Absolution (Friday 26th January)Review: Event

Friday was the latest event put on by the Milton Keynes based Absolution team, the second event they have put on at a new venue, the Pink Punter. Sadly, although the event staff made loads of improvements to the evening based on customer feedback from their previous events, their efforts were almost totally overshadowed by an influx of lager-louts in jeans and t-shirts who were apparently "friends of the manager's son".

The event was £5 to members or £7 to non-members, a reasonable price for the quality of the sound system, DJs, dungeon and play areas. Bar prices are a little high, but the venue layout is nice, with a main dancefloor and a raised stage area for the show-offs! The event is held in a basement level, which always lends a nice ambience to fetish events in my opinion. The music policy is mainly trance and hard house, played loud enough that you can only just talk over it in the vicinity of the dancefloor. The dungeon and play areas are slightly quieter, as they are behind a good thick wall.

The previous review of Absolution at this venue give more detail on the place itself, so I'll just get to the differences between that one and this...

The promoters had been asked for more range in music (including in the comments to the last review here, which the promoters read and replied to), and while they felt that not many of their customers would be interested in the rock/alternative set that a few people requested, they did get enough requests for trance music for them to give this a go - and it seemed to go down well. I found the music more enjoyable this time although I couldn't actually tell you what the difference is between hard trance and hard house. Some of the sound system didn't seem to be hooked up, so the volume wasn't quite as impressive as last time, but still adequate to please those on a dance mission.

In response to feedback from customers, the dungeon and play areas had been shifted round, and this did seem to be working much better than the way they were laid out before - in my last review I noted that these areas didn't seem to have seen much use by the time I left at around 1am - this was also the case on Friday, with almost no-one using the play room until past midnight, and it didn't really get going in there until gone 1am. The dungeon started earlier this time, with keen early-arrivals already busy in there when I arrived at around 10:30pm. These areas would probably have been even better used had it not been for the afore mentioned jeans and t-shirts crowd, who were crowding people in scenes, leering at any scantily clad females, and occasionally grabbing flesh when they thought they wouldn't get caught at it...

The venue is running a normal members night upstairs, and these are the people who are sneaking in without dress code compliance or any hint of an idea of how to behave. At one point I mentioned the problem to the promoter, who immediately had the three worst culprits thrown out by venue security staff as they refused point-blank to comply with the minimum effort dress code of 'at least take off your t-shirts guys'. About ten minutes later they were back, with big smirks - it turns out they were friends of the manager's son and the promoter had basically been instructed to let them come in without any dress code enforcement...

You can draw your own conclusions from this sad little tale, but when I told my girlfriend about it, she immediately said "Well I'm not going as long as it is at that venue then", and after some thought, I think I'm of the same mind - it will be a shame to miss my local event, especially as the promoters are trying so hard to make it a real success, but they need a different venue if this one will not allow them to put on a proper fetish event - I've stated in other reviews on this site my opinion that almost nothing will kill a fetish event quicker than a poorly-enforced dress code. I wonder how many other people witnessed Friday's idiot invasion and will now be waiting for Absolution to appear somewhere else?

So, one sentence summary? An event with loads of promise, and promoters working really hard to make it better and better, let down by an inconsiderate venue owner. Tragic.

 
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absolution#1

Hi there! I want to give in my opinion about Absolution at the Pink Pounder.
My partner and I where amongst the keen early arrivers and where seriously
surprised about the very inviting invironment and the good sound.
We had some real good fun and where enjoying ourselves very much.
You are right about the young beer-monsters in there, who where standing
next to me and cheering with glazed eyes when I whipped my partner which would
not have made me feel uncomfortable because in commercial clubs that's mostly
the case, but I also thought that at fetish events there wasn't a risk of feeling abused by non-lovers.
Just the weekend before whe went to the Torture Garden event at the Mass which
was very interesting and educating but the good atmospere was certainly lacking,
and whe didn't see many real happy and confident people.
In comparison to T.G.we where able to let ourselves go and feel at home and if a clubnight is capable of offering such comfort then the mamagement must
have been doing something right, but let's hope next time that there will be
no exlusions made on the dress code...
Thanks to everyone and a big compliment to the DJ's whose sound made us jump!!!
By the way we are also into making sounds with our modules and always up for
exchange.
So see you all again...
our fetish friends.... Red & Ade

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(Absolution) Me and My friend Aid#2

My name is Dean, i was down at the absolution night with my friend aid, and we are the two that were asked to leave by the promoters for not dressing in the appropriate way for the fetish night. I was invited down by the management and did not know what clothing to wear, i put on some unusual trousers and a tight top cause i thought i might fit in. I didn't!
but still, i would like to say sorry to the promoters and to my good friend mike who invited me down, but i know everyone that was down on the friday night of absolution and didn't think i would affend anyone cause they all know of me and aidrian.
I don't believe this silly little incedent will affect the night in any way in the future due to the fact i won't be there unless i'm in fetish wear and have the promoters approval.

