After leaving Sideways Fridays @ Phoenix Bar, we are now looking for clubs that are still going strong after 2AM on Oxford St.. we came across Oxford Art Factory – a little favourite of mine, hope its still good – here we go!

Crowd - Live Art Space (3:30AM)

Crowd - Live Art Space (3:30AM)

Friday I’m In Love @ Oxford Art Factory
Assessment Time: 2:10AM – 4:00AM
Opening Hours: 6PM to late.
Lockout: Unknown.
Address: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.oxfordartfactory.com/
Promoter Website: Appears to be self promoted. But there was probably an act earlier on in the night at the Live Art Space Room.
Occurrence: Every Friday.
Outside Line: There looks like a line but its actually a smoking area – there was no line upon approaching and entry. I’m sure though that during peak hours there would be a huge line outside.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty casual. Not sure about hats – didn’t spot anyone with hats.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free at time of entry for the Live Art Space Room, but this is normal after 2AM. Unknown whether there was cover charge beforehand. Free all night in the smaller Art After Hours Room.
Guestlist: None at this time

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Exams are done and I’m in dance withdrawal. I want to go out for 24 hours straight – starting with a new event tonight (ending with Stereosonic + a nightclub tomorrow), so let’s check it out!

Far end of the bar. Looking towards the dancefloor.

Far end of the bar. Looking towards the dancefloor.

Chamber Fridays @ Hotel Chambers
Assessment Time: 11:45PM – 1:35AM
Opening Hours: 9PM – Unknown (3AM?)
Lockout: Unknown
Address: 53 Martin Place (It’s on the corner of Elizabeth St and Martin Place, across the road from Martin Place Bar)
Venue Website: http://www.hotelchambers.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.cliqueevents.com.au
Occurrence: Tonight was the grand opening, to be run every Friday for as long as possible.
Outside Line: No line upon entry.
Dress Code / Door Policy: People were either well dressed, or casually dressed – but casually dressed in a good way, not a daggy way. Hats were allowed as well as sneakers.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: We paid $20 for entry. The promo poster mentions $15 all night entry – this might be for people on a guestlist, but I don’t know. We also got a free shot of a red thing upon entry!! Good value but not such a good taste.
Guestlist: Try a promoter, otherwise send to admin@cliqueevents.com.au. $15 on guestlist??

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Deciding between Establishment or O2 – We are all pretty indecisive. None of us have been to either place and, well, I was calling the venue tonight. A friend’s mobile rings and her ringtone is a hip hop song.  Haha, well… O2 it is then… here we go!

Dancefloor under UV light - O2 Nightclub Sydney

Dancefloor under UV light - O2 Nightclub Sydney

Oxygen Saturdays @ O2 Nightclub Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:15PM – 04:00AM
Opening Hours: 9:00PM – 5:00AM
Lockout: None. I had a friend enter freely at 3:00AM
Address: 247 Pitt St, Sydney. There are no clear visible signs to get to the door. Enter the mall via the “Coolabar” sign – there might be a red carpet and standing poster to point users to the O2 nightclub. Head up two sets of escalators to reach level two, where O2 nightclub resides, opposite Coolabar itself. It is also where the Monorail station is located. Bear in mind that O2 and Coolabar are two separate venues on the same level.
Venue Website: http://www.o2nightclub.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.meentertainment.com.au
Occurrence: Every Saturday night.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual is ok. hats are ok. On the door it was stated that “absolutely no Sports Gear allowed”, because this is the place where NRL players head to go clubbing after a big match, right? Right? (the answer is no). Tonight’s theme is a White Party. Most girls wore casual dresses. A lot of the guys here were dressed in urban street gear, complete with hats and sometimes even sunglasses. I saw a T-Pain lookalike in here, you get a glimpse of him on the dancefloor walkthrough video. I really should have research before coming here tonight – Gandalf the white would have made an easy return, but I guess not tonight.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Guestlist pricing unknown. $25 full cover charge. $20 if you were wearing white.  My friend got in at 3AM for free after waiting a few moments for the door girl to pack up to go home. That’s an asian for you.
Guestlist: info@meentertainment.com.au
Inside: Walk inside to the main room on the right and the bar/lounge on the left. Bar on the left spans half the length of the venue. Around the corner near the bar are lounges / bathroom / cloak room / chill out area for 40 or so people. Back to the dancefloor, the DJ takes one corner of the wooden floor to hold about 100-140 people. There is also an upper area with a second bar – this can be reserved for special functions, and has a dancing pole and dancefloor for 20-30 people. The dance area is bathed in UV light.
Cloak Room: Cloak room services offered but it was full tonight. FULL AT 11.15PM. Ridiculous. People are putting their belongings on tables and stools nearby and hope for the best. We left our jackets behind one of the speakers on the dancefloor. At the end of the night, my jacket was covered in someone’s spilled drink. Sigh.
Bar Prices / Line: $4 for an Orange Juice. (yes, I was not drinking tonight) . Fishbowl size drinks are offered at the bar and many people are buying them.
DJs: No idea.
Music Style: Most of the songs tonight were of RnB, but this place was heavily guilty of playing Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” at least 3 times during the night. Utterly sick of that song to death now. Otherwise there were some hip hop/rap songs thrown into the mix later in the night after 1AM. There was also some house songs thrown in for mashup.
Crowd: From 11-1.30ish, it was a mixed crowd. The two main groups were Euros and Africans. There were a handful of Asians, but we were the main Asian group in here. After 1.30am, most of the white crowd had left and more of the Africans came in. Hard to tell the age of the crowd, but there was a Hen’s night here, and some older looking folk, so the crowd would be ranging from their early 20’s to early 30’s.
Entertainment: an MC to keep things going. Tonight was a white theme, so there were white balloons dotted around the place.
Atmosphere: On the dancefloor and upper level, it was pretty busy throughout the night. Not packed, but busy enough to not be able to dance freely. On the other side though, the lounge was never really full at all – you could usually find a lounge seat to rest on. When we left, the main dancefloor was still going at about 70 per cent capacity, which is very good for any place. Throughout the whole night it was pretty cool temperature wise – only one or two moments where I felt a little warm after some vigorous dancing – you could however escape to another area of the club to cool down. People mostly kept to themselves except if you knew other people here.
Video: 360 of the dancefloor
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Video: Walkthrough – Bar, Lounge, back to the main dancefloor. You can sort of spot the VIP area where the white balloons are.  Taken 11PM, so still early days.
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People milling around on the dancefloor

