When faced with the plethora of parties Sydney has to offer come Mardi Gras season, for this reviewer there’s generally no contest: I make my way to Mad Racket, ticket in hand with a smile as wide as the Harbour Bridge is long. And so for years, what’s touted as weekend’s main event, the Mardi Gras Party, had eluded me.

Let’s face it though, unless you’re gay or lesbian, or have a real thing for Kylie, there’s not much point going. Sure they’re still good fun, but they’re not the licentious, racy dens of iniquity they used to be. I heard on more than one occasion that going to the Party now would be “10 years too late”, that it had been tamed considerably and all the real partyheads had long retired their dancing shoes.

Nonetheless, this year was going to be different and so it was with a tinge of regret for missing Claude Von Stroke, and a lot of excitement for the chance to see something new, that we turned up outside Fox Studios with the hope of seeing what all the fuss was about without any delay.

Sadly, delay was exactly what we encountered, as hundreds of punters got trapped at the door in a queue that swung halfway to South Dowling Street across the oval from the Royal Hall of Industries. It was very, very slow going, made so by the elaborate security check on entry. Given the threats of a police raid earlier in the week, and the sad fate of Azure at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair the Sunday before, the melee was like nothing I’d ever seen before at any major festival, even though they had several entry points working at once. I popped my head by later to find it had only cleared by close to 2am.

Skipping forward two hours though, on entry we were met by a sea of humanity, all stilettos, leather straps and tight t-shirts chatting amicably under the floodlights between the RHI and Hordern Pavilion. Dubbed the Gaydar.com.au Forecourt, at its head was the giant glow-green castle float which ran at the head of the earlier Mardi Gras parade, only now with a DJ on its back. It was still pretty sedate so, grabbing a drink and fold-up fan, we went in to the RHI to find our friends. One had just made his debut marching in the parade, and so wasn’t hard to find wrapped in a skimpy towel and blue glowsticks, dancing away to Jake Kilby and Greg Boladian, who were first on in that cavernous space playing trance. Not the sort of way I really like to start a night, but definitely an eye opener!

Decked out to resemble a sort of white, blue and silver Uluru, a massive lighting rig and although equally massive, a totally underdone sound system surrounded the main wooden floor, which had been laid to save our ankles. They’d spent a bit of money to trick the space up but, as with any large, aircraft-hanger type room it all seemed a little impersonal at times, a little dark and a little empty. Battling waves of reverb we decided to make our way to Hordern.

By now the forecourt was busy, and as the natural focal point for the whole party we kept bumping into people we hadn’t seen in ages. For a Mardi Gras Party virgin as yours truly, I could see that the chance to meet people you only see once a year – here – was as valuable as the chance to dance the night away together, one diverse, enormous 17,000-strong Party community.

Snaking our way through the crowd we dove into the Hordern in time to catch Boy George step up to the decks. A true gay icon, he was resplendent in red velvet fedora, black dress shirt and a cheeky grin which you could see even from the back. We slowly inched forward as he dropped a divafied version of You Spin Me Right Round and the room erupted in a wave of hands and lasers. This blended into the Eurythmics’ classic Sweet Dreams, and while he wasn’t mixing all that technically