Absolution have been running fetish nights in the Milton Keynes area for about a year now - last Friday (the 8th of June) they held their first Masked Ball, at Zak's in Wolverton, and I went along...

The event ran from 8pm to 1am, but I didn't make it down there until around 10pm, by which time the crowd was looking adequate, although the place wasn't especially crowded at any stage of the night. The crowd was about 60:40 male/female, with a high percentage of couples.

My first impression on entering the room was that there were plenty of scantily clad girls in PVC, which is always a welcome sight! The walls were covered in a multitude of fetish-themed banners, some of which unfortunately covered the large wall mirrors around the dancefloor, which could have been a nice feature in their own right.

The music when I arrived was a mix of good goth tunes, with a small amount of people on the dancefloor until something went wrong a few minutes later and the music died completely for about five minutes. When it came back in, it started off with some ancient rock music before heading ecletically through Pink Floyd, YMCA and the Timewarp (well, I enjoyed it, but I may have been in a minority!). At around 10:30pm a new DJ took over the decks, and headed straight into hard house and techno tunes, much to the delight of the crowd that swarmed onto the dancefloor and started jumping up and down enthusiastically to the excellent selection of tunes being played.

Dancefloor crowd happy, I looked around the rest of the venue... There was a 'dungeon' room with a variety of furniture (stocks, whipping posts, etc), and a 'playroom' with a "Players Only" sign on the door and a mattress on the floor, plus the usual cloakroom and toilet facilities...

The dungeon seemed almost unused for the great majority of the night, with only a few people using the stocks for some mild whipping games. Towards the end of the night, the room seemed to be working more as a 'chill-out' room, with people sitting around smoking and chatting in there while one girl was being gently whipped by her boyfriend for almost an hour.

Although I didn't intrude on the playroom through the night, it didn't seem to be busy, with a few people looking in and then moving on, and very few people going in there for any length of time. I saw one threesome come out of there who had been playing in the dancefloor area earlier in the night, and asked them for their opinion of the club from a player's point of view. The guy said "This isn't really a player's club - more fancy dress really, all posing and not much else". He didn't say it like it was a bad thing, just a recognition that different clubs have different places in the scene.

The masked ball theme was a partial success - there was the option to come in unmasked if you paid extra (£7.50 instead of £6.00) and most people had chosen this option, with only 10% to 20% of the attendants being masked. Those who were masked did seem to be enjoying themselves - a guy I haven't seen for a couple of years introduced himself by licking my leather-clad thigh, much to my initial suprise! When he revealed himself, he cheerfully declared "It's great, this mask thing!" before wandering off leaving me vaguely confused (nothing unusual there!). Sadly I have to admit that I was unmasked myself, due to a total lack of preparation rather than any dislike of the idea itself.

Coming back to the dancefloor area for most of the last couple of hours, I found that the music was still excellent, although the mixing was more than a little rough, to my suprise - in the past this club has had excellent DJs and it was unexpected to hear an amateur sounding set with lots of rough edges... this problem wasn't helped by the sound system, which was barely up to the demands being placed on it, with some tracks causing painfully audible cracking and popping of the speakers which marred my appreciation of the music being played - although no-one on the dancefloor seemed to be complaining!

Overall, I would say (and heard others say) that it was a good night, with potential to be better, but it was a bit overpriced for the size of the venue and the quality of the DJs and sound system. Perhaps it wouldn't have seemed so overpriced if I had turned up in a mask, but I seem to recall that previous Absolution events at the same venue have been priced at £5 a ticket and I think this is more realistic for the current standard of the event.

One sentence summary: I had a good time and I'll be going again - I think this event is going to continue improving...