On Friday I went to the opening night of Psychomania, a new event being promoted by the well-known combination of Roissy Workshops and Ceasars. This is the first event they've put on aimed squarely at the fetish/dance scene rather than the BDSM scene, so they were taking a chance and I felt they deserved my support! (especially as the venue is less than an hour drive from my place!!)

It seems not very many people felt the same - as there were only around two dozen people there - so the atmosphere was, well, it wasn't really. The people who were there didn't really chat outside of their little groups, and I'm as guilty as anyone of that - although I did get a chance to speak with Master Laurence, who runs/is Roissy Workshops, which was nice because we've only chatted online in the past...

The problem of not too many people is easily fixed - as long as more people turn up to the next one! However, there was an even bigger problem with the night... on the plus side, it's even more easily fixed... TURN UP THE BLOODY VOLUME!!!

I'm guessing this is a side-effect of the fact that they've never done a dancefloor-oriented event before, but when we turned up I distinctly got the impression that the music was crap - then I stopped and listened and realised it was actually REALLY good dance music, but it was way too quiet - and that kills dance music totally.

The venue seemed quite isolated, although my girlfriend said one of the DJs told her they do have fairly close neighbours on one side, so perhaps that was part of the problem - but I play my stereo louder than that without my neighbours complaining, and I live in a semi-detached house! I'm not kidding, even after we asked them to turn it up repeatedly and they did a little bit each time, at its loudest you barely had to raise your voice to talk over it. I'm sure background music is exactly what's wanted at events that concentrate on BDSM play, but it's not what's wanted at a fetish/dance event... I did speak to a few people there, and they all said it would be nice if the music was louder.

Gripes over, there was nothing else wrong with the place - the venue has two dancefloors, one big one small, with loads of lights (could have done with turning some of them off maybe, the ambient light level seemed a bit high to me - side effect of usually putting on play events again maybe?). There are a few secluded nooks and crannies to get as rude as you like in. The toilets are fairly nice (although the ladies is a lot nicer than the gents :) ). The venue management will basically allow you to do anything you want, except take drugs or start a fight!

The management are also very approachable - as I said, I spent a lot of time talking to Laurence from Roissy, and we also chatted with John, the owner of Ceasars, who spent all of the night wandering around the club, chatting to people and collecting glasses.

John got a less than enthralled write-up from someone else who reviewed an event held at this venue, but my girlfriend seemed to like him just fine, so I don't think he can be that offensive. He did ask her if she liked older men, suggestive wink and all, but she just grinned back and him, pointed me out and said "What do you think?" (I'm a bit baby-faced ). My girlfriend's guess is that people have taken his jokes a bit seriously, as they are delivered deadpan - but that's the kind of humour she appreciates and she thought he was "a really funny guy"...

He certainly seemed willing to listen to feedback from his customers, and so I'm guessing that if a few more people turned up and pointed out that the music needed to be louder, it would get louder pretty quick. If that happened, well, I think you'd have a pretty good fetish/dance event in the centre of the UK, and it's about time we had one of those!

See you at the next one?