Visiting a friend for a birthday… nothing special – here we go!

DJ and dance area

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. 
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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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Satisfaction @ Tao Ultra Lounge - Masquerade Night

Satisfaction @ Tao Ultra Lounge - Masquerade Night

Pre-text: Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar, Funky Buddha @ Sanctuary Hotel
Looking for a Club. Walked to Bamboo and it was packed. Way too packed. We would not have stood a chance being able to dance. We left before paying at the counter.  Walked to Funky, and about 2 metres before entering, you could feel it hit you – it was a gust of Body Heat dissipating from the venue. We walked inside and pretty much felt like a sauna on mild, and by dancing in here it would be the equivalent of someone splashing more water onto the coals turning it up to full blast. We left before we paid at the counter. There isn’t much else to offer at 1:00AM. Pumphouse is shit and Cherry @ Shelbourne I have yet to check out, so off we went to Tao Nightclub, where reports was that it is not so busy these days. The last two times I went I did enjoy, so here we go!

Satisfaction @ Tao Ultra Lounge (Mr B’s Hotel)
Assessment Time: 1:00AM – 3:45AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM – 4:00AM
Lockout: Bouncers advise patrons the close club closes at 3:00AM and that is not worth getting in, but you can still get in if you want.
Website: http://www.syndicateevents.com.au
Address: 396 Pitt St, Corner of Goulburn St (Old Mandarin Club)
Dress Code / Door Policy: Advertised as “dress to impress”, but seemingly more relaxed about it at the door. Almost all guys inside though had a collared shirt, and the girls were all in dresses.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 full cover charge, $10 on guestlist before midnight.
Guestlist: info@syndicateevents.com.au
Inside: Beneath Mr B’s Hotel (former Mandarin Club), Tao Bar/Nightclub is a small area split into even smaller areas – A carpeted area where most dancing occurs. It holds 50-80 people. There are two lounge areas on either side of the dancefloor. A DJ is along the wall. The wooden floor area is the general ‘lets stand around and chat each other up’ area with bar and some tables and stools. This particular area has a green and red spotted light thing dotting the area. It’s trippy.
Cloak Room: $4 per item
Bar: $5 Promotional specials for drinks before 11pm or midnight.
Music: Contemporary RnB, with some commercial house / electro mashups
Crowd: Dominantly Asian. Handful of caucasians/euro people who were lost.
Entertainment: an MC to keep things going. Photographer as well. Also tonight was Masquerade night – so some people brang masks to wear. Promoters also handed out masks for the rest of our poor souls to wear if we forgot to bring one or, in this case, had no idea tonight was a masquerade night.
Atmosphere: Upon entering, it was pretty much what you would call ‘dead’. Nobody was at the bar, and there were about 20-30 people on the small dancefloor / lounge areas. Half the crowd here were from a Hen’s night. However the dancing area is so dark and small you can’t really tell that its that dead when you are inside the carpeted area. It never picked up from that point – probably reaching a peak of 40 or 50 people during the night.
Video: 360 video (Dark)

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Dance Floor area - Tao Nightclub

Dance Floor area - Tao Nightclub

Just finished watching Mardi Gras. Time for a dance! A friend of a friend has a birthday at none other than Tao, where I had a good time last Saturday for their ‘Satisfaction’ grand opening, so let’s try it again – here we go!

Satisfaction @ Tao Ultra Lounge

Assessment Time: 11:00 – 03:00am
Website
: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=288588253950
Address
:  396 Pitt St, CNR Goulburn St (Old Mandarin Club)
Dress Code / Door Policy
: Dress nice. Tonight even crossdressing asians were allowed. On entering, the security guard warned me to keep my hat off inside. I managed to keep it on inside without being told off.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge
: Free for ladies before 11. $10 before midnight on guestlist. $20 full cover charge fee.
Guestlist
: Email Satisfaction.saturdays@gmail.com or SMS 0438 889 892
Inside
: Beneath the former Mandarin Club (Now Mr B’s Hotel), Tao Ultra Lounge/Bar is a small area split into even smaller areas – A carpeted area where most dancing occurs. It holds 50-80 people. There are two lounge areas on either side of the dancefloor. A DJ is along the wall next to the bar on the wooden area. The wooden floor area is the general ‘lets stand around and chat each other up’ area with bar and some tables and stools.
Cloak Room
: $4 per item
Bar
: $19 for 2 Carlton Draughts and a Corona. Current promotion is $5 drinks and $16 jugs of beer before midnight.
DJs
: Xcentrik, R*One, Normz, Edo, Day-Day
Music
: RnB and some house. DJs tonight are MASSIVELY guilty of repeating songs twice over. Even some house songs such as ‘Riverside’ got repeated later in the night. I like that song, but you can see whoever was here earlier for the first iteration of the song stop dancing, and silently groan that they’ve heard this song before.
Crowd
: Almost entirely asian. There were handful of white guys with yellow fever (disgusting) and a white girl looking a bit lost, but that was all from what I could see. Asians were all English speaking Australians.
Entertainmen
t: No extra entertainment, just the MC.
Atmosphere
: Overall it was a pretty good atmosphere. People are dancing on the carpeted area, and its dark enough to be a bit private. Lounge areas are dark, and the bar is bright for people who just want to mill around. Most importantly its busy, but not sardine packed. It’s a good balance.

360 Video
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Keep reading for my encounters with the various girls in here

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Tao Nightclub Sydney - Grand opening night : 2:30am

Tao Nightclub Sydney - Grand opening night : 2:30am / Bar Area

Just left a house party and I still want my dancing fix. Melly is at the Grand Opening of a new nightclub where the old Mandarin Club once stood. So here we go!

 

Satisfaction Saturdays @ Tao Nightclub

Assessment Time: 2:30am – 4:00am
Website: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=288588253950
Address: 396 Pitt St, CNR Goulburn St (Old Mandarin Club)
Dress Code / Door Policy: Advertised as “dress to impress”, but seemingly more relaxed about it at the door. Every guy inside though had a collared shirt, and the girls were all in dresses.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free for ladies before 11, $10 on birthday guestlist before midnight. $20 for all others.
Guestlist:  See facebook page for details
Inside: Beneath the now Mr B’s Hotel, Tao Bar/Nightclub is a small area split into even smaller areas – A carpeted area where most dancing occurs. It holds 50-80 people. There are two lounge areas on either side of the dancefloor. A DJ is along the wall. The wooden floor area is the general ‘lets stand around and chat each other up’ area with bar and some tables and stools. This particular area has a green and red spotted light thing dotting the area. It’s trippy.
Cloak Room: $5 per item.
Bar: $19 for 2 carlton draughts and a pure blonde. $16 jugs of beer before midnight
DJs: Xcentrik, R*One, Normz, Edo, Day-Day
Music: RnB most of the night, with the occasional commercial house song thrown in. If you have never been to an RnB asian club.. usually the RNB songs each get about 30 to 60 seconds of airplay before being mixed to another song, so its an anthology of choruses.. its sad if you want to hear the whole song, but with this format, it keeps the crowd going.. and going.
Crowd: Asian, the clean classy types. Not many teeny boppers. If there were any, they were cleverly disguised.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment besdies the MC. There was air conditioning though
Atmosphere: Small atmosphere, but a classy crowd with a “clean” venue keeps it viable to stay inside. By clean, I mean they have air conditioning in the standing area. However on the dancefloor there isn’t much air con and it may get a little stuffy.. but only a little as its not too packed when we got inside.

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Just here for drinks before going to Home Nightclub, but what do we have here? It’s the grand opening night of the Satsuma Clubbing event! Let’s check it out..

Satsuma (Grand Opening Night) @ Mandarin Club
Assessent Time: 10:30pm – 11:15pm
Website: http://www.satsumanight.com;
Address: Mandarin Club, 1 Dixon Street, Sydney. TECHNICALLY, it is not Mandarin club, but at Satsuma’s Restaurant, which is above Mandarin club, but it is part of the same complex.
Dress Code: Casual ok. I had a t-shirt, jeans, blazer and black dress shoes.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free
Guestlist: Nil
Inside: During the day this place is a Japanese restaurant called “Satsuma”. A small room to hold about 100 people.. DJ area in the corner, and a single bar. Small smoking area on the balcony to hold about 7 people. There are still people finishing dinner in the other room.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: $12 yagerbombs
Music: RnB, House. DJ had premixed some songs and at one point in the night left the booth to let his premixed songs play.
Crowd: It was us and some friends of the DJ. Mixed thus far, but promoters were asian.
Atmosphere: Dead
Entertainment: N/A

On the dancefloor at Mandarin Club Sydney - Satsuma Nights

On the dancefloor at Mandarin Club Sydney - Satsuma Nights

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