There are differences between busy clubs, and busy clubs to be seen at. What do I mean? Well, you can have a club with 50 to 70 people in it, but you won’t “be seen”. You can have a club with 20 to 40 people in it, yes, a smaller number, but you’ll “be seen”.

The number of people in the club is just a tally of how many avatars are there. Club 511 (before they went group access only) had 80+ people in there, guaranteed, every single day. Over 3/4ths of those people never moved, never talked, they just stood there like zombies. A busy club also needs the one thing that makes it a club to “be seen” at. Atmosphere.

Not just the general decor, I’m talking about good DJs, good hosts, and more importantly, people chatting in local chat.

When all of the above is in place, then several things happen. First of all the club retains a regular crowd. Secondly, the club attracts DJs and hosts of a similar caliber, and thirdly, bloggers and clothing designers start to show up and hang out in the background chatting and dancing away. It’s that last part that I’m talking about, the “be seen” part.

Clothing designers and bloggers generally tend to chill out where there is some sort of a decent ambient backdrop to the club, and most importantly for the bloggers and clothing designers because that club has a regular crowd plus new folks coming in due to the reputation of the place the “be seen” part starts to come into effect. Bloggers and shoppers will cam around, and spot new clothing or clothing makers they haven’t seen before (that’s what we do). Clothing designers may enter a club with a new outfit they are in the process of making or even profile browse and have a look at blog or Flickr links in profiles.

This is part 1 of what will probably be a three parter covering a lot of clubs the three of us regularly go to. When it comes to the clubs being listed, they are in no particular order of preference, they are simply clubs all three of us have been at where we have spotted bloggers and clothing designers in decent numbers, and, more importantly, places we have seen the effect of “being seen” at, in other words, spikes on the flickr post link hits and blog hits.

Each of the clubs listed has a different style of clientele and clothing styles that predominate in the club. EDM clubs will generally have more “contemporary” and “modern” clothing styles than a country western club, that kinda thing…

Peak Lounge – EDM Genre

Peak Lounge is one of the standard bearers of the EDM (Electronic Dance Music) genre of clubs having been around since 2014 it has gained a reputation of having some of the best Australian and Euro/UK Beats style live mixers on the grid with a lot of them even living streaming their mixes through Twitch or YouTube live.

The music is all of the EDM category, which means the clothing styles you will see range from 1970’s retro (think reimagining of Disco) all the way through to the current contemporary clothing styles. We have seen numerous bloggers, clothing designers, magazine writers and more just hanging out in the background.

Recently Peak Lounge underwent a massive rebuild of the main club, the old Industrial Modern club is now gone, replaced with a more neovictorian warehouse style build and decor.

As for traffic, it gets busy, REALLY busy. If folks are dancing in some of the special event areas, and even at peak times in the main club, expect to be packed inside like sardines in a can…

Peak Lounge – Click To TP

Warehouse 21 – EDM/Mixed Genre

Warehouse 21 strictly speaking isn’t in any one single genre. It’s labeled as an “Underground” music vendue but over half of the DJ’s do play some form of “fringe” style EDM. Due to the wide variety of music styles played, from general underground, to fringe EDM, to lesser-known pop and rock hits, the clientele is very mixed.

W21 also isn’t a full 24/7 coverage club, although they are getting close to it. For folks in the UK/EU, it starts picking up around 6pm GMT and carries on for a good 12 to 14 hours before theres a break in the DJ lineup.

As for who we have seen, magazine writers (Focus etc) seem to spend a lot of time there. We have noticed a number of bloggers of the more “long form” (in other words, nonfashion) variety. Clothing designers we have spotted at the place is a wide mix, just like the music genre’s that get played which is also mirrored by the styles of clothing you will see being worn at W21.

Clothing styles from country, rock, contemporary, heck we’ve even seen modern spins on 1920’s Jazz outfits being worn here. Most fo the clothing styles (and designers we have seen) are from the more eclectic edge of fashion in SL.

Warehouse 21 – Click to TP

Totally 80’s – 1980’s Pop Contemporary

I bet this past place of Part 1 of this series is going to be a surprise for some. Totally 80s isn’t the busiest of the 80’s based rock and pop clubs, it’s also not the most well-known of the pop and rock clubs. It doesn’t have 24/7 coverage like a lot of the others either. However, due to the decent DJ’s they have in the place, and the welcoming atmosphere of the folks dancing (and the hosts obviously) it’s started getting somewhat of a “cult” following in the 80’s pop music fan groups.

At the beginning of this blog I mentioned clubs that have a smaller crowd have a better “be seen” factor than other clubs that have double the traffic, this is the case with Totally 80’s. The predominant fashion in the club is, you guessed it, mostly based around that 80’s and 90’s style of look with some modern contemporary thrown in, and because of the “locked in” decade the club caters for, it meant that a lot of clothing designers who concentrate on that 80’s and 90’s look have been seen dancing away at Totally 80’s during the busier peaks hours of the club.

Along with the 80’s designers, the bloggers that we have seen were a couple of the well-known flickr photosnappers along with a decent sprinkling of bloggers who cover the older “Retro” styles of fashion.

Totally 80’s – Click to TP

…and that about wraps it up for the first part of this blog series! There will be about another 2 blogs coming over the next month that will be covering the “be seen” topic, so keep an eye out!

Written by Liandra Aries
Edited by Liza Blackwood