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A surprisingly international DJ roster, as well as local favorites, caters to the young, die-hard partiers that pack Bonbon most nights of the week seeking out their every night all-you-can-drink deal. Showing some wear over the years, Bonbon is still a no-brainer for a hedonistic, action-packed, booze-fueled weekend.
Bonbon should be closed down as they allow 14 year old kids to enter. 14 is not legal at all. i am not sure if china or bonbon have any rules and regulations about this matter but they definitely should not let minors in! many older men try to hit on these young girls not knowing their age etc. i know that the parents of these kids should be responsible for them as well but then sometimes these kids don't tell the truth as to where they are going. the club i believe should take responsibility and not allow minors in and drink till they drop. this club is endangering the lives of these kids who don't know better. Young teenagers get drunk, end up having sex for lack of better judgement. The authorities should take action against this club who permit this.
Hey...Bon Bon ...I love u more than the gals there...haha...
Shit...I forgot your name...Elaina ??
Not really ...I miss you all ,Estela , Hiroki, Mark...Nico...who else ?
I'll be come...Bon Bon...
yo ya'll we went to bon bon last weekend and found it craaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzyy lol!!:) like the the stage was totally packed and pumping wit people dropping it hard, there were tons of hotties in dere, we slapped some behind, had a few laughs-bit too steamy in dere for us!!night ended up on a bit of a blowout-i totally broke my gucci heel and got slapped on my pretty face one too many times-so my pal slapped dem back and the whole club got in a massivo fight....overall dudes there was a top atmoshphere-totally recommended!!!! ; ) $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ free drinks babes top notch!!!funsy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
worst place i have ever been!
this place cheat customers by saying that they are open bar, incluing calsberg and sol beer.
however, they have only illegaly made beer named "skol".
i pretty much love bonbon. have had some of the most awesome nights there in shanghai. but just like any other places it has its ups and downs. sometimes it's wayy too crowded, and the dance floor is packed like a can of sardines. you don't even have to move you just stand there and the crowd moves you. and it really hurts when someone steps on your toes... especially with their pointy high heels. i've had a number of feet injuries from there haha. the bartenders are nice most of the time. but i hate when they're out of glasses so you can only get beer. the vip rooms are pretty cool but the couches fall apart hahaha. and you can always see couples getting it on on couches and sometimes it's just wayy too out there. but most of the time i'm too drunk to care. the backroom is pretty cool, when the main room is too crowded we usually go there. it plays different music too so it's good when you get sick of the main room. oh yeah and that issue on expensive non-alcoholic drinks... when i first went there i was damn thirsty after a while and was shocked that we had to pay for water. but there is a lawson's a block down the street, and usually people chill there or outside on the steps to get some air. oh yeah and bonbon has good dj's and an amazing sound system. my ears never hurt from bonbon and yet it's loud enough. i love dancing on the speakers or the stage because the dancefloor is pretty much always too crowded. but now a lot of people go up on stage too so sometimes the stage is just as packed as the dance floor. i miss when me and my friends are the only ones up there. the mc's and dj's are really friendly and cool too. anyway, if you wanna know what clubbing is like (at least for the younger crowd) in shanghai, go check out bonbon, but let me warn ya it WILL get old.
Well I have been there once and my mobile was stolen immediately.
A friend of mine has been there twice and both tmes his mobile was stolen too. So better watch out.
I paid attention to my mobile ut inthe crowd a theft can happen so fast. U better go there without your phone !!
Besides that...the personal is not very nice.
But the music was great that day !!
Had a wicked time @ the Goldie DnB party.. thx to Jane and Phreaktion for keeping the SH DNB goin.. wrd.
check the video of the party!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UsJihHcU9Bw
BonBon is the WORST club I have ever been to. Here is why.
1. There is ZERO room to dance.
2. The sound equipt is not great, as other reviews mention.
3. The alcohol is VERY LOW QUALITY. If I wanted rubbing alcohol in my Vodka Tonic, I would ask for it.
4. It is is filled with 90 percent MEN. Some of which look like old taxi drivers. There is no dress code enforced and they let anyone in with the 100 rmb or whatever it cost. Gross, slimy, testosterone filled rooms with about five women all huddled together to not get groped by the slimeballs.
