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2/12/2007 10:29:00 AM
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2/12/2007 1:44:00 PM
^Sweet Jebus! Three hours would make me never want to go to another sin city event. But then again considering that they showed up at 10 they should have expected to stand around for quite a while. If I can't guest list then I always make sure I get to the club by 8:30 to be on the safe side. I'd rather wait an hour or so before the party starts inside the club then have to miss 3/4 the night standing in line.
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2/12/2007 2:10:00 PM
The vast majority of our larger events we obviously push to our larger venue Richards On Richards - the Valentine's Fetish edition is usually the most densely packed event of the whole year since its the highest attended one at our smaller venue. We've had nights with DOUBLE the attendance of last night but it's no problem since it's at the larger venue. Valentine's is the only that -HAS- to be on the second Saturday of the month, and the second Saturday has to be at Club 23 West.
The odd thing is when people complain about the lineup, we point out that we have another party in the month at Richards On Richards, which has twice the capacity and virtually no lineups. This is typically met with a response of 'but I like it at 23 West more because it's a way crazier party and is way more packed.' You can't really have it both ways, where it's sold out and crazy but with no lineup. One always goes hand in hand with the other.
For people who absolutely cannot deal with lineups we -highly- suggest sticking to the Richards On Richards party if they can only make it out once a month! For those who don't mind waiting in line in order to get into a party packed twice as solid, the parties at 23 West are fun as all hell.
Thankfully it only gets this crazy once or twice a year. Normally the attendance at 23 West now that we are twice a month is perfect - it gets full quickly and stays that way right to the end, and lineups are only about 15 minutes long at worst, and even then that's only for a small part of the night, when the rest of it has no lineups at al!
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2/12/2007 2:14:00 PM
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2/12/2007 2:27:00 PM
"one of my friends got there before 10, and ended up waiting THREE hours in line with two newbies. they were pretty upset, particularly when some of the staff would come out and hand pick people to go in."
No kidding! That's a huge wait. To clarify though - most people are aware that the peak attendance and wait times at any busy night happens between 9 PM and midnight and we have always highly encouraged people to show up either in advance of this or later once the huge part of the rush has happened and the line is moving again because it's late enough in the night that people are leaving and the line is moving more quickly. This counts for TRIPLE on those few -especially- crazy parties of the year such as Valentine's and Halloween. Showing up between 10 PM and midnight pretty much is guaranteeing you the longest wait possible, which SUCKS.
There are some people with line privileges, yes. The vast majority of these people are our sponsors, and the very few people who are on the staff's personal guest lists. As the promoters we keep a tight lid on this as we've always believed the only truly fair way is first come first serve and we try and keep as much space of the club open as possible for our loyal attendees without filling it up with our personal VIPs. For example, I am one of the two promoters of the night and my personal guest list beyond our sponsors is usually -five- people or less. This is almost comically low for a night as high profile and attended as Sin City. In general even our friends who help with the night know to try and get there early rather than abuse line priviliges. Our staff members do get one or two people each they are allowed to extend line privileges to, but again, we keep a pretty tight lid on it overall. The promoters and club staff of Sin City keep things as fair as possible in almost all cases.
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2/12/2007 2:29:00 PM
People were giving us humble DJs mad love from the dancefloor all night! That was one of the most high energy, crazy-ass parties we've seen in there yet. People were screaming and hollering with enthusiasm all night .... I heard something when I dropped that track but I didn't realise that was you! Yaaayyyy! I freakin' LOVE that Basement Jaxx track .... and it sounds particularly good on the fat 23 West sound system!
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2/12/2007 2:50:00 PM
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2/12/2007 4:47:00 PM
I'm sorry your friends did not get there early enough to get in without a long wait. Luckily I think we all know that the party later this month and the next one at 23 West will be pretty much night and day when it comes to lineups as compared to this past party. The Valentine's Sin pretty much always has the longest lineups of any of the parties of the year ... and I think most people know that and either showed up before 9 or later in the night.
I'm also sorry your friends were irritated by the promoter of the night extending line privileges to people for whatever reason was the case. If you honestly believe that any of our door or other staff have abused their privileges, please feel free to take it up with Mr. Dark. However I hope it gets borne in mind that it isn't in any way unreasonable for the staff of the night to HAVE privileges in the first place .... as irritating as I know it might be to be in line and see someone else get in with priviliges you yourself might not have.
I can tell you that out of almost 500 people who came to the party maybe 40 were some sort of VIPs. On the one hand I can easily see that if you were a person in line who somehow managed to catch all 40 of those people get in with their line privlieges, it would be quite frustrating and seem like a lot. Hell, if even two people who were standing right in front of you were allowed to jump the line and you weren't it would be very frustrating. But on the other hand, bear in mind that there are 10+ club staff from the venue working, 15+ from SIn City on staff, and at least 10 of our sponsors who come regularly. Keeping that in mind, having 40 people with VIP line privileges is less than 1.5 guest spots being granted per working staff member, where furthermore the majority of people with any kind of line privileges are sponsors or people who have been volunterering and direclty helping with the night in the first place.
I don't think there's been any unfairness or abuse of any privileges here, as irritated as someone who was in line who saw someone else get in when they didn't might be.
Frankly if we as the promoters really wanted to put 25 people each on our personal guest lists for every party I don't think anyone could argue that we were doing something somehow wrong or that we wouldn't be more than justified in doing so if we felt like it. But we don't.
