Clubbing with James Tran

My friend is here tonight, and I haven’t been, so I take Marty and Derelict with me in the quest to not only visit all the clubs in Sydney but also to go forth in the search for the best chocolate ice cream in Sydney, haha, so here we go!

Dancefloor @ Coogee Bay Hotel Sydney

Saturdays @ Coogee Bay Hotel
Assessment Time: Midnight – 03:00AM
Opening Hours: Unknown – 03:00AM
Lockout: None
Website: www.coogeebayhotel.com.au
Address: Coogee Bay Rd, Coogee, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual was ok tonight. Sneakers and hats allowed. Half the crowd wore t-shirts, the other half, casual collars. Only a handful of people including us were nicely dressed. I certainly felt very well dressed as I walked in tonight.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free tonight, but these guys have the fingerprint scanners installed. I get worried when a venue has this technology as it would only mean violence has occured here before.
Guestlist: None tonight. It was a regular Saturday, and the Coogee Bay Hotel does its own promotions.
Occurence: Every Saturday bar special events where entry fee applies.
Inside: The actual club is just one section of the whole complex – similar to how The Albion is setup. Walk in and the live band room is on the right, sports bar on the left. Keep walking in to enter the large beer garden at the back, and bistro on the left. On the right is the club. In the walkthrough video below, we walk from the entrance straight into the club. The clubbing room itself has a wooden dancefloor to hold about 100-150 people comfortably. Some lounges around the surrounding carpeted areas. It feels a little bare, but the whole place is dark, so you eventually forget about the barebones setup. 
Cloak Room: None
Bar: Did not buy from the bar tonight. However throughout, the line was about 2 people deep. Expect at least a 5 minute wait.
Music: Non-Commercial House, Dubstep, Rnb/pop mashup.
Crowd: Mostly young people here. Teenagers and early 20′s. A handful of people in their 30′s as well, who have come for a bit of a dance after dinner I guess. Pretty much everyone here was caucasian, and probably locals. I would not imagine a non-local making the trek all the way out here on a regular night.
Entertainment: No MC, no podiums. Just the DJ and dancefloor, and some UV lights
Atmosphere: It was busy throughout the whole night. It never got too packed, so you could always have room to dance. Sometimes it got close to squishy but nothing to worry about – you could dance somewhere else – the dancefloor was large enough to accommodate - people danced on surrounding carpet areas as well. Pretty dark in some places around the floor but lighting keeps the floor itself well lit.
Evictions: I saw 2 dudes in total kicked out for being drunk. One was ready to start a fight on the dancefloor. The other was throwing TAB betting sheets all over the sports room and pretended nothing happened when questioned by security – paper littered all around him – hilarious.
Video: Walkthrough

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Related:

• Saturdays @ Candys Apartment: 4th September 2010
• Hedkandi Fridays @ Trademark Hotel Sydney – 18th December 2009
• We Love Sounds Winter Festival 2009 @ Hordern Pavillion
• Fridays @ Scary Canary: 27th August 2010
• Saturdays @ Chinese Laundry: 14th August 2010

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:

• Saturdays @ Candys Apartment: 4th September 2010
• Fridays @ Scary Canary: 27th August 2010
• Club & Bar Crawl: Haymarket Hotel, Doctor Pong, Slide Bar, Puls8 @ Shark Hotel, The Oxford, Hi-Lo (Middle Bar), Courthouse Hotel, Zaia @ Space Sydney: 20th August 2010
• Saturdays @ Chinese Laundry: 14th August 2010
• Secret Warehouse Party, Alexandria, Sydney: Saturday 24th July 2010