5. Did I mention that it is impossible to dance when you have three people standing on your feet and at best can just bounce up and down on your tip toes a little bit?
6. It smells bad. The rooms have zero ventillation and it smells like the gym...worse than the gym.
7. There were about ten expats there, all past their prime, and there was one knobby kneed white chick..that is about it.
8. Our chinese friend said "the men here are very very low quality". She was right. Disgusting.
So, after gagging down the poor quality drinks, we decided to leave, only then did we find something exciting.
Two men were covered in blood from head to toe after apparently stabbing each other with glass. They looked like they got out of the prom scene from the movie "Carrie" by Steven King. It was awesome...if you like blood and gore. Seriously, it is depressing when seeing two bloody men is the highlight of the night. We were hugely disappointed after wasting our night finding the club, waiting to get in, and experiencing such a sub par scene. Horrible. Absolutely horrible experience.
Avoid it at all costs.
-Durka
This club is just so so.
Its too crowded to dance, too crowded to piss and even too crowded to just stand there enjoying your drink (gets spilled all the time because of some pushing-around retard f*cks).
The black tunes on Saturdays are okay, but they NEVER play the songs to their respective ends. Come on DJ, stop your hyperactive mixing and let the bouncing crowd enjoy a song to the fullest instead of playing it for some 20 seconds and then doing a x-over for the next. I call BS on this one.
The best thing is, that some Chinese guests start to puke all over this place after their second drink. Watch out not to get puked at!
Small note to all foreigners visiting this joint: Watch your attitudes, you are definately NOT the shit, so don't behave like it.
Yours truly,
Tek
The price is way too high considering that you can get drinks at an open bar somewhere else a lot better. the drinks are nasty, not very creative (Rum and coke, vodka and sprite, tequila orange...). It was also impossible for the bartenders to just give me coke, no soft drinks! huh? ya well i ended up paying 80kuai entrance and couldnt drink anything. I also wouldnt tell girls to go there on a model contest night or whatever. its pretty boring, it takes ages until somebody wins some shit and during that time no music, just booooring.
a pity i went there again. this saturday several foreigners were badly punched by bonbon guards, cauz a bitch was complaining about waiguoren in general and finally asked the guards to kick them...
BE CAREFUL!!!
Agree with Memphis about the cloakroom issues here. How a supposed top club can so badly balls up something as simple as a cloakroom is flabbergasting. Regardless of whether there are 2 people in the queue or 10, the wait is much much much too long.
Sort it out, Bonbon!!
Ok very quick, cause Iam tired and want to sleep.
I have seen nearly every club here in Shanghai, and I can tell you without any esitation, that the BonBon was the worse of all !
On the flyer is written 'Open Bar'for 120 Y ! - inside you have to pay for your softdrinks. You try to give off your clothing to the cloakroom staff, but you have to wait 25 minutes because (only three other people waiting with you)the staff was overtaxed by the amount of jackets and bags ( four in sum ).You try to climb the podestal, the security guys pull you down - on the other side three guys give their best on the platform. The music was ( this time ) boring. You leave the club on the right side (everybody sees you) to get some fresh air and try to return on the right side... no way... you have to take the left side...
so this was my first and my last time in the bonbon. the next time I don't know where to go, the O2,Attica or the G Spot will be taken into further consideration.
gn8
mps
BonBon story: Last night I went to BonBon's Giglive Event which requires an 88rmb cover charge to get in. The 88rmb gets you "all-you-can-drink", but that only applies to alchoholic drinks. So if you happen to not be a drinker and you go in (the ads in the lobby don't say it only applies to alcohol), you get shafted because they make you pay 40rmb a drink for anything non-alcoholic. A frickin' water for 40rmb! This happened to my friend last night and when she tried to leave and get her money back, the management acted shockingly rude. They wouldn't give out any way file a complaint with the manager (who they said wasn't there), and just told us "tough luck, you should've known better." In the end, my friend called the police, and low and behold, the manager stepped up and paid her back. I don't know if it's like this at their other "all-you-can-drink" events, but heads up. I, for one, am not going back again.