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2/12/2007 4:50:00 PM
Other than comments about the lineups being pretty huge, which everyone already knew was going to be the case anyway .... did anyone have any fun or what at this party? That was one of the craziest Sins EVER and then some!!!
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2/12/2007 5:23:00 PM
Sigh..this happoens every month.
Yes, our sponsers have privliges..I do not know about Kitsune and armand picking peiople out of the line..ans for two people..it was a birthday present..of friends...Outhers that got to cut the line, were people that manned the SinCity booth at the tabboo show, instead of attending Sin that very same night.
Oh, and there was my girl..hmm..do i make her wait?there were a group who came, and i will never extend that privlage to them again, as they were abusive.
Then there are some who complain that they had to wait, cause they got there at 930..well, should they have better privlage than thouse who showed up at 730?
hell, some of our sponsers, who are only alowwed 2 people, will come with 8, and graciously wait in line.
So, what am i to do...?there are always those who have complaints.Its a night club, and if you go to granville st, you will see the same thing happen, if not much worse.I dont allow bribes, unlike other clubs.
People who think a 2-3 hour wait, should try to go to other clubs, and see how they are treated there.if you compare our treatment and rules for our clientell, and the way we enforce rules of dresscode, and 'touching',you would find that we are far more attentive to our crowds needs.
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2/12/2007 5:57:00 PM
I checked with our door staff. Just so you know, Kitsune and Armand let in two people, once, after checking with the door staff first. These were two people specifically, not scanning the line and pulling out friends.
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2/13/2007 10:10:00 AM
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2/13/2007 1:56:00 PM
Are there any affiliated sin city groups in other cities in Canada? I realize that there are other people doing the same thing but I was just curious if there was say a Sin City TO or Montreal.
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2/13/2007 7:33:00 PM
There are other fetish nights in other cities in Canada such as Toronto and Montreal but they are entirely seperate groups with their own promoters, names, themes, DJs, styles of music, and so forth, which all give them their unique identitty.
As of right now there is only one Sin City party - the one we know and love here in Vancouver. I've toyed with the idea of starting up a Sin City Seattle as we already have tons of friends and supporters from there, plus I used to DJ in Seattle and one of our Sin City residents is from there to boot. I think it would be a great success ....
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2/13/2007 10:12:00 PM
Isaac I love the way you respond to complaints.
Aaron, I love the shaved head! I live in a cave- how long ago did you do that?
Happy Valentines day people! Miss you all!
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2/14/2007 11:03:00 AM
Happy Valentine's, Vancouver freaks!!
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2/14/2007 11:15:00 AM
hey, not hating at all. I just want to keep you guys apprised of these things when I hear them.
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2/14/2007 1:21:00 PM
I think it's a given that people will be irritated at being in a long lineup, and very sensitive to people they see getting in with privileges they don't have. However, as someone who has a long standing knowledge of the night, its promoters and the efforts we take to keep things fair for everybody, there are lots of ways to respond to your friends passing on complaints to you. I would hope that people that count themselves as supporters of the night would play the devil's advocate and point out to their friends that we are very strict about our guest lists and other than sponsors and a very limited number of guest spots, we keep it very much first come first serve at the door - even though yes, there are going to be -some- people with line privilege such as people who have put in time helping with the night or whatnot.
Jumping on to a public forum and posting about how irritated their friends were that 'staff were periodically handpicking people out of the line when people had been waiting for 3 hours - I would never go to something with lineups like this' actually does seem a lot more like joining in on venting a personal beef, and not at all like an honest attempt to keep the promoters appraised of problems.
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2/14/2007 1:49:00 PM
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2/14/2007 10:18:00 PM
There are very specific people that get past the line, and there is usually a very good reason they do so.
The bar itself has a guest list, all the staff really have an option of having a small guest list, and Isaac and Aaron have an open ended one, which I've never seen them go crazy with. Usually there guest list is a couple of people, and a reminder of the sponsors.
The only time anyone walks the line to "hand pick people" is when they're looking specifically for someone on a guest list that has for whatever reason not shown up.
That's the first time I've ever heard of Kitsune and Armand even having a guest, and if it's not it's been quite a while and very infrequent.
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Staff reserves the right to invent their guest list on the fly. I've had nights where I honestly just don't have anyone I'm in touch with a lot, that's coming out to Sin. So I'm outside, I see someone I know, I've talked to, they're a regular, or maybe just a friend I haven't seen in a while and I'll squeeze them in.
We're never abusive with it, there's never throngs of people walking past the line from one person, but there are many people involved at Sin City who the promoters will allow to have guests. I don't know what the total number of Sin City Staff and Bar Staff there are, but if you gave each person a 2 person guest list, then added sponsors and their allowed guests, it can look a lot worse than it is.
Another problem with the lineup is everyone needs to check coats, there's nothing that can be done about it and it stalls the line, if nobody had anything to check, it'd be a lot better. You also have to consider club capacity.
Well, my 2 cents, I didn't work that night but figured I'd weigh in on it.
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2/15/2007 11:07:00 AM
fair enough Isaac.... consider my post deleted. I'm sorry you interpreted it the way you did. You know I have always been a strong supporter of the night.
but just to clarify one point - I never said "I would never go to something with lineups like this"
I said that I wasn't willing to wait that long in line. Has nothing to do with the event, just my own stamina.
...which was one of the reasons I chose not to go that night after being cajoled by several people. It's too tiring, and hard on the feet, and I've found if I wait more than about an hour, I don't have as good a time once i'm inside.
Unfortunately I think a lot of people feel that because there's two venues and two events a month, the lineup issue has ended...
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