The organisers of Flash, a weekly gay dance party at Darlinghurst’s Two 3 One, have responded to a late-night City of Sydney inspection that halted entry to the event due to capacity and safety concerns, issuing a public statement outlining what went wrong and how they’re planning to fix it.
“Saturday night we were on the receiving end of a visit from Sydney City Council in regard to a capacity complaint,” organisers Joel Siviour, Rojdar Zengin and Ryan Marshall said in a statement posted to Instagram on Tuesday night.
“Sure, it felt a bit targeted, but we’re not here to discuss the politics of Sydney & the struggling Sydney gay nightlife.”
As a result of the inspection, they said they were making changes “to make sure we can’t be targeted or the victim of a ‘random search’ again”.
As previously reported by Gay Sydney News, inspectors from the City of Sydney arrived overnight Saturday following a complaint, and the venue stopped admitting new patrons after council’s intervention.
A source familiar with the complaint said it was made to council before the recent Saturday night event and not on the night of the inspection.
Responding publicly for the first time since the inspection, the organisers say they were found to be 27 people over capacity on the upper floor during a council headcount – something they said they hadn’t seen conducted “in 12 years of working in nightlife”.
“A combination of these things led to us receiving a 24-hour entry ban on the venue,” they said.
The organisers described the enforcement as “harsh, but sure something we can fix and learn from”, and said that a number of operational changes had now been introduced as a result.
Patrons will now enter via where the street-level cloakroom used to be on the ground floor and exit via the previous entry stairs, they said. Meanwhile, the cloak area will now be moved to the back of the ground floor and the space will be opened up to patrons as a chill-out area with couches and additional toilets.
Additionally, fewer online tickets will be sold and organisers plan to “eventually” move to a first-in, best-dressed model of entry.
As previously reported by Gay Sydney News, council documents show the upper level of Two 3 One is licensed for just 72 people, while the level below is capped at 120.
This means the venue, in its Saturday night configuration and in previous weeks, was only legally permitted to host 192 people – including staff, patrons and performers.
Now that Flash will be opening the ground level, an additional 120 people could potentially be able to fit inside the venue, although it’s unclear whether the scaled-back cloakroom set-up reduces this capacity.
Flash’s Tuesday night statement also took aim at “local ‘news’ social media accounts”, a likely reference to Gay Sydney News, which was the only publication to report on the incident.
“We are not intimidated by heavy handed council discipline, nor are we going to entertain local ‘news’ social media accounts who try tear down anyone having a go for clicks instead of empowering the gays and building the community,” the organisers wrote.
“Use your platforms to empower and lift the gays, the scene needs it, the community needs it.”
Gay Sydney News recently gave Flash a largely positive review, describing it as “dark, sweaty, intimate“, with the only criticism being a bottleneck at the upstairs toilet and bar that created an unpleasant scent — though it didn’t dampen the vibe of the dancefloor.
Despite the setback with council, the team behind Flash say their mission remains the same: creating a space that they’d want to go to with their friends.
“We’re tired of toxic parties and spaces you leave feeling empty,” they said, without referencing specific parties.
But they warned that Flash would lose access to Two 3 One if patrons didn’t move around the space going forward, admitting that “it’s quite tough to manage the [crowd] flow of the venue”.
“If everyone comes and just hangs upstairs, we will face more issues from the council and unfortunately lose our space. We ask everyone to move around the venue and not just stay on the top floor.”
An industry source who has worked with venues that have different floors previously told Gay Sydney News that managing capacity between levels was something a nightclub like Two 3 One would always struggle with.
Flash has not responded to a Gay Sydney News request for comment about Saturday night’s incident but vowed to return this Saturday for its eleventh week since launching.
“Thanks for sticking by us, we love you. See you again this Saturday,” the organisers said on Instagram.
Gay Sydney News editor