November 11 1995

A night of high expectations began at midnight, and by 1 am The Falcon Discotheque in the Royal Garden Hotel Hong Kong was packed to bursting point.

Hong Kong had been all-a-buzz with talk of The Ministry of Sound Team of C.J. MacKintosh Pete Heller & Samantha Scott. To our great dismay Samantha was a No-Show due to airline ticketing problems. Tickets were HK$220 in advance and HK$300 at the door (US$1.00=HK$7.7), advance tickets were sold out and just about as rare as Netscape shares on issue day !

Sponsorship for the gig came from Channel V and STAR TV who were out in force with the charming Sophiya feeding live to the Asian Satellite network.

Local Hong Kong "celeb-DJ's" Lee Burridge and Joel Lai span for the first few hours and whipped the crowd into an absolute frenzy. By 3 am when Pete Heller Hit The Tables even the walls were sweating! The party was transported as the atmosphere turned electric. C.J. MacKintosh followed on the amazing Mr Heller's heels and provided members of the Hong Kong Dance Culture with some truely rare grooves.

As a former Club and Radio DJ during the eighties, I must say the Ministry of Sound team were right on the mark. The mixing was spot on (of course!) and the crowd was read exceptionally well enabling the Jocks to provide just the right balance of Lyrics/Instrumentals.

The "I'm the bees-knees" attitude that is prevelant in so many of todays DJ's was noticably abscent and the true "Art of Clubbing" was clearly put on show for all to enjoy.

Having sung the praises of the Ministry Team, let's get on the organisation side.

Frankly speaking the venue, whilst it's a nice, plush club was not large enough for the crowd the Gig attracted.Tickets were over-sold and the venue could not handle the turn out. The sound and light systems were tuned to perfection by Parksy & Andrew and really did justice to the entertaiment offered.

Unfortunately, there was a strict no re-admission policy and no chill-out room provided. At varying times during the evening you could see lost souls wandering about looking for a quite corner with air-conditioning!

I was fortunate enough to have advance tickets but I have heard reports from friends who were not so lucky about two queues formed outside the club at about 2-3 am. One line for those with tickets and one line for those without. Apparantly the way the system worked was as punters were let in from the queue with tickets the person at the front of the no-tickets queue could the purchase a ticket and join the ticket holders queue to get in! That must have been so frustrating.

The bar had sold out of water by 2 am leaving many party-goers rushing to the lavatory for refreshment, poor bar organisation resulted in a lot of lost income, especially since water was HK$50 per 500ml bottle! It makes me wonder if perhaps the price could have been a little more reasonable and the supply of the water increased.

By the time the event finished at 8am in excess of 1,200 revellers had passed through the main doors and realised the Ministry of Sound experience!

Now as the dust settles and the sweat dries Hong Kong is left wondering when the next Mega-Event is due and left looking for a little more direction in regular quality clubbing than The Big Apple !

As The Ministry of Sound Asian tour, which has been to Bangkok and now Hong Kong, takes to the skies and wing their way to Tokyo the lyrics of one of tracks played that night comes to mind,