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Great weekend out partying. Nice to see a new venue to change things up.
Rolled in at 1am. The location wasn't too hard to find and quite accessible from the 401. This might be easier to reach than downtown for me because of the madness in the clubbing district + finding parking.
Spent about 20-25mins in line for coat check. They had a nice setup with staff preventing people skipping line (nice when line is slow). They could've used more girls at coat check. Coat check was fairly reasonable @ $3. However, they did increase the price later to $5 (noticed when i left).
once I walked in the main room, I scoped the place out to get accustomed to what's where. They had 2 bathroom setup, inside for girls with long lineup and outside w/ about 10 portapotties outside alongside the smoking area.
Tip #1 - More bathrooms please! Especially for Carl Cox which should be much busier
Went to get some drink tickets afterwards which was quick and responsive. However, the beer prices are quite steep $8 drinks. Water on the other hand was very affordable 2 for $5. They took into consideration the lack of fountains/washrooms where people can refill. So this probably worked in their favor in terms of volume sold. The bar was an absolute clusterfuck and needed 2x the staff during bar hours. They need to split the mixed drinks from beer/water sales. The barmaid stations were not laid out for efficiency which made for slowwww service. At least the beer was freezing cold, just how i like it.
Tip #2 - Reorganize bar stations, perhaps have 2-3 bars spread out and add staff from 12-2 time slot.
Music/Sound:
Got to see the opening DJ who replaced Sneak from 1:30-2. During his set, the sound was god awfull. Ear piercing and massive reverb/vibrations. The sound did improve as luciano/ricardo came on. There's still room for improvement, but pretty decent considering the first time they use the space and the limited amount of time to tweak.
Music wise, Ricardo played more at the beginning of the set and then it became 90% Luciano and 10% Ricardo. Ricardo spent more time sitting down and chatting with people in the booth.
Overall, the tunes were party tunes with little filler. They had the crowd pumping for most of the night. I ended up leaving just after 4:30 as I started hearing tracks played earlier. I have videos to post later.
Dance Space:
The dancefloor space was well arranged to meet the size of the crowd. The VIP booths were far enough to not be a bother. The light setup was well done too. Although the LED lights were bothering me a bit at first.
Overall this night is a solid 8.5/10. For Carl Cox, which will have much higher turnout, they definitely need to add staff and bathrooms. The sound needs tweaking.
I hope the promoters met their financial targets and this place continues to be used. This might turn into a venue used for massives. only 1/3 of the room was used. Also, as the crowd increases, they will need to open garage doors because it will get hot real fast in there. It was pretty toasty at some points.
Good Job Carnivale for going outside the box for Toronto. For a 1st event in this venue and setting up everything from scratch....kudos!
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Do I exist?
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