Saying the clubs owner is inconsiderate, is just well out of order and should not be talked about till u know the facts about what went on!!
Ask yourself, if u invite a friend to one of your promotions, and for a reason that seems just to be a little miss judge of character, that friend gets removed from the club. you would find the person that was responsable for putting him out, and discuss the matter (like we did, with tony), then you would find the best way to prevent sending your guest home from the night you specially invited him to.
Tony said to mike and I, that me and aidrian could come back in to the Cellar Bar as long as we behave and if there is one more complaint, we would be out for good. if Tony said we were not allowd back in, then Mike would have took us home and left it like that. Tony made the desision to let us back in. If there was a problem with that it is nothing to to with the ownership of the club, or how it is run. As a metter of a fact, Frank (The Owner) had no idea what so ever that any of this was happening cause it was delt within minutes of it happening, and Tony finished the incedent in the way that seemed best at the time!

post a comment if u have any remarks to my comment!!

see ya

dean g

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Unexpected feedback!#3

I didn't expect to see the people who spoiled the event (from my point of view) commenting here - It's nice to see you give your reasons for what happened on Friday...

> i put on some unusual trousers

If you were wearing 'unusual' trousers, then you can't be the guys I was talking about, they were all wearing jeans as far as I could tell. I imagine that more than one group of people were asked to leave the downstairs part of the venue that evening as there were at least two dozen people in serious violation of the dress code, mostly in the vicinity of the bar.

On the other hand, maybe my eyesight is going, or your definition of unusual isn't quite the same as mine (possible, I do go to a lot of fetish clubs after all, unusual take some doing at some of them!). If you are the guys I mention in the review, then here are some thoughts for you...

If you were invited down by the management and not informed of the dress code for the event, then the management were lax in the way they dealt with the event - the dress code is a very important part of a fetish event, practically definitive, so not telling you that it was a strict dress code was very short sighted on their part and not particularly friendly behaviour to either the promoter or you and your friend (given that your lack of proper clothing made you immediately stand out in a bad way). I would say that is inconsiderate on their part.

> i know everyone that was down on the friday night of absolution

You obviously didn't know "everyone" that was at the event, as I don't know you, nor did any of the people there who I knew and spoke to about you (which includes most if not all of the event staff, and about a dozen of the customers). You may well know all of the venue staff, but that's not quite "everyone" at the event. Anyway, it doesn't matter who you know, you will still make a lot of people attending a fetish event uncomfortable if you turn up in street-clothes - they are there to experiment with alternative clothing and behaviour, and your presence as a 'normally' dressed observer tends to make people feel like circus acts which will restrict their enjoyment of their experimentation, if not putting them off totally.

> I don't believe this silly little incedent will affect the night in any way in the future

If you don't think your attendance and behaviour will have affected the next event, then re-read the second from last paragraph of the review - my girlfriend won't go to an event at a venue that doesn't enforce the dress code. I doubt that I will either. That's two regular customers lost already. As I said in my review, it would be interesting to know how many more are going to either stay clear, or put this venue 'on probation' in future. It's nice that you won't attend in street-clothes again, but to a large extent the damage is already done.

> if u invite a friend to one of your promotions [ ... ]

If I invited someone to a party and they got thrown out, I would be embarassed and leave with them, not try to get them let back in to cause more trouble. As I don't have any special influence in any of the venues I visit, I doubt I would be able to get someone let back in after they had been asked to leave anyway.

> a reason that seems just to be a little miss judge of character

The guys I saw get thrown out had to be escorted out by security because they were telling the event promoter to his face that they refused to comply with the dress code. That's more than slightly unreasonable behaviour in any venue I would of thought.

Later on, after being let back in, they were groping women that they didn't know (as they walked past and she was hugging her partner, she thought it was her partner grabbing her arse, not a stranger), they were drunkenly fighting over who should get the best view of the play area to the point where they tore the curtain down, and they were ridiculing the people in the play area to the point where eventually everyone left it and found other places to play.

If there were no more complaints, then I would imagine it was because everyone had given up, not because no-one minded their behaviour.

> Frank (The Owner) had no idea what so ever that any of this was happening

I had heard that the 'request' to let dress-code violators back in came directly from him. If that's not true, then I apologise to him.

Thanks again for your comments. If you are the people I mentioned in the review, then I'd recommend you drink less and think more at the next fetish event you attend... otherwise, I can only hope I'm not there.

Regards,
Denny

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Re: (Absolution) Me and My friend Aid#5

Reasonable enough


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