M wanted to go Shark Hotel. Erm.. ok, lets check it out again then – here we go!
Puls8 (Pulsate) @ Shark Hotel
Assessment Time: 11:00PM – 04:00AM
Opening Hours: 10:00AM – 05:00AM?
Lockout: No lockout.
Address: 127 Liverpool St, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.sharkhotel.com.au
Promoter Website: Self Promoted.
Occurrence: Every Friday and Saturday nights
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual is ok. Not too dirty. Hats were allowed in here. Guys mostly wore casual and girls were a mix of casual and well dressed, from the rnb clubbing event at Space.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free all night.
Guestlist: N/A due to free entry.
Inside: Walk upstairs to the Shark Hotel area. The dancefloor is pretty much in the middle to hold about 50 people cramped. On two sides are pool tables. the other two sides are tables and stools and the main bar. Outside of the dancefloor the area is carpeted. Dancefloor itself is elevated about half a metre from the floor and is extremely well lit. DJ booth attached to the back.
Cloak Room: No cloak room services.
Bar Prices / Line: The lines were about 1 or 2 people deep. Prices are reasonable here. A Smirnoff black is $9 I think.
DJs: Unknown. It’s a resident DJ.
Music Style: Contemporary RnB in the initial few hours, then after 2:30AM-ish its classic old school RnB and West Coast Hip Hop/ Rap. Songs are generally played in their entirety with minimal crossover mixing. Momentum that is built up in one song can be easily lost in the latter half of the song or simply having a different song being played here tonight.
Crowd: During the contemporary RnB phase there are lots of young people. Mostly Asian, primarily because of the Asian RnB ‘zaia’ event upstairs. There are also internationally based Asians and backpackers. Aussies, Indians, and Africans are here too. It’s a bit of kind of everything here. The local Asians who were here, were here for the upstairs RnB event.
Entertainment: None
Atmosphere: Since the area was well lit, it may be a bit intimidating to go forth and dance first, but once you are up there, its not so bad, except everybody sitting around is pretty much staring at you dance. Other than that its friendly and people who go up have fun.
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A night out with friends who varied across the spectrum. I had M, Jungle Fever and bisexual girls who were into RnB and Hip Hop, other girls who were not into RnB and Hip Hop and preferred the bar scene, my cousin who only liked RnB, her Asian American relatives who were very conservative – and I had to find them all good place to go. You have to be kidding me…
Fridays @ Haymarket Hotel
I thought an event would have taken over Friday nights here, but it hasn’t. Downstairs was closed off, and it seems only regular patrons were here for a drink. On the TV screens SBS was on and, being SBS, a documentary was being played about the porno industry. Hilarious hearing the collective screams of girls as the more saucy were being played.
Off we went to Oxford Art Factory. Half of us went in first. The other half including myself tried a few minutes later but we were told that the venue was at capacity and we should try again in half an hour. I doubt a packed place would have suited some of the people here, so it was off to Doctor Pong, just a few shops down!
Fridays @ Doctor Pong (Bar)
Doctor Pong DJ area and dance floor
Assessment Time: 11:10PM – 11:30PM
Address: 1 Burton St, Darlinghurst
Venue Website: None
Dress Code / Door Policy: anything goes, no security checks. Cousin’s sister-in-law, who was wearing pajamas, was let in.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free
Inside: Small place. Bar in the middle. Lounges on one side, table tennis ping-pong table on the other side (hence Doctor Pong), with a restaurant on the far left. DJ up next to the stairs upon entry.
Music Style: Whatever goes, but it was keeping the crowd going. Volume was at a loud house party level but not a club level. You could talk in here without shouting too much.
Crowd: Mostly Aussies.
Entertainment: The table tennis table was the star attraction. Four paddles so everyone can have a go.
Atmosphere: Pretty busy at this time when we entered. You could say it was relaxed and busy. Red plastic cups add to the american beer pong feel.
