Clubbing with James Tran

After multiple times coming here after 3AM, it was time to give this place a fair go. Guestlist sorted out, so here we go!

Trance room - Zaia @ Space Sydney

Zaia @ Space Nightclub
Assessment Time: 10:30PM – 04:00AM
Opening Hours: No idea on when doors actually open. Possibly 09:45PM – 04:00AM
Lockout: None
Address: Level 3, 127 Liverpool St, Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.spacevenue.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.phatentertainment.com.au
Occurence: Every Friday.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual allowed. Hats allowed. My sneakers were allowed in. Basically anything goes here. Guys were a mix of casual and collared shirts/dress shoes. Girls were mostly in dresses.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: (On guestlist) – Free before 10PM, $20 between 10PM – 11:15PM, $25 afterwards. If you ain’t on the guestlist, it’s a $25 flat charge. There is no separate guestlist line.
Guestlist / Birthday Package: Sent mine through musesydney@yahoo.com.au, the 3rd party promoters for Zaia. Reserved area was sorted out for Marty’s birthday, but no birthday free passes were given to us as promised, despite protests at the register. Package included bottle of champagne, which was given in the form of drink passes. However no cloak room pass was given, nor VIP table service. Admittedly there were 20-30 birthdays tonight, and I did not specifically ask for free entry, cloak room pass or VIP table service, but I did ask for the birthday party package which, I was told, would include these things. A birthday boy or girl DOES NOT have to go through the motions to ask for these birthday things.
Inside: Please note Space has been renovated since early 2010. Walk up the stairs to the Shark Hotel level, where red carpet and cash register awaits your money. No longer are the elevators used to enter the venue. Walk up another flight of stairs to enter Space Nightclub into the Trance room. The wooden dancefloor has been largened to accommodate more people. A stereoscopic light has been installed which dishes out some funky light patterns. Dancefloor holds about 40 people capacity. Bar servicing this room on the right, and an internal smoking room at the rear to hold about 20 people, like you see at some airports. Enter the bigger room via either of the two doors to be presented with a large dancefloor for about 300-400 people. Tonight, the cage podiums have been rid of! Instead, a catwalk like setup has been created, right into the middle front of the dancefloor, for the bikini contest later on. Two single podiums reside next to each of the columns holding the ceiling up.
Cloak Room: $10 Large Items, $5 small items. $3 Recheck. Ridiculous pricing as usual from this promoter.
Bar Prices: $8.50 for a Vodka Cranberry. There are two bars tonight, and the shorter lines were always on the Trance Room side. People at the RnB side waited about 20 minutes for a drink, while in the Trance Room I waited about 5-10 minutes.
Music Style: Primarily RnB in the large room, with some hip hop later in the night and some house mashups thrown in the mix as well. Repeats of songs were experienced – Mixing was done well though
Crowd: Primarily local Asians. A handful of white people, but I would say no more than 10 or 20 in total.
Entertainment: Bikini Party – Competition for a $5000 first prize. More details later. Also podiums to which only girls were allowed to dance on in the earlier part of the night.
Atmosphere: RnB: It wasn’t too busy at 11, but at around 11:30 it pretty much picked up and peaked until around 2AM – 2:30AM when the bikini contest concluded. Dancefloor was pretty busy throughout – you had room to dance around, and only about half the time you had to move around to let other people through. In the Trance Room, the trance music really only came on at around 11:30PM, and you always had enough room to bounce around and spin and do stuff, but it always managed to stay busy enough to not look too dead. In general the crowd vibe was friendly. The rest of the non dancers just stood around the edges of the dancefloor or lounges.
Trance: Dark throughout the night, smoke machines, and flashy nights with loud noise. People are more reserved here as we are all about dancing. Pretty warm and stuffy in here as well as the night wore on.

Video: Walk-through – Trance room , RnB room, smoking room, back into the trance room.


