Venues N-S
Funky (Buddha) @ Sanctuary Hotel: Saturday 26th June 2010
by James on Jun.26, 2010, under RnB, Sanctuary Hotel
Random photo with Pikachu - Beauty and the Geek theme
I already did Sanctuary Hotel last week – I do try to avoid going to the same venue twice in a row – you risk getting bored easily. The problem was that I made a promise to a friend I would come here tonight. Well, apparently it would be even more busier than last week – lets find out shall we!
Funky @ Sanctuary Hotel
Assessment Time: 9:00PM – 02:00AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM – 03:00AM (?)
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.funkybuddha.com.au, http://www.phatentertainment.com.au
Address: 545 Kent St - Corner of Liverpool and Kent St, Sydney. Behind 3 wise monkeys.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Tonight, the theme is Beauty and the Geek! Casual OK. Hats allowed. Guys are wearing a mix of casual and smart casual. Girls are mostly in dresses. I saw someone walk in with a Pikachu outfit.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 Standard Entry, $20 on guestlist. Free before 10:30PM. The only slight hope you could get in before 10:30 was to be on a birthday guestlist, and line up in the birthday guestlist line at 9PM. If you got there 9:30PM, you wouldn’t make it. We were on a standard non-birthday guestlist. We got there 9PM AT THE VERY FRONT, and we only managed to get in after 10:30PM! We just stood there as we saw birthday guest after birthday guest walk in. We even stood there watching hopelessly as people off the street just cut the line! Amazing that bouncers could not be more strict on this or have a more foolproof way of being fair on people who actually lined up. Usually lining up 9PM gets you in before 10:30 but the organisers have actually done the right thing, and let the birthday lists have priority. This is how it is meant to be, unlike other venues where it is first come first serve, with birthday people not given priority at all. Well at least cut us normal people some slack. 90 minutes in the cold – give me my $5 discount!!!
Waiting outside Sanctuary with fellow free entry seekers
Guestlist: info@phatentertainment.com.au
Occurence: Every Saturday
Inside: The entrance is not at the normal Sanctuary Hotel entrance. It is via the TAB area further along on Kent St. The room upon entry is where people can have a chat and chill out without actually going outside. Walk in further to the main area, and the large carpeted room has been converted to a dancefloor. DJ on the wall, and a 3 tier podium smack in the middle, dividing the room into two halves. Bar along the far back wall.
Cloak Room: Cloak services are located in the entry room. Standard rip off prices for the event. I think it was $4 for small bags, and $8 for large bags, possibly $5/$10. Who knows. I avoided the cloak room and placed my stuff behind the ATM on the dancefloor. It held up the whole night.
Bar: I didn’t buy any drinks tonight. Waiting time 3-4 minutes or less.
DJs: Sefu, etc etc.
Music: Mostly Contemporary RnB / Pop, with the occasional house mashup.
Crowd: Mostly Asian, and mostly teenagers
Entertainment: Last week the podium was a three tiered podium. This week it is 3 separate podiums. One podium was rectangular to hold upto 5 or 6 people, while the other two were solo podiums which could hold upto 3 people. This freed up some dance room to walk around. Also an MC to keep things up.
Atmosphere: It got pretty busy quite quickly, then it got immensely packed on the dancefloor. Lounge areas – most seats are taken.
Video: Walking around the dancefloor 
Related:
Funky (Buddha) @ Sanctuary Hotel: 19th June 2010
by James on Jun.19, 2010, under Hip Hop, Pop, RnB, Sanctuary Hotel
Me with one of the fans in the attempt to keep the temperature cool
It’s my birthday weekend, but I really didn’t plan anything for Saturday. A friend has invited me to Sanctuary Hotel – The last time I walked in, the air con wasn’t working correctly for large crowds and it became stuffy and overheated. Since then I have been assured things were ‘fixed’. So let’s check it out – here we go!
Funky (Buddha) @ Sanctuary Hotel
Assessment Time: 12:15AM to 02:45AM
Opening Hours: 10:30 – Unknown
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.funkybuddha.com.au, http://www.phatentertainment.com.au
Address: 545 Kent St - Corner of Liverpool and Kent St, Sydney. Behind 3 wise monkeys.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok. Hats allowed.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 standard. $20 on guestlist before midnight.
Guestlist: info@phatentertainment.com.au
Occurence: Every Saturday Night.
Inside: The entrance is not at the normal Sanctuary Hotel entrance. It is via the TAB area further along on Kent St. The room upon entry is where people can have a chat and chill out without actually going outside. Walk in further to the main area, and the large carpeted room has been converted to a dancefloor. DJ on the wall, and a 3 tier podium smack in the middle, dividing the room into two halves. Bar along the far back wall.