Video: Walkthrough
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Leadup
an hour to kill – a mini 4-club dance spree:
Tonight I wore just jeans, a shirt and sneakers..
Pontoon – Crowd was half indian, half everyone else. Free entry. Casual door policy. RnB. Good venue for an RnB fix. Left after 30 minutes – another asian dancing guy was taking the girls. He was out there, just dancing with any girl he saw, and was doing quite well. I wondered where my energy was tonight.
Pavillion – Two girls in the front, 4 on the side, and indian guys for the rest of the people on here. DJ was playing west coast rap. My favourite anthems were being played (Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, etc). A crazy indian was dance-cracking onto the two girls in the front. He was out there, just shaking his body loose. I wondered where my energy was tonight. I think I get intimidated by other good dancers in a desolate setting.
Shark Bar/Hotel – I walked in and there was nobody on the floor. I was about to leave, but they started to play “Push it” by Salt N Pepa. I love this song so I *had* to get up there. So I jumped up and did a little boogie to the song, to the amusement of everybody staring at the elevated dancefloor in the middle. Everyone who looked at me I looked back, and they would stare away. A group of people at the very back took a photo of me and waved hi. The song ended and I ran off.
Spectrum – My usual friends had gone home, so I met up with the French backpackers for some dance. We checked out Spectrum first. Free entry. House. We went upstairs and it was *dead* as. A handful of people dancing, a handful of people sitting down, a small room, and that was it. I don’t think this was meant to be a place for clubbing. Reminded me like an oxford st version of Manning Bar at USYD. I can’t imagine that place being a place for clubbing. We left quite quickly.
We then stumbled upon Oxford Art Factory and settled in..
After Work Art Fridays @ The Oxford Art Factory (Art After Dark) (29th May 2009)
Note: This review is primarily for the ‘Art After Dark’ Room’, and not the ‘Live Art Space’ where a cover charge applied.
About Oxford Art Factory (assessment time 1.30am)
Address: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst
The Bar: Jugs of beers and cocktails offered for a reasonable price.
Website: http://www.oxfordartfactory.com
Inside: Walking downstairs, there are two rooms:
Live Art Space: Carpeted area with central wooden dancefloor, with DJ up on stage. At the back is an elevated area where more lounges exist. It was mostly dancefloor space.
Live Art Space - Oxford Art Factory (image oxfordartfactory.com)
Art After Dark: (where we were) A further flight of stairs down takes you to this room. It’s pretty small, holding about 100 people max. A bar as well here. The room has a high ceiling length, and a big TV on one end of the wall. It’s been painted white, which is different. Tonight there were only lounges along the wall, and not sticking out as in the picture.
Art After Dark Bar - Oxford Art Factory - This is where we hung out (image oxfordartfactory.com)
About After Work Art Fridays: (assessment time 1.30am)
Entry Fee/Cover Charge: Free for the Art After Dark Bar, $15 for the DJ in the Live Art Space Room tonight. After 3am it was free for all.
Crowd / Dress Code: Artsy types. People in their 20’s and 30’s. Lots of hats around. anything goes.
Atmosphere: I was expecting not many people to be here, so guess how surprised I was when I saw the whole room packed! Well, it was 1.30am, and it was a small area, but usually at an average to bad venue, 1.30am is when people start going home. So overall it was a good sign.
Music: Art After Dark Bar – Earlier in the evening there were live bands playing, but we missed that. So when we arrived, the band area was cleared and there was a DJ playing a mix of music across pop, rnb, retro and rock. Basically a bit of everything, and each upcoming song would be of a different genre. Somehow though the crowd was fully right into every song being played.
Live Art Space – DJ Sega (USA) was the main act playing tonight, (Indie). I didn’t get to check him out. Later another DJ was playing around 3am, with some dubstep beats, and another artist came up for some raps where I could practise some krumpin on the very open dance floor. The crowd here were all the hardcore types left, so everybody was into it.
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