I wrote up about club bonbon in the past, and am mostly a fan, so I decided to see what their Addicted Tuesday is all about. It's the second time I've been to Addicted night at bonbon in 2 weeks and I have drawn a simple conclusion:
Tuesday is a good night to go out.
There is something about partying on Tuesdays that just doesn't register with the average, corporate day job, nine-to-fivers, and that is perhaps a very good thing. You see Tuesday (in Corporate America at least) represents the single day of the work-week where employees are not pre-occupied with thoughts about the upcoming weekend, or recovering from the past weekend. Regular people are actually working.
So when it comes to partying out on a Tuesday night, it takes a certain kind of dementia for a person who knowingly has to deal with work the next bright and early morning to get done up and head out to inflict some serious bar and dancefloor damage -- Normal, nine-to-five, day-job people just don't do it.
In any other urban metropolis around the world this might spell disaster for a club: no customers. But here in Shanghai, where we're stuffed like dumplings in a steamer, we could actually use a filter of sorts from time-to-time to keep the crowds down. And what better filter is there than a looming Wednesday morning conference call or executive meeting -- Responsible people stay home.
And what does that leave us with?
Well, not everybody that goes out on Tuesday night has nothing to do on Wednesday morning, but those who do have some kind of work comitment or whatever, who still decide to go out and party down on Tuesday are *truly twisted*, they are the bold risk-takers that throw logic out the window...
They are some serious party people!
Great, so now you've got a totally up-for-it crowd, then you pour on the sauce by way of an all-you-can-drink booze buffet... Gulp!
Add Dj Trix n friends Djs Gas, Jerry, Martin... Fly in Godskitchen international Dj headliners... Then turn up the bass on the Funktion 1...
It's like Club bonbon is transformed into a giant microwave oven that is packed full of (crazy) eggs, then turn the power way on HIGH and watch happens. The place just explodes into a great big scrambled mess!!! Hellz yeaaaaaahhhhh!!!! Don't worry, the Ayi's gonna clean it all up
Tips for the uninitiated:
1. Carry ID, with your address in Chinese, cuz u never know.
2. Pace yourself with the drinks. Please try to make it through the night.
3. Know that people are generally helpful -- Even if you are utterly wasted.
If all goes well, you'll wake up the next morning with a mild headache, where you wake up is another story... Now clean yourself up and get to the office, cuz you're a bit late.
Pics from last week's Addicted night: http://forum.smartchina.com/thread/10261/page=1
This week's Addicted listing:
http://forum.smartchina.com/thread/10256/page=1
To the guy that wrote the review saying that music is everything. Not so. Slammin dance music is not everything. How about room to dance? This place sucks for that and you should know that. Sure, it's good for those that like to bop up and down, but your review comes across as if you are into dancing. You need space to dance. Especially if you like serious breaks. I think tables are boring, but if that's your thing, this club has the worst layout in any club I have seen on the planet. Most all of the tables are tucked away in the back of the club, completely away from the action. I can't imagine who it was that designed this place, much less who approved it. This designer obviously has no interest in clubbing or dancing. What's more mind-boggling is that God's Kitchen approved the layout. Totally whacked.
There is mainly only one important point when it comes to rating clubs, and that\'s the music. Bon Bon is probably the best in Shanghai on a Friday night for laying down fat deep base, house and trance music and great sound system - as good as DKD but with more mature crowd - music is very good if you\'ve dropped or smoked. Surprising word hasn\'t gotten out yet, or is Shanghai just not quite the edgey party town it likes to paint itself to be. It could use another hundred crowd - needs more sadist, hardcore dance freaks.
It is a pretty nice Club but the management is very poor! How can you have a club in Shanghai and turn of the aircon at 2:00 am??? Just by sitting in that place the heat is killing you!!
It's been the same the last 2 times we went there.
And if you ask a manger about it, they'll just tell you on chinese to "fuck off", since they thought we don't understand them.
It is worth seeing the place, but definitly not worth staying there!!!
This place won't see me anymore ;-)
Tiefschwarz and The Drunklism Effect, BonBon, Friday June 16, 2006.