Cloak Room: Cloak room is located upon entry. Not utilized tonight but I would imagine it to be the same rip off pricing as of previous nights at the previous Verandah Bar venue.
Bar: Did not utilize tonight, but the wait was a bit longer than usual. Line was 2 or 3 deep. Bar closed altogether at 2:30AM, in a safe assumption that too many fights spoil the bar.
Music: RnB, Pop and some House mashup
Crowd: Mostly Asian. Mostly teenagers or early 20′s. You can tell via the baby faces and hair styles. I fit right in.
Entertainment: Podium dancers throughout the night. It’s good enough.
Atmosphere: It’s setup to encourage lots of dancing, which is good. The humidity of the last time I was here is gone – Fans are installed and air con is setup just right for a danceable experience. People are not as friendly but what else do you expect from 18 year olds. Carpeted area gives the place a more friendly vibe as well as the second room to allow people a breather is also good. It’s also pretty busy on the dancefloor itself, enough to have your own dance, but not sardine packed.
Podium dancer - Funky @ Sanctuary Hotel
Fights: I saw two fights break out tonight. One you may see typically at a club, but two in one night is bad. Ha. Teenage angst and alcohol.
Videos:
Walkthrough of the dancefloor area. 
360 View
Related:
Club rejections then a Random Party @ Burdekin Hotel: Friday 11th June 2010
by James on Jun.11, 2010, under Burdekin Hotel, Shark Hotel, Tao, V Bar, World Square Pub
1AM looking for a place to dance…..
Clubs that were rejected tonight
Flow @ World Square Pub / Equilibrium:
We planned to go here tonight. There is no line outside. That’s good. $20 entry. Though as we got to the door, the internal line inside to go upstairs was packed. there was about 50 people croweded at the base of the stairs waiting for their turn to go upstairs. Oh hell no – we are not going in! So walk off we go…
Tourism @ Tao Lounge:
There was an event on tonight. The bouncer said “Don’t even bother coming in here.” We wanted to see what it was. Bouncer: “Go in for a bit of a laugh if you want. Nobody is dancing in there”. So we went in side. It was free entry anyway. There was about……….. 17 people including us 4. A guy and girl were on the dancefloor. She is standing doing nothing, and he is moving his arms up and down, like he is perforing curls on an invisible 1kg dumbell. It is ridiculous – and so is the music. We left after a wasted 10 minutes.
V Bar had cover charge so we didn’t go in, but it looked dead.
Puls8 @ Shark Hotel was dead as well tonight. (Saturdays are better).
Our final destination – random private party @ Burdekin Hotel
Continued the merry walk down Oxford St, where we strike up some ye old conversation with the patrons outside Burdekin Hotel. They were nice enough to invite us to their private party upstairs at the top level! Booyah! (continue reading…)
Related:
Oxford Art Factory Quickie: Saturday 22nd May 2010
by James on May.23, 2010, under Dubstep, House, Oxford Art Factory
Oxford Art Factory Main Room
03:30AM – 04:30AM
So just quickly after Arthouse it was about 3:30AM, and I still wanted a quick dance, so we went to Oxford Art factory and walked through (snuck by) the door man via the back entrance and had an hour of dancing. The music initialy was pretty good to dance to. I would have no idea what genre it was, but the place is freaking loud – speakers blaring non stop.
How loud is it you ask?
Here’s a video:
Later at 4 or 4:30 the DJ changed to someone else, and the music was less danceable for us, and we left.
Crowd is all caucasian. At this time the place still had about 30-50 people which was amazing. Drinks are good value too.
Me and Marty were dancing crazy style, and got some dancers with us. A guy came up and insisted we dance using our middle fingers as instruments as part of the dance. So we ended up dancing around with our middle fingers in the air, around the place, etc etc. Interesting.
Oxford Art Factory is a nice place to visit for a dance, if you are into the housey/dubstep kind of scene.
7/10 only for lovers of the music genre advertised that week. I cannot recommend for normal innocent clubbers.
Related:
Poetry @ Pavilion Hotel – Friday 14th May 2010
by James on May.14, 2010, under Pavillion, RnB
Friends convince me to come here, where it was claimed it was pretty awesome, so here we go!
Poetry @ Pavilion Hotel
Assessment Time: 09:00PM – 12:30AM
Opening Hours: 09:00PM – Late, but Pavilion Hotel itself is open throughout the day
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.pavilionhotel.com.au , http://www.hypnotizeent.com
Address: 580 George St, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual is allowed, and appears to be the norm.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $10 all night.