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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Saturday night. Dinner – completed. Dancing is on the cards. I am surrounded by Asians who love rnb. The latest hot spot is, surprisingly, Verandah Bar. Rave reviews all around. I tried to come in here last week at 1:00AM but the line wait was about 30 minutes. anyway, tonight the night was still young, so here we go!

Posing during the podium tryouts - Verandah Bar

Posing during the podium tryouts - Verandah Bar

Vanity @ Verandah Bar
Assessment Time: 11:15PM – 02:00AM
Opening Hours: Unknown (Assumed 10:00PM) – Unknown (Probably 4:00AM as last time I was at Bamboo, around the corner, they closed at the same time)
Lockout: I can’t remember if the security guard said 01:00AM or 01:30AM. It was definitely one of those times, but my gut is telling me 1:30AM. I’m not very helpful so far with the timing thing, am I.
Address: 60 Castlereagh St, Sydney. http://www.verandah.com.au
Occurence: Every Saturday Night
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart is encouraged. It is more smart casual as well as casual. I think most people were let in regardless of what they were wearing. Boys and wore a mix of casual/smart casual (mostly collared shirts), girls probably were also casual as well. It must be winter.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 standard cover charge. $20 on the guestlist before midnight.  You need to line up on the gustlist line in order to qualify for guestlist entry. There is a separate full-price guestlist line on the other side of the entrance, which we used. There was nobody in the full price line when we arrived. More on this later.
Guestlist: Free before 10:30PM, $20 until Midnight. Send in via the promoter websites above or to info@eso.net.au.
Inside: I was told it was refurbished (again), but it hasn’t changed since their last refurbishment. After paying your cover charge, you walk down a red carpet to the indoor entrance to the club where you are scanned by security. Walk inside to the first area, which is split by two columns forming an invisible line between the main dancefloor to hold 150-200 people (right) and the walkway (left). You can dance here as well. Walk through to the second area where the bar is and lounges and a small smoking balcony out back.
Bar Prices: I didn’t buy any drinks tonight
Cloak Room: To the right as you walk in. Pricing unknown.
Music Style: Primarily RnB tonight. We were only here for 3 hours, but there were some popular rnb songs which were played THREE TIMES over, and most others TWICE! you notice, and it annoys you, but you arent sick of these songs yet so you dance regardless. anyway it was a minor teething point to this place.
Crowd: Mostly Asian. Crowd aged probably in their low 20s. Though here I found 4 people with braces. Perhaps teenagers come here as well but are a bit more mature than ones found at Funky @ Sanctuary Hotel.
Entertainment: So there are 6 or 7 podiums in the dancefloor itself, which is insane. It looks like the norm now, its just missing a dancing pole to be exactly like bamboo, haha. Tonight was the podium dancer tryouts for a dance crew.
Atmosphere: In the dancefloor area itself, it was consistently busy and pretty lively throughout the night. people are jumping up to dance and they’re singing and what not. Pretty good. In the back area though, it was very subdued – most of the population were at the front area. I avoided this area most of the night. Later on in the night the back area became a mecca for drunk guys and fights. Pretty dangerous. More on this later :>
Eviction Count: I counted 7 separate instances of people being kicked out including 4 Fights.
Video: A Rushed Walkthrough
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Video: 360 view of the dancefloor area
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Verandah Bar Crowd around 11:30PM

Verandah Bar Crowd around 11:30PM

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The suggestion was Brooklyn Hotel for Shanghai Nights. Half of us were like, nah, and the other half were like yeah. We were standing right outside World Square Pub debating this. Why? So we went inside World Square Pub for the Flow Fridays event.. here we go!


