I went to the Torture Garden Rubber Ball Special this Saturday (23rd September), and I had an excellent time.
Tickets for the event were £15 a head, and I was glad I got mine in advance, because when we turned up before the doors opened, there was already a "Sold Out" sign above the door. Booking the tickets was easy, I phoned the Skin Two bookings number on the Friday morning, credit card in hand, and our tickets were waiting for us on the door.
The event was supposed to be from 10pm to 6am. We didn't get let in until about 10:30, but I didn't notice anyone being hurried out when we left at exactly 6am. In fact, we hung around in the 'peace park' just outside the venue waiting for the tube station to open (7am on Sundays apparently) and there was a nice, mellow attitude amongst the crowd of people doing the same.
The venue (Mass) is a converted church (St. Matthews), which isn't actually as spectacular as it sounds, as the building is still covered in scaffolding and tarpaulins, but the stained glass window behind the DJ's booth was a classy touch, and I imagine the promise of the venue will become more apparent as the building work continues.
The church is located in Brixton (south London) which didn't seem like a very nice place to walk through, in 'interesting' clothes, at night. Arriving in at least small groups would probably feel more comfortable. Once you've reached Brixton tube station, finding the venue was pretty easy with the directions I got from someone on the Internet (#SubmissionUK on irc.dal.net): "Turn left out of the station, and head up the hill until you reach a big 'Y' junction, look for the building with lots of scaffolding and tarpaulins all over it". As I mention above, the building has a small park in front of it, which is a reasonably nice place to sit and wait for the doors to open.
When we got in, we went up and up and up the stairs to find the cloakrooms, which were on the top (fourth) floor. Although the flyers boast of the four floor venue, the top floor is only the cloakrooms, and the third is only the toilets. The ground floor is the entrance, and possibly the dungeon - the dungeon was accessed from the dance room on the second floor, and I'm not sure whether it is an unconnected bit of the ground floor or a basement. There were also some 'intimacy' rooms on the second floor. All in all, it only really felt like a two floor venue, although with more than two things going on... the venue was divided into several main areas plus some odds and ends:
(1) The dance room. This had a dancefloor (duh), a large balcony area (which also saw a lot of use as a dancefloor by the middle of the night), two small bars (one in each corner), and the stairs down to the dungeon. The music in here was hard house and that kind of thing all night, well picked and well played, on an excellent sound system.
(2) The lounge. This had more comfortable seating than the dance area, with a stage for the acts (all of which I missed - if anyone saw any of them, please give your impressions in a comment!), and again two bars. The music in here could best be described as eclectic, with Motorhead, Adam & the Ants, and various other classic tunes getting a turn on the sound system, which was the equal of the one in the dance area for quality and volume.
(3) The dungeon. This was downstairs, and (from the point of view of someone who doesn't play in the BDSM area) seemed well equipped and well laid out. I saw signs saying that the dungeon was being supervised by SM Pride, which I presume means that everyone could have a good and safe time.
(4) The 'sex' area. This was a curtained off area to one side of the dungeon room which was very dark and full of people having sex all night. Particularly rampant in here were the gay/bi male contingent, with couples a rarer occurence (although there were a few, reviewer included!). At one stage there was a veritable gang-bang with a (consenting and actively participating) TV at its centre, which must have had at least 20 guys in it at one point or another (side-issue: there seemed to be a lack of condoms being used in that particular orgy - which seemed a little scary to me, in this day and age?).
(5) The 'intimacy' rooms. These were dark rooms with well padded bench seats located near the dance and lounge rooms. They seemed to have an equal amount of use by people smoking and chatting, and people getting intimate.
On the flyers for this and other TG events, it clearly proclaims that there is a 'chill-out' area. There wasn't. Perhaps what I've labelled 'intimacy' rooms were intended to fill the purpose, but they were clearly too dark, and not being watched by a member of staff (oh, and there was no water available for people who might have been dehydrating for one reason or another). This seemed to be the most serious lack of the night to me, and could have been dangerous.
Speaking of water, drinks were expensive, but not outrageous for an all-night club in London. Example prices: Budweiser £3 a bottle, Bacardi Breezer £3.50 a bottle, half-pint of lemonade £1.50.
The event was seriously well-run, as one would expect from such a well known promoter. The floors were kept clean and clear of glass (no small feat given the amount of bottles I heard hitting the floor at one time and another), and the toilets kept working all night, with no massive queues for the ladies (that I noticed anyway). The gents even had a guy giving out hand lotion, breath fresheners and lollipops before midnight and after 4am.
Why not between midnight and 4am? I'm guessing it was because of the huge amount of people who turned up for that period of time. The club was feeling pretty crowded between these hours, with no room to dance in the dance room (packed shoulder to shoulder does not leave room to dance in my opinion), and not much more room anywhere else. The air in the main rooms, particularly the dungeon area, was so warm, humid, and stale, that a lot of people were sitting on the stairs trying to catch their breath. This was the time when a chill-out room would have made a lot of people's nights a lot more pleasant, as some of the people on the stairs seemed to be feeling quite claustrophobic in the over-crowded venue. The security were doing their best, letting a few people out of fire exits to get some air, but this was a limited and probably unofficial solution to a fairly big problem. The venue is definitely poorly ventilated, and is possibly letting too many people in for the size of the venue and the nature of the event.
During this crowded period, the venue came to feel more like a dance club or rave than a fetish night, but once the crowds started heading off between 3 and 4am, things seemed to return to the more intimate and friendly nature of a fetish club (which makes me think maybe the people who arrived at midnight were the same people who left again at 4am?).
Before I went to this event, everyone I spoke to online told me that I wouldn't enjoy it. They were obviously wrong, and I think I know why - the chat channels I was in are oriented towards the BDSM side of the scene, the sort of people served by websites like Informed Consent. These people aren't looking for quite the same things in a fetish night as I am, which is basically a sexy night out, with lots of hot outfits, and maybe somewhere slightly secluded to get intimate with my girlfriend (perhaps with a small audience who are well-mannered enough not to touch without an invite), and some really good dance music to get energetic too once I've conceded that I can't keep my girlfriend busy all night!
This Torture Garden event supplied all those things, and did it well, and I had a brilliant time. I did speak to some people later on in the night who weren't so impressed - they were uniformly people who were annoyed that they hadn't been able to get a good scene going in the dungeon. Most of them said the main problem had been the crowds that gathered whenever they started to play, which I didn't understand - a crowd gathered when I was busy with my girlfriend too, but as long as they didn't get in the way, that was fine by me - what do you expect when you do something that interesting in public? I watched a couple of the BDSM scenes out of mild curiosity, and that stuff doesn't even really do anything for me - most of the people watching were probably people who are really interested in doing that stuff themselves, maybe people trying to figure out what it's like before they dive in... surely you can't begrudge them a position as spectators?
Anyway, anyone who has any other perspectives on the night, please post them as comments below - remember, you can add comments to any of the content on this website, and the more comments people add, the more useful the site gets for the people who read it!
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