Guestlist: No guestlist applicable.
Occurence: Every Friday
Inside: The register is located on top of the entry stairs. Meaning that both the top level dance floor and level below, which is the sole gambling and driking area, is only accessible for the punter. Focusing on the top level, this is where the dance action is at. DJ at the corner, with a wooden dancefloor to hold about 100 or so people. Huge concrete slab in the middle of the area to separate the dancing from the lounge area, where there is basically no lighting at all. Bar on the right to serve the floor.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: Standard drinks are $3.50 before 11PM. Chicks get free drinks, of limited choice of course.
DJs: DJ’s Tikelz/Moto/Manny/Pacheco
Music: RnB, Old School, Hip Hop
Crowd: Indian, Asian, Aussie, Euro – a bit of everything. There seemed to be a lot more girls than guys tonight.
Entertainment: Just the DJ tonight.
Atmosphere: Pretty bland throughout the evening proceedings. At peak it was decent, but peak did not last long. People were only coming up to dance to the songs they liked.
(continue reading…)
Related:
Quickie: Me dancing with my future self @ Opera Bar: Saturday 8th May 2010
by James on May.08, 2010, under Opera Bar, Short Tales
A third party invite to a birthday.. here we go!
Saturdays @ Opera Bar
Location: Just outside the Opera House, Circular Quay, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart Casual is the norm, but anything goes here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free
Music: Instrumental house.
Crowd: Classy.
Atmosphere: Cold, and so there weren’t many people outside – but enough to fill up all the seats.
Timeline:
So anyway, we are dancing casually, and suddenly an old asian man is dancing like a madman! His wife is looking at him with dismay, and I think.. “I like this guy – I want to be like him when I grow up”, so I joined him. Here’s the video:
The old man is the dude on the right. Seriously
Right afterwards, security warned us that we should take photos quicker, as they “dont like that sort of thing” (the dancing) in here. I wonder why a DJ is installed here then!
Recommendation
This place is just a bar, and nothing more. Pretty nice views though 
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Bounce @ Slide Bar: Friday 23rd April 2010
by James on Apr.23, 2010, under RnB, Slide Bar
Bounce @ Slide bar - The podium
Walked by here last month and it looked alright – Asians and RnB blasting out from the doors. Promoters said it was a monthly event, so I decided to check it out next time it was on – finally tonight the night has arrived! I got on the guestlist and brang some friends – so here we go!
Bounce @ Slide Bar
Assessment Time: 10:30PM – 02:30AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM – unknown (probably 4:00AM)
Lockout: We left at 2:30 and were advised of lockout. Safe to assume that lockout is at 02:00AM
Website:
Occurence: Once a month. Check facebook for details.
Address: 41 Oxford St, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Standard collared shirt for guys, though it is ok to wear shirts. Stated that no hats were allowed to be worn, but I did see people wearing hats tonight.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free before 11pm if on guestlist. $10 before midnight. $20 Otherwise.
Guestlist: I found the facebook event and added myself to the Facebook guestlist.
Inside: This reminds me of a similar layout to The Bank at Kings Cross. Walk into an open floor to hold about two hundred people. The floor includes an elevated dance platform in which the tiles light up and change colours. Bar to the left. DJ in the far right corner. Overhanging the bar is a balcony for private functions and what not, to hold about 60 people.
Cloak Room: Cloak room available but was not utilised tonight.
Bar: Did not use the bar tonight.
DJs: DJ Slim, Edo, Bonniez
Music: RnB, Korean Pop.
Crowd: A rare night where everybody is Asian. Dominantly Korean. A mix of locals and international students.
Entertainment: Runway modelling show, and a dance off on the elevated podium area. MC Jayddup to keep things going.
Atmosphere: Initially on entering there wasn’t anyone dancing on the podium. Around midnight it picked up quick and stayed pretty busy the rest of the night. It got very packed at around 1-1:30AM. Dark atmosphere adds to the mood and the crowd was pertty into most of the songs. It was pretty good.
The Korean crowd looks down to the dancefloor during the fashion parade segment
Video: 360 View Taken during peak time, and everyone chants along:
Video: Dancefloor and 360 – You can see me as well
(continue reading…)
Related:
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Hello! I'm James. This subjective blog serves to post every dance event I attend to. I go out clubbing once or twice a week. I may include some stories as well. Feel free to join the discussion by leaving comments - Thanks for dropping by!
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