Video: Trance Room 360


Video: RnB Room 720

RnB room - Zaia @ Space Sydney

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Related:

• Shanghai Nights @ Brooklyn Hotel: Friday 26th March 2010
• Puls8 (Pulsate) @ Shark Hotel: Weekend 19th and 20th March 2010
• I Love Uni White Party @ Home Nightclub: Friday 12th March 2010
• Homemade Saturdays @ Home Bar Nightclub (20th June 2009)
• UNSW BSOC BSXC @ Home Bar (21st May 2009)

I just wanted to get trashed as it has been a while. Eventually ended up at Haymarket Hotel (It’s the final night of free entry before promoters take over on Fridays) and feeling pretty tipsy. There were DJs on the underground level playing some music!! Unfortunately its a private party, but not to be deterred, and full of dutch courage, Marty and I walked up to the door dude. He asks for my name. I said “James”. No surname given. I squint down at the list to try and lift another name for Marty, but my state of intoxication does not allow me to focus on the small words on the guestlist. Thank god, he found a “James”, and said James is crossed off the list. I was in, but what about Marty? After I was crossed off, he just danced his way in. Ludicrous. Me and the door guy gave each other a strange look, and I just shrugged my shoulders and we continued on in – so here we go!

Random Birthday @ Haymarket Hotel

Assessment Time: 01:00AM – 2:00AM
Opening Hours: Unknown – 02:00AM
Address: 661-663 George St, Chinatown Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual was ok tonight.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free tonight.
Guestlist: See intro above
Inside: The entire basement level was reserved for this party. Lounges about, a small dancefloor at the front to hold 10-15 people. DJ in the corner.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: I didn’t drink anything here tonight
Music: Hardstyle and Hard Trance was being played tonight. I just remember lots of thumping around. Is this what 19 year olds listen to? Oh wait I should know – my 19 year old brother blasts this kind of stuff out of his room all the time.
Crowd: Birthday boy is 19, and so the crowd around is of similar age.
Entertainment: Just the DJs
Video: 360 of the bottom level

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Related:

• Zaia @ Space Nightclub Sydney: Friday 3rd September 2010
• Saturdays @ Candys Apartment: 4th September 2010
• Fridays @ Scary Canary: 27th August 2010
• Rendezvous (Grand Opening) @ Docks Hotel: Friday 27th August 2010
• Vanity @ Verandah Bar: Saturday 21st August 2010

Pirate and Indian

Visiting a random who we only met last week. We reached the door and I don’t really want to go in. Random begs us to come in for an hour or so because its her birthday. Well, we were already here, and we were in our costumes from the party before, so let’s make the most of this – here we go!

Impulse @ Hunter Bar
Assessment Time: 02:00AM – 03:15AM
Opening Hours: – 11:00PM  - 10:00AM
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.myspace.com/impulsefridays
Address: 50 Hunter St, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Anything goes. Hats allowed, costumes allowed.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20. Unsure on guestlist but there probably was one
Guestlist: impulse_chamber@hotmail.com
Occurence: Every Friday.
Inside: Under street level, the place is quite dark. It is just one room – low ceiling height – a bar to the right, a dancefloor at the front to hold about 100 people tightly and the DJ at the far end. Lounges are located as you walk in. 
Cloak Room: Free for umbrellas. $3 or $4 for other items
Bar: Did not drink tonight.
DJs: Main DJ was Amber savage. See this pic for the set list. Aren’t they so nice to supply one?
Music: Hard Trance, Hard Style
Crowd: Older, mostly asians. Older meaning being on the wrong side of 30. There are also a handful of younger people, but no less than 25. These people were the last remnants of the classic trance generation of the 90s, still partying until the end, and you know what, I applaud them for it.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: Dark, loud and kind of seedy, in a bad way. Most were standing around in the dark, and avoiding the dancefloor. Everyone kept to themselves in here.
Video: Walkthrough / 360

Set List - Impulse @ Hunter Bar

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