Bucking The Trend, Sydney Gets a New Superclub

Going against the trend for opening small bars for people to escape the pokies and nightclubs, The Star opens a new superclub. With pokies.

Madeleine Watts
March 29, 2012

This weekend sees the opening of Marquee Sydney, the city's brand new superclub, brought to us by The Star. It's well known that The Star, formerly Star City casino, has been attempting to rebuild its image over the past year. They want you to see it as the kind of classy place jet-setters hang out at, as opposed to the image people had previously - over-priced drinks and square-eyed gamblers mechanically pressing buttons on pokie machines in a vast room that reeks of Brut and broken dreams. Marquee is the most anticipated part of their grand plan to erase that image.

Marquee Sydney is being brought to us courtesy of nightlife operator Tao Group, which operates a number of superclubs in the US including the Marquee Nightclub and Dayclub at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. Marquee is promising to bring "a monumental change to Sydney's nightlife landscape." It's an unusual claim to make, given that Sydney's nightlife over the last few years has been focused on improving and innovating the small, boutique bar scene and creating the kind of places people can sit around in black skivvies reading books and drinking chardonnay - like Melbourne, if you will. And everyone has very much enjoyed the explosion of small bars, which provide a welcome alternative for those not so keen on side-stepping the drunken punch-ups outside Kings Cross nightclubs at three in the morning.

Marquee is set to take up the entire top floor of the reinvigorated Star's new harbourside entrance. 20,000 square feet of floor space will host a 30-foot projection stage with an LED DJ booth and two dance floors, a "stylish library-style" lounge complete with a working fire place, a seperate DJ area on a patio, a chillout area and a unisex "bathroom lounge," which will surely be the most wholesome spot in the club.

The VIP launch party this weekend will feature will.i.am and Afrojack of The Black Eyed Peas playing to 'celebrities' such as Nick Lachey, Ashlee Simpson and Paris Hilton.

Published on March 29, 2012 by Madeleine Watts
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