By Denny on Sat 26 Jan 2002 at 21:59
Last night was the second event organised by TnT promotions - a couple who decided to organise a fetish night in Dunstable last year after their favourite local event (Absolution) closed down for lack of a venue. They listened to their customers after the first event and made a lot of improvements, large and small, to the second event, and I had an excellent time!
The biggest improvement, as they posted here recently, was the decision to have DJs for the dancefloor area instead of pre-recorded music. Although the tunes they had last time were good, this was definitely better, with the amount of volume you want on a dancefloor, and that area of the club definitely seemed to see a lot more use this time, with people dancing all through the night.
Of course, the whole venue saw a lot more use this time, as the numbers were seriously up on the last one too. This made for a much better atmosphere, as the venue is quite large and so looks better with a fair crowd wandering around it. The way the place is divided up into many seperate areas makes wandering around quite good fun, as there's lots to see (some areas are specifically designed for seeing what you can see - they're close to the areas designed for people who like to be seen doing what they do!!).
The dungeon area had been moved into its own room, and equipment was supplied by Fettered Pleasures - there were some novel looking items in there, and people seemed to be having fun figuring out things to do with them :)
There was also a couples only room which I don't remember from my last visit, although me and my gf didn't actually get around to wandering in there to see what it was like... next time maybe.
Tony (half of TnT) tells me that with the success of this event, they are now planning to hold an event every three months, which sounds great to me - although it's a long time between events, hopefully that will mean everyone will turn up, as they know how long it will be until the next one comes along!!
The only downside to the evening that I could see was the slightly uneasy interaction between the fetish scene and the swingers scene (the venue is normally a swingers venue, hence the excellent layout and facilities). There was a marked tendency among single males in the club to sit down next to girls and start touching them 'flirtatiously' while they chatted to them. This is extremely unusual to see in a fetish environment and took a couple of people I was with by surprise - especially the one who was on a first fetish night out and we'd spent a long time telling her about how respectful people in the fetish scene are about personal space and consent issues...
At some point during the evening I'm told one guy overstepped the boundaries of decent behaviour. Whatever happened, it was dealt with so well that not only didn't I notice it despite being in that half of the club at the time, but it also didn't seem to put a dent in anyone else's mood - well done to the organisers and/or venue staff for taking care of whatever happened so well.
It's a shame the venue staff don't dress up for the occasion - they seem to have a uniform of black tshirts and black jeans - but they all seemed like nice people, friendly and willing to chat when they weren't too busy. The prices for soft drinks were very reasonable, 50p for a cup of lemonade or coke. The event is bring your own alcohol, with a staffed bar that you can leave the beer behind and the staff will serve it to you... I presume this evades a lot of hassle with licensing laws - it also makes for a much cheaper night out.
All in all, this is an excellent event, and once again I find myself looking forward to the next TnT event already - April seems like a long way away, but I'm sure it'll be well worth the wait!
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