Whaat Club Review

Review by Alice Worthy

I couldn’t start this off without saying that I had some pretty negative preconceptions about Whaat Club. A friend and I were planning on going into the Cross and thought we’d pop by before heading elsewhere. After all, it was being promoted all over Facebook - we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

So we headed to Whaat Club. I was annoyed and disappointed when we were hit with a $10 entry fee. For a newly established club trying to get its name out there, charging an entry fee on a Friday night seemed a little steep. Let’s not forget that Whaat club is connected to Candy’s and right next to World Bar, two of the most popular clubs in the Cross.

Inside, it was quiet. The music and lights were going but there were probably only about 15 people dotted around the open space, which made for a very awkward entrance. If it weren’t for the $10 entry fee, we probably would have left by now. Friends I met inside assured me it would fill up soon which was sort of comforting, I suppose. Needless to say, we headed straight to the bar.

Coincidently, the night improved from this moment. $5 drinks are hard to come by in general - let alone in the cross - and these drinks were delicious. The “foreplay” drink was peach schnapps and vodka: highly alcoholic, clichéd and cheap. It’s fair to say that we didn’t try any other drinks on the menu.

Whaat Club has the potential to be different from any of the other clubs in the cross. For one, the music was danceable and really fun. No ‘doof doof’ music without words, but constant hits remixed one after another that stopped us from sitting down for too long at a time.

On that note, Whaat Club has a great amount of seating area for its size. One wall is full of intimate seating booths around tables, great not only for resting the feet but also for people watching or canoodling. Other than the stylish booths, the rest of the décor could do with a bit of attention. Bright red walls with token graffiti in uneven places gave the place an amateur feel and lacked originality. The bathrooms also needed a serious clean, there was even rust in the sinks.

The crowd at Whaat Club is defiantly a young one. I didn’t see a person in there that I thought looked over 21. So taking this into account, everything seemed to make sense. While it’s great to see a young team of people running this place, the promotion style seems a little contrived with it’s predictable use of sexual colloquialisms. I was hoping that the young team might have been a bit more avant-garde and adventurous in the chance to advertise this club to their own age group.

I would be lying if I said we didn’t have a good time. Just like we were promised, it did fill up and we stayed all night. Whaat Club has huge potential, but at this point the team seems to be too busy marketing the stereotype of Kings Cross nightclubs rather than taking advantage of what makes Whaat Club fun and unique.



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A Second Review of Whaat Club

Review by Lauren Bleasdale

Never having been a fan of the original Le Panic, I was extremely eager to see how it had been transformed now Music People (the owners of Candy's Apartment) have taken over. To say that I was disappointed is an understatement.

Despite its new management and intriguing new name, "Whaat Club?" is still one of the last places I'd choose to go to on a night out. The club looks exactly the same as it always has, but with less people. It has a small outside seating area, similar to the one at World Bar, which is always popular with the smokers. Inside sits a massive bar and a raised DJ booth with lots of space for dancing and ample seating. The decor is warm and inviting with lounge booths lining the back wall (providing couples with a perfect make-out spot), and gives off a cozy, chilled-out vibe. The eclectic choice of music, which is very difficult to describe genre-wise, encourages people to sit down rather than dance.

The crowd appears to be an overflow of Candy's punters seeking a warm place to sit and in my case, a meeting place for lost friends. Judging by the few people scattered around as well as Music People's plans to combine Whaat Club? and Candy's Apartment and create one big super club, I'd say the crowd will be young partiers with a love of hard electro dance music with dirty beats and who will always prefer dancing to sitting.

One good thing about Whaat Club? is that the cover charge is included in the entry price of Candy's which is usually $10/$15 on a Friday and $15/$20 on a Saturday.

Whaat Club? has got the potential of a great night club, especially with Music People as its owner and the possibility of it being turned into a super club is very exciting. But for now, I think I'll stick to using Whaat Club? as a meeting place.

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