I'd been looking forward to the Tiefschwarz night for a number of reasons, but mostly because I was still on that blippy, funky-worm acid tip that King Unique put on the earlier this month. I was also stoked because I'd heard that BonBon's thumpin' Funktion 1 sound system would have some over-the-edge speaker tweakage applied for the evening. Groundshaking bass: It's my porn.
It has it's critics, but I think Bonbon's a great room. It's got a smart layout that helps keep people and drinks flowing while effectively separating the tables/vip rooms from the dancefloor -- it cuts dancefloor traversal down to a minimum. The main room has a large bar along the back wall, opposite the dj booth and speaker columns. Cutout windows overlook the entire dancefloor from the mezzanine level and really add to the party atmosphere when there are people dancing up there. There's a side area with another bar, and the "Ice Dome" back room area with another bar, large TV screen and sound system. The passageway to the Ice Dome has a small mirrored room that's actually a bathroom of sorts. The door slides shut for privacy, but I'm not telling how...
The Drunklism effect: One harrowing episode!
One of the best things about bouncing around in the Land of the Lost is the truly unforgettable cast of characters that you are going to meet along the way.
Through a succession of PM's, games, wagers and bets, Seachick had become the wealthy benefactor of 10 whole beers (shark), and I received an unsuspecting "I'm here and I'm thirsty" txt msg around midnight just as I was rolling into BonBon. Take a deep breath cuz here we go...
She's there by the speakers, standing alone in the black tights and heels(!), slender(!!), long dark hair pinned up(!!!). I quickly buy 2 beers then go start the payback. It's loud by the bassbins and I can't hear her so I have to lean into her a bit, woohooo she smells great (!!!!). And what does she say? "Hi! what took ya? I've already had 5 drinks". What a machine! I buy 2 more: Ok that's 8 left... She comes back with "You owe me 10 beers..." Umm ok. Buy 2 more, and then I try to get her to explain just how she won the games and bets and everything, but the fact is that there is only 1 real rule when betting girls for drinks: Let the girls win. I buy 2 more and tell her that's 6 left. She blathers back to me "You owe me 10 beers, hahahaha!" Oh lord, what have I got myself into?
I've had 5 beers and she's had 10! I'm already doing the wobbly dance, trying to find the sweet spot on the dancefloor. It's crowded, seachick's groovin down by the dj booth, her hair's come completely undone and I'm goin off half-assed lost somewhere in the middle of the dancefloor. Then it hits mE: Tiefschwarz guys dropped some kind of blippy acid and I just can't contain myself. They played some great tracks, and built up some energy, but were mostly trading off tracks which left a few lulls here and there. No big deal though as I'd still take the overall quality of the tracks over anything else. Besides that I'm getting afu! Dance a bit more, drink a few more, lather, rinse, repeat. That's the drunklism laying in.
Loud acidy tracks are like a mild form of electroshock, and that'd be altogether fine except for the beer tally that's just gone off the registers. Whoa, it's the drunklism effect. Me and Seachick are bouncing between rooms and the Ice Dome's got worldcup footy on the big screen and an uncrowded bar so we can drink even more. Oh joy! The match ends and on comes the ghetto bumpin' trax and there's some baaaaaaadddd skeezah dance nastiness goin on back in the Ice Dome . This must be the spin cycle. We stumble back to mainroom through those plastic flippy things that always seem to smack you in the face when walking by.
Tiefschwarz are wrapping up and we're heading out, but Felix is coming on and we end up drancing a bit at the top of the stairs. Seachick's put the drunk in drunklism and we run into Trix as we're leaving... She's rubbing his shaved head, smiling like the Chesire cat! I think he's enjoying it too! Hahahahaa, excellent!
Meanwhile, I'm struggling just trying to formulate complete sentences: Hey man what's up... I think we're going to somewhere? Huh? Everything's kinda sideways and in slow motion now. Trix gave us kindergarten-style directions to Tanghui (across the street) which is good, because I think we would have hopped into a cab otherwise. We stumble over, and even with the kindergarten-style directions it's a blind-leading-the-blind kind of exercise. Woooohooohooo, what started innocently enough has unravled into a great great big furball mess!
