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
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 
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.
Continue reading »