We were in one of those moods the night we went to Red: “Let’s go somewhere completely different that we know nothing about”. We knew there were some places to visit in Mornington, but knew little about them, so we headed that way. We arrived there to find Millennium (ex Cruze Club) and Red. I knew nothing about Red, so chose to visit there.
Red is upstairs in the Bay Hotel, half way up main street, and has been open about a year according to the door man, although I did not notice it when I was in Mornington a few times last summer. Because of its location, the majority of the crowd comes from areas like Mornington, Mount Martha, and Mount Eliza, and there is a spread of ages from 19-25. As a result, the crowd is reasonably classy, without being the sort of place you would wear slacks and silk shirts. The crowd dress well without going overboard, and are reasonably friendly, without any threat of trouble.
In many ways, it was actually reminiscent of Redhead. A similar type of crowd, without the techno heads, and a similar looking venue, without being nearly as big.
It is essentially a one room venue, although The Walrus now feature downstairs. You head up the stairs to the room. Moving clockwise, there is an accessible DJ booth, a small dancefloor with stage and podiums, and a bar with TV sets above so you can watch the footy from the dancefloor. Next to the bar is an alcove, almost like a second room, but I have no idea what was out there, because the lure of the dancefloor meant I did not get that far. There did not seem to be much seating in the place, and the bars were busy.
The DJ played a very popular mix from a couple classics (Walk this way), into current top forty (That don’t impress me much). He played a lot of dance classics from the nineties, but played the most commercial of house tracks too (Amok, Vengabus). The lighting was pretty good for a smaller venue. The only problem was that the dancefloor was so packed.
We got in there about 10.30 by which time the venue was packed (I hate queues). When we left about two, it was still packed. Even during the weekly round of the bachelor of the peninsula competition, it was packed.
I was “sober boy”, as normal, but none of my crew complained about the drink prices, so they must have been okay. Entry is $6, or $3 with a pass, which represents reasonable value.
I really enjoyed the night at Red, mainly because it was different. A good type of crowd, a good mix of music, a dancefloor, and good friends. We had fun, and locals could not go wrong.