Looking forward to doing it allover again, just lemme check my medical insurance first and maybe buy a crash helmet. Apparently I'm still on the hook for 10 beers.
very nice club
went there on the 20th and it was great
its true the dancefloor is small but i havnt seen any other club yet that has bigger one and plays good hip hop music
Bonbon club is poorly designed as another reviewer pointed out and the best feature of this club are the toilets even though if you are drunk you might end up pissing against the wall!
Eklektik, Bonbon's backroom, Friday June 2, 2006.
I'm generally a fan of siderooms/backrooms/chill rooms/etc, as they provide an alternative to the main room hijinx which, depending on the club and the night could be a mishmash of 暴发户 (bao fa hu), *.trash, mini-emperor laobans, security nazis, cheap slutty smack-my-bitch-up ho's, and other riffraff that generally gets in the way of having a worthwhile clubbing experience. Well, actually the ho's can be kind of fun, but that's a different story...
Anyways, I met Siesta a week earlier at Hospitals night and had a chance to talk with her about bringing foreign acts over, playing different styles, and generally breaking new ground. And that is pretty much what Eklektik is, a night of diverse styles without any of the heady main room pressure.
I got there after 1am and bumped into quite a few familiar faces, which also makes for a great time. The back room has decent sound, though there were some monitor problems in the booth. The space also has its own bar and plenty of seating to kickback and relax, etc.
Slackerton started after 1am and dropped the kind of bassy house tracks that just hit in all the right places. There's a sound that you get from producers/remixers who know how to get maximum levels across the entire spectrum when recording, their tracks just sound great. The bass sounds really tight, I call it Rubberband Bass. Imagine one of those hillbilly washtub basses. Yeah, well now imagine the broomstick is like 20 feet long and the rubber band is like 8 inches thick... When you pluck it, it snaps back and goes whhhhmmmmmmmmppfff... Yeah, that's the shit, you'll know it when you hear it, it's very powerful and just hits you. Slackerton plays tracks with that sound, I've heard him a few times now and he definitely knows his music ie. what to play and when to play it.
Siesta followed jumping headfirst into the drum n bass and rocked it, moved the crowd. Everybody was dancing when I left. Looks like a good healthy d'n'b core has formed, and Siesta's done a great job opening up new options here. Excellent.
The people that designed this club are idiots. What's with the small dance floor? You can't dance. All you can do is the rave club bounce. Not much fun. It's too bad that such a large club, that would otherwise be spot on, has such a small dance floor. And the people running the coat check need an education in customer service. One of the worst I have ever seen.
On a rainy Thursday night the Bon Bon club didn't seem to be happening. I should qualify this review by saying that I went with free tickets (thank you) and left at about 10:30pm after an hour of standing around.
While I waited in the foyer for my friend, I watched three different groups of people arrive, argue about the 80rmb cover charge and leave. The staff remained friendly and polite at all times.
When we entered the club, there were only about 50 patrons so there were numerous empty tables and seats. My friend and I were informed that we would have to stand at the bar unless we paid 1000rmb minimum for a table. This would be fine if we were in a group but we weren't so these two girls had to prop up the bar whilst admiring the postmodern decor and very comfy-looking stools.
So many clubs in Shanghai are tacked together on a budget so it is a pity to see such an attractive club with so few patrons, even early in the night. No one was dancing, quite a few were leaving, I saw DJ Norman Jay yawn at one point.
The toilets are definitely a talking point but there is always an issue of form and function. If I need someone to instruct me how to enter the toilets and how to use the taps then some aspect of function is lost.
I really hope that masses of people appeared from the rain-soaked depths of Huaihai Zhong Lu at midnight and danced up a sweat. At least earlier in the night, it seemed to me that the cover charge and table minimum could have been waived in favour of getting more customers. A club this big needs lots of people or it just looks like a big, beautiful, empty space. Shanghai has plenty of cavernous, empty bars. It doesn't need another.
Funny thing about the bathrooms is I couldn't figure out exactly where they were. I almost pissed on a wall decoration thinking it was some kind of urinal.
