Sangat Pedas

Club Stadium - Jakarta Nightlife Review

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Stadium is a phenomenon in Jakarta, a huge place with 4 floors and a capacity of 5.000 people. So this was my second and probably my last stop of the evening. I have been in Stadium not so long ago but was at that time pretty drunk and stayed for maybe half an hour so I was curious to check the place out with a pretty clear head. Located in a small alley in a pretty shabby part of town you will find “Discotek Stadium”, probably the most (in)famous club in Jakarta and by many men considered to be paradise. Since Stadium is open from thursday till sunday 24-hours a day (!!) many stories circle about men staying in the Stadium for 3-4 days.

Let me quickly guide you through te 4 (actually 6) floors of the stadium.

1st floor:
cafetaria & restaurant, well, let’s keep it with a cafetaria.

2nd floor:
Small disco and numerous karaoke rooms, and we all know what karaoke means in the Jakarta night life so straight to the next floor.

3rd floor:
Pub and live music, well that’s what the official website says. What I saw was a bar lighted by some black light and small lights you see in x-mas trees. A really dark place which was completely empty.

4th floor:
Club XXL, which is where the party is.

Club XXL in Stadium Jakarta
club xxl

5th floor: Balcony floor where you look down on the dance floor;

So I decided to stay on the 4th floor for a while and to break with the guys I met because they were clearly out for something I wasn’t. The nice thing about this floor is that it’s always crowded and the music is pretty great, pumpin house beats. Anyway, I walked in, sat down at the bar and the first thing that happens is that a woman in her fifties grabs a girl and pushes her to me followed by an introduction. In case you didn’t know Stadium is the biggest brothel in town, it’s a whorehouse. It’s ladies in the late forties pushing girls, who are often questionably young, to have sex with the customers. The girls look pretty (though hard to judge in the dark) but also numbed by drugs. Girls in their early 20′s being prostitute numbed on E and no more perspective for the future. There’s actually a price list in the building, 1 hour Rp. 300.000 (around $35) so since the club acts as their pimp the girls probably get a fraction of that. People know I like to party and I like it a little dirty and naughty but this for me is sickening and sad.

Anyway, I walk away looking for a quiet place away from the madams and their girls. Again I sit down at the bar and order some aqua. Looking around me I see some more working girls and a group of what it seems not working girls and clearly everybody is high on something. After 5 minutes some vague Russian guy that I saw in the front sat down next to me (why is he following me?) but no conversation started. Instead of that he suddenly pulls out a small glass tube containing some kind of fluid and assumes I want to try it, what the hell, talking about pushing drugs.

Basically the place is packed with organized crime, hookers, drugs dealers combined with party people wanting to party high on drugs. Everybody knows that but apparently when you pay the right people the officials will leave you alone and give you a timely heads up when to expect a razia. So great place if you want to get high on probably bad quality drugs, lose your phone and/or wallet to pickpockets and risk huge sentences when getting caught with drugs or even having used drugs (from time to time the police enforces urine tests). Slight detail, the place only had 1 emergency exit so one can only hope and pray there will never be a fire or any other incident that causes the crowd to panic.

Some might say Stadium is paradise, I surely hope paradise is nothing like Stadium….

But…. The sound system is probably the best in Jakarta and the DJ’s rock and for clubbers that’s what counts.