Flow Fridays @ World Square Pub
Assessment Time: 12:00AM – 12:15AM (lining up), 02:00AM – 03:00AM (what this particular review is based on)
Opening Hours: Unknown (probably 10:00PM) – 03:00AM
Lockout: No lockout
Address: Upper level of World Square pub, 680 George St Sydney (Old Equilibrium Hotel)
Occurence: Every Friday
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Casual. Guys are usually dressed with collared shirts, though there are a small handful of tee-shirters. Girls are dessed in pretty dresses.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 non-guestlist. $15 on guestlist before 11PM .
Guestlist: Submit your guestlist via the website. Horrible, I didn’t get any confirmation after sending the email. They need to fix that.
Inside: Once you enter World Square Pub, there are a set of stairs going up – these take you to the actual Flow Event. I believe the DJ downstairs may be the one hired by the World Square Pub people. anyway, walk upstairs and you are presented to a room with a bar, a medium sized dancefloor with carpeted area around to hold 100 or so people. Lounges dot the walls.
Cloak Room: Easily missed, the cloak room can be found while turning left at the top of the stairs and into the tucked away corridor. Prices unknown.
Bar Prices: I didn’t drink tonight.
Music Style: RnB/Hip Hop. DJs mixed well tonight. Was only here for an hour so am not sure how it was earlier in the night, but there were no hitches. Typical modern RnB tunes being played.
Crowd: Dominantly Asian, possibly entirely Asian. A mix of local Asians and International Asian Students / Fobs on holiday here.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: It’s dark when you get up here. People love that. When we arrived at 2:00AM, it was pretty packed, but it wasn’t sardine – you had about 50cm of room around you to sway your arms – but you couldn’t go nutbag krumping safely. It was enough to allow people to walk through the crowd without interrupting your circle or your grinding session.

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Bamboo was having a white party! Oh god I hate this place but it was a white party – I had to go.. and to make sure I wouldn’t change my mind, they threw in free entry all night and a free drink for anyone dressed in all white!! With the sad news that Sensation White was cancelled and no longer returning to Australia (the promotional ad had ironically told people “why wait for Sensation this year?”), this was a rare chance to whip out the good old Gandalf the white outfit, so I rounded up some friends and got this thing started – here we go!

Jesus with worshippers at Bamboo

Jesus with worshippers at Bamboo

Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar – 17th July 2010
Assessment Time: 11:00PM – 04:00AM
Opening Hours: 10:30 PM- 04:00AM
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.urbanagent.com.au , http://www.martinplacebar.com.au
Address: 51 Martin Place, Corner of Elizabeth Street Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual allowed. Half the dudes are smart casual, and the other half are just.. casual. Girls are all in dresses and wearing their faces. Lots of pretty girls. and they’ve relaxed policy somewhat – they have allowed hats to be worn inside!
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free entry all night if you wore white. Otherwise standard cover charges apply. $20 on guestlist before midnight. Free on guesetlist if you get to the counter before 10:30 (small chance), and $25 after midnight.
Guestlist: eric@urbanagent.com.au
Occurence: Every Saturday only.
Inside: Walk into a small bar to hold about 150 or so people – DJ at the front corner. Bar on the right hand side of the venue,taking up half of the floor space. 4 podiums are dotted along the length of the dancefloor, including one with a dancing pole. Small private area at back but was really open to anyone who walked in. Outdoor smoking and BBQ area on the left of the venue.
Cloak Room: $5 for all items.
Bar: I can’t remember. 3 ABC shots for $36 ?
Music: Primarily Hip Hop / RnB tonight. Top 40 and Commerical House mashup as well. DJ’s are mixing it well, keeping the crowd always active and dancing.
Crowd: Dominantly Asian. I spotted 2 white girls, 3 black guys as the minorities here tonight. There were probably a few more handful of the minorities. Age wise it varied, but most people I met were in their early 20’s. It seems as all the teens have gone to Funky. Bad news in a few years time for Bamboo as they would soon have no base.
Entertainment:Theme tonight was White. White balloons all over the place. MC to keep things going. Podium dancers, but only one or two. BBQ outside to feed your tummy. Similar to Shanghai Nights (well, it is the same promoter)
Atmosphere: At its peak, the place is extremely packed, and you would be hard pressed to find some floor space to dance – you would really need to hop up on the podiums to have your own dance action. Outside of peak periods it was still pretty busy. Most of the crowd are singing along to the songs, so pretty vibrant.
Video: 360 of Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar (at the back)
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