Nightlife in Dubai gets you all tapping and jiving in the discs and nightclubs that far exceed the expectations of the travelers. The excellent nightlife scene has the choicest concoction of bars and restaurants for you to delight in.
Whenever you visit the city, you are arrayed by the numbers of international visitors who throng the destination from different parts of the world. The metropolis is thronged by hundreds of business visitors jiving to the beats on the floor. However, you must note that all bars and restaurants do not serve alcohol. It is served only in the bars that are located in hotels, although there are a couple of exceptions.
On most of the nights, the clubs and bars offer alcohol, with the crowd being lean on Mondays. Tuesday is usually observed as the “Ladies Night” where women can get free drinks while Thursday is club night with jam-packed bars. Then there are the DJ bigwigs who are attracted to this happening metropolis that comes all alive in the wee hours as the mercury scales. The clubbing picture in Dubai is very cosmopolitan, thanks to the open market policies that has roped in successful gigs like the MTV Mash.
The in house music Dubai is where culture attains its peak with the growing influx of the tourist populations. In fact, it can be said that the clubbing scenario of the city is on the upswing that can only get classier and sassier with time.
Dance the night away with the very best of funk beats, happy house, and R&B, the Arabic belly dancing caches, hard metal or just the regular rhythmical numbers. In fact, expect all that you can of a typical night out and Dubai won’t disappoint. Be in your best look as there will be not a moment when you can stay quiet without responding to the beats. In case you are accompanied with friends, turn up early on or visit the venue as a mixed group. The entrance costs may be anything from a free entry to about 50 Dhs.
Dubai’s nightlife scene has come along in leaps and bounds since the mid 90s. Although Dubai is not quite Ibiza, Berlin, New York, etc, it certainly has enough noise and laser beams in the various watering holes to keep most boys and girls looking for a party satisfied now.
Most, if not all, of the clubs listed are open until 3 am. At which point the music stops and the lights come on. Abruptly. There are apparently large fines levied on the establishment if music continues even seconds after the gong. During Ramadan check to see if they are open. Many will be closed, and the ones that are open will be very subdued – no live music or dancing is allowed then.
The rest of the year, many Dubai nightclubs have a lively atmosphere with some world class DJs appearing on a regular basis in recent years. For example Hed Kandi and Groove Armada (at Trilogy), Paul van Dyke, DJ Tiesto (at Madinat Arena – not a nightclub), DJ Krafty Kuts (at IBO), Eric Morillo (at Trilogy), Ferry Corsten and Schiller at Peppermint Club, and more.
From December 2007 to February 2008, outdoor venues were ordered by the DTCM (Dubai Department of Tourism, Commerce, Marketing) to turn the music down, to a level where you’d look like a bit of a muppet if you were dancing. Which seemed to confirm the rumour that the DTCM is not actually an organization that wants to promote tourism in Dubai. Nevertheless, as of mid-February 2008 this restriction seemed to have been lifted – check with club first. The fish in the vicinity of 360 will just have to stop their whining and go and sleep somewhere else.
Cover Charges to enter nightclubs in Dubai
Until the early 2000s, it was rare to have to pay a cover charge for a bar or nightclub in Dubai. But with more people, more sophisticated clubs and more well-known DJs playing more regularly, the number of places trying to squeeze a few extra dirhams out of the punters is on the rise. Expect to pay 50-100 dhs for normal entry which sometimes includes a drink or two. And 100-200 dhs for top DJs. It’s not all bad though, many places still have free entry, especially on weeknights. Sometimes women will get in free and men have to pay. Market forces overrule equality of the sexes …
Thursday is the biggest night with Fridays not far behind. Friday nights may become more popular since the Dubai weekend changed from Thu/Fri to Fri/Sat in September 2006, but there are still large numbers of people who work on Saturdays so Thursday night is expected to remain popular.
Door Policies at Dubai nightclubs
Like most countries, women and couples will have an easier time getting in to a night club in Dubai than men (solo or in groups). If you’re a bloke or a couple of blokes on your own, you may be able to persuade some friendly females in the nightclub queue that you head in together as “couples”.
A few clubs in Dubai will have big angry looking chaps looking important with wires in their ears and clipboards to which they’ll refer and then say you’re not on the list if you don’t look right. There may well genuinely be a list – you could always try booking ahead and getting your name on it. In some of the swankier Dubai night clubs you may have to book a table and a bottle (allow a few hundred dirhams for the bottle).
Some clubs in Dubai don’t bother with the clipboard and just permit or deny entry in accordance with random, erm, house rules. Officially, there’s no racism and several press articles have investigated accusations of racist door policies at Dubai nightclubs. Reports of different entry fees for different nationalities are of course denied. Unofficially? Um, no comment.
Men wearing local dress (dishdashas, kandooras) will usually be denied entry. Not because of nationality but because it is apparently against the law to wear local dress in bars and nightclubs in Dubai. Presumably the same applies to women in abayas.
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