the night.
Entertainment: MC to keep things going, but tonight there were not “half time” breaks for some entertainment as of the previous incarnations. Kind of strange, but I don’t think anyone minded. I thought it added a bit of chill down time and something to talk about, but that’s me. Either that, or I missed it altogether by coming in after midnight.
Atmosphere: Pretty busy throughout the time we were here. It’s hard to find a spot in the middle of the flashy dancefloor, but at around 1:30 it started to cool down people wise, as well as female-wise.
Video: Walkthrough of the club, followed by a Music Sample throughout the night:
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Crowd upstairs early in the night - Velvet Fridays
Velvet Fridays @ The Vault
Assessment Time: 11:00PM – 02:15AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM – 03:00AM
Lockout: Unsure. however there is an internal 2AM lockout to go downstairs again, unless you are getting your stuff from the cloakroom.
Address: 122 Pitt St Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.vaulthotel.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.velvetfridays.com
Occurrence: Every Friday
Outside Line: On arrival, there were probably 3 or 4 people ahead of us, so it was a very short wait to get inside.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Strict Dress code – Guys to wear collared shirts, clean sneakers ok – and ladies should wear something dressy, but can get away with casual. Most stuck to the dress code here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free before 10:30PM if on guestlist. $15 before 11:30 on guestlist, and $20 thereafter.
Guestlist: Sent mine to velvetfridays@live.com.au . Fast response, all queries answered.
Inside: Have you ever been to Haymarket Hotel? It’s exactly the same. If you haven’t been … Walk inside the side alley entrance to enter the middle level main room. The Vault was formerly a bank years ago, so there is a high ceiling, and with it is an upper level DJ area which also doubles as a lounge for whoever is allowed up there. Back in the main floor, there is a bar, a ‘shots’ bar, podium for 2 or 3, and carpeted dancefloor for 100 or so people. Tucked away in the right corner is a set of stairs that lead you downstairs to the underground dancefloor area, which also has a bar, ‘shots’ bar and dancefloor for 100 or so patrons. There is also a dancepole here.
Cloak Room: $4 per item. Very reasonable.
Bar Prices / Line: $16 long island teas, $24 or something for three tequila shots? Basically there is the main bar for all your orders, but if you are only here for shots, there are specialised smaller “shots” bars on each floor, serving tequila, jagerbombs, and some other kind of shot. It’s a very clever concept. There wasn’t much of a selection but if this is what you were looking for, then you didn’t have to wait long. otherwise waiting at the bar may take some time – upto 5 to 10 minutes.
DJs: Peter Gunz, Flipsta, Hyper, Biggie, Stunna, Stib
Music Style: Primarily RnB, mostly American Black contemporary RnB. Mixing is done well, some repeated tracks due to the nature of multiple DJs. Bleh.
Crowd & Ratio: Pretty much almost everyone here is Asian Australian, there are some caucasian girls in corsets but they are here for tonight’s promotion, whatever it was.
Entertainment: Dancing pole, MC to keep things going.
Atmosphere: During the early hours of the night, most people are on the ground level as you walk in.. drinking, chatting, and what not. It’s quite noisy. Anyway as the night wore on and people danced more.. the upstairs got warmer and warmer – people could only hide downstairs, where the aircon was more efficient here in the smaller confined space. By 2AM, pretty much everybody is downstairs, and less than a handful of patrons can be found upstairs, either relaxing or dancing. You would think a large room such as this wouldn’t heat up, but it has. Kind of like St James Hotel’s main room when it got packed.
Video: 360 upstairs
360 underground
Walkthrough both levels
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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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A request from a reader to review this event since it has moved from the now closed Havana nightclub and now operating under a new promoter (Havana closed and opened again as the gay club one six nine). It’s been a few weeks now since opening night, so I suppose it was time to see what it was like – here we go!
Peak Crowd - Chocolate City @ Mansions Nightclub - 12:15AM
Chocolate City @ Mansions Nightclub
Assessment Time: 11:15PM – 03:00AM
Opening Hours: 09::45/10:00PM (?) – 03:00AM
Lockout: Appears that there was no lockout
Address: 14 Oxford Square, (Oxford St) (Confusing I know), Darlinghurst Sydney. It’s right next to The Gaff, opposite Stonewall. It’s basically an expanded/extended smoking area of The Gaff, but for tonight is closed off on its own to hold its own venue. An interesting and in depth dissection of this arrangement can be read here
Venue Website: There is no official website yet at time of writing, but you can check out http://www.thegaff.com.au for a little bit of info
Promoter Website: Website is not operational at time of writing, but it would be at www.visionshock.com.au . There are facebook pages however.
Occurrence: Every Friday Night.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Dress code for men is acollared shirt and clean sneakers/shoes. Girls – anything goes. Everyone here pretty much stuck to this attire, except in the latter half of the night when patrons from The Gaff next door came in – the guys mostly wore t-shirts.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $15 on guestlist, $20 otherwise.
Guestlist: Send guestlists to jeanie@visionshock.com.au . I am not sure what time the guestlists close but it is assumed to be 12AM. Birthday packages are available.
Passouts: No passouts until 12AM.
Inside: Walk inside right into the wooden lower floor dance area to hold 30 or 40 people. Some stools and tables dot the area. Not sure why it was setup like this – perhaps to keep people seated here and to give the floor more of a person presence? The tables kind of makes it a bit more cramped to dance though. On the top right is a small DJ area overlooking the floor. On the left is the upper area of the club – Various lounges and sofas and an elevated VIP area. There is also a bar at the far end. In the middle of the upper area is a free standing area where you can dance as well. The decorum of the area has a kind of classy vibe.
Cloak Room: No cloak room services. We just left our stuff in my VIP area.
Bar Prices / Line: $16 for a glass of red wine and vodka lemonade. Average there would be one or two people in front of you ordering.
DJs: Unknown.
Music Style: Primarily RnB the entire night. There may have been one or two songs repeated. In the later half of the night some rnb songs I didn’t know were being played and it kind of confused me. Some house mashup. Notably there was no hip hop played.
Crowd: In the first half of the night it was pretty much an Asian crowd. Safe to assume it was all local Asians. In the later stages of the night, it appeared that patrons from The Gaff next door were kicked out and moved to The Mansion Nightclub. These patrons were all Caucasian, probably local as well. Age of the crowd was young – ranging from teenagers to people in their low 20’s.
Entertainment: Free assorted ‘fun sized’ chocolates upon entry. Nom nom nom. There were also CD giveaways for one of the DJs tonight.
Atmosphere: The entire club is of a dark setting with minimal lighting. On the dancefloor, disco balls overhead reflect a blue light all over the area. When you look around, dots of blue are scattered and rotating around the walls. On the upper lounge areas, there are no such disco lights or distractions, and the general vibe is relaxed and classy. The crowd is underwhelming throughout the night. On the dancefloor there was a period to which it was packed, at the cost of the rest of the club being empty. Meh.
Video: 360 of the dancefloor
Video: Walkthrough. Main dancefloor, upper are of bar and lounges, a brief peek into the smoking area and then back to the dancefloor.
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Dancefloor area of Docks Hotel Sydney
A birthday invite at Docks Hotel. It coincided with the grand opening of the new rnb club event here, so here we go!
Rendezvous @ Docks Hotel, Darling Harbout Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:30PM – 02:00AM
Opening Hours: Early in the night – 03:00AM
Lockout: Did not ask. It didn’t look like there was one.
Address: Shop 255 Harbourside Shopping Centre – Near the big South Steyne Boat at Darling Harbour.
Venue Website: http://www.dockshotel.com.au
Promoter Website: I couldn’t read the poster well enough to find out who was promoting, but here is the event page for one of the DJs who was performing tonight: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120068251378791
Occurence: Every Friday
Dress Code / Door Policy: Most guys wore smart casual. There was no actual strict dress code and people can go in with hats, t-shirts, clean sneakers, etc. Girls all looked pretty good – pretty dressy.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge:$15 guestlist, $25 Full Entry
Guestlist: I have no idea. You would have to try your luck with the docks hotel management who would pass your details onto the promoters
Inside: Walk inside. To the left is an extended carpted lounge area for 50-70 people. To the right is the bar that runs for half the length of the place. On the far end is a curtained off area for private functions with a secondary bar. Later it was open access for all.
Cloak Room: $5 per item
Bar Prices: I can’t remember, but there was at maximum 1 person in front of you in line at the main bar. Most of the time you could get service right away. At the secondary bar, the line was 4-5 deep with only one bartender. Didn’t make sense why they didn’t just go to the main bar.
DJs: Moto, Edo, Biggie, Flipsta, Cbu, Mike Hyper
Music Style: Contemporary RnB and classic Hip Hop near the end of the night
Crowd: Mixed crowd tonight of local Asians and Euros, Probably 70/30 was the ethnic ratio. Gender ratio was 50/50. Age of the crowd was in their 20’s Birthday girl was 24 I think, and other Euro girls we met were 28, so its quite a range.
Entertainment: The promotional poster stated “Special Performances” and “Free Shirt Giveaways”. Throughout the time I was there, I didn’t see or hear any announcement of T-shirt giveaways. Plus, what was the “Special Performances” -????? It was as though they just threw some words together to make it sound good, hoping that people didn’t really notice that there was no actual Special Performance of any sort at all. Well actually, I did see the MC perform a dancemove where he rolled his hat down the length of his arm, behind his head, to the other end of his arm – I thought that was pretty special. Eventually nothing eventuated. There is also girls only podium on the dancefloor.
Atmosphere: Underwhelming for a grand opening. I really didn’t pick up much notice of the opening of this new event. The place was probabaly at one quarter to one third capacity.
Video: Walkthrough Video at 12:15AM
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