My weekly spam last month came in – There was a secret warehouse party going on! A bus to take us to a secret warehouse for dancing all night. Sounded good, so bought my tickets and off we went – here we go!
Secret Warehouse Party @ Unknown Location
Assessment Time: 09:30PM – 03:00AM
Opening Hours: 09:00PM – Unknown, but probably 4 or 5AM
Lockout: None, but good luck trying to find this place in the first place.
Address: Unknown. Somewhere in Alexandria/Erskineville, Sydney. We met at the Alexandria Hotel and were shuttled by buses to the location of the warehouse.
Promoter Website: Tonight there were two promoters. I bought my tickets from http://www.funkdafied.com.au .. I can’t remember who the other promoters were.
Occurence: Appears to be a once off party. Promoters have promised similar ones in the future.
Dress Code / Door Policy: anything goes. Everybody though is wearing casual or smart casual. Girls are in dresses, but not too glammed up.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Presold tickets only were $30 each.
Guestlist: All tickets are presold.
Inside: The venue appears to be a large hall for at least 1000 people with multiple studios attached. 2 of these studios were open as smaller dance rooms to hold 100 or so people each. The main hall floor space is about double the size length wise of Home Nightclub. Bar at each of the rooms. Smoking areas outside each of the rooms.
Cloak Room: Cloak room was available, and everybody was using it, except me. I never learn my lesson from past experiences. Not sure what the pricing was.
Bar: Coronas $8. Red/White (House) $8. Vodka + Red Bull $10. Bars were sponsored by Red Bull. There was also a BBQ outside
DJs: Simon Caldwell, Peter Glass, Frenzie, Thomas Crown, Klevakutz, JC (Funkdafied), Mickey Morphingaz, Digital Love DJs, Karl Prinzen, Terry A, Lee Spatcher, Monkey Tennis DJs, Paul Guy.
Music: Main room was Funky House and US House. The Funkdafied room was Funk, Soul, Rare-Groove, Latin, Boogie – think of all the Blaxpoitation kind of stuff you would hear.. yup Exactly. The third room I can’t even remember, but it was messed up – Latino, Classical, who knows. The point was that tonight there was basically nothing from the 80s onwards being played in the 2 smaller rooms. I did catch in the main room a commercial house song being played, but that was once.
Crowd: Mostly local Aussies. 95% of the people here are at least 25+, with the average age probably being 35 or 40. These are the guys from the last clubbing generation, who have been displaced by the younger crowd of rnb, commercial lady gaga top 40 tunes/house, and hard music. Speaking of teenagers, there were none of these around. Wow! A blessing. I felt like a baby here.
Entertainment: There were some peacocked ladies with large feather things on the front stage looking pretty. In the funkdafied room there were also some dancers teaching us some classic funk moves. More on that later.
Atmosphere: It was very friendly in here. Everyone was having a good time. People are dancing in a kind of relaxed manner – or they didn’t know how to dance. In either case there was little seating to be had, so everybody had to stand up and either mingle or dance. Also from a big warehouse you would be scared there would be some empty patches of space but it was not to be – tonights event was sold out a few weeks beforehand, so the population was just right.
Video: Walkthrough of the main room and the Funkdafied room (3rd room did not know about until later)
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OK, before going into Coogee Bay Hotel, I saw a little dancefloor on the other side of the road. Let’s check it out while we are here!!
Well this was the dancefloor. Everyone here is really old and I’m feeling very out of place. Two older women like our basic dancing. The other guys questioned what we were doing here.
The DJ looked about 40 or 50, and was playing a lot of retro songs.
Left out of boredom and shame.
Empire Hotel was $20. Nope. We wanted to go to Kit & Kaboodle but we accidentally walked into The Sugar Mill and paid $10, thinking the entry fee covered both venues. Apparently not. I am really upset that I didn’t get to go to K&K, as Art vs Science were playing a DJ Set, but being asians, we just stayed here for the rest of the night..
KX Marks the Spot@ The Sugar Mill
Assessment Time: 11:00PM – 01:30AM
Opening Hours: Unknown – 04:00AM+
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.sugarmill.com.au/
Address: 33-37 Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual OK. Hats OK. Most wore casual. Men had jeans and collared shirts. Girls had a form of dress on.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $10 standard. No guestlist. A surprise, as it was previously free for all once upon a time. They’ve caught on. Two groups in front of us were told “$10”, and scoffed at the idea, and then turned around to discuss walking away. In both cases, the bouncer and cashier respectively told them “wait”, and offered them free entry. So, what a great idea to try it as well. When we got to the cashier, we were told “$10” and we immediately discuss the possibility of leaving. Meanwhile, I am waiting for the dude to say “wait, come in for free”, but NO, he doesnt do it! Like what the fuck. Assholes really don’t want us in their venue.
Guestlist: None
Occurence: Every Friday and Saturday
Inside: More of a bar for drinks, as you enter, there are tables and stools all around. Bar on the far end in front. DJ booth on the right. A small opening where it looks like a table or two could have been, is the quasi-dancefloor.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: Did not purchase tonight. The wait is no more than 2 or 3 minutes.
Music: A mix of house, pop, rnb.
Crowd: Mix of backpacker, locals. Mostly caucasian. Mostly an older crowd 25+.
Entertainment: It’s just a pub, no extras.
Atmosphere: Average. you just come here for a drink and dance, and just happen fork out $10 in the proceess.
Video: 360 of the quasi-dance space
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Saturday. I am to play catchup with a friend, and he is at Civic Hotel, so here we go!
Adult Disco @ Civic Underground
Assessment Time: 01:35-01:45AM
Website: http://www.civichotel.com.au/pages/home.asp
Address: 388 Pitt St, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy:
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 we were told at the cashier, so we pretty much turned around to leave. She said “WAIT! WAIT!” and told us, that for the three of us, she would discount it to $15. This was surely a bad sign, but we did not notice. Before 11pm, entry is free.
Guestlist: None that I could find.
Occurence: Every Saturday
Inside: This place is of similar size of the Favela upstairs component. You walk in to the bar area with sofas and tables arranged in the same manner as a dine-in saloon restaurant in america. The dancefloor is in a pit, in the far back left corner, to hold about 80 people. It’s not very big.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: Did not drink
DJs: Unknown
Music: “Adult Disco” was the name of the event tonight. What kind of music was this? This was some really underground funky house music they were playing. Not commercial friendly at all, but even so, it was absolutely not danceable to at all. Ugh, but some patrons here were enjoying it. The short time I was here, I just felt my mojo being drained away from me. You can listen to the music in the video below.
Crowd: Definitely just adults. Lots of people in their 20’s, maybe 30’s. Mostly wogs/aussies.
Entertainment: No extra curricular things here.
Atmosphere: Dark, confined and not feeling the vibe at all.
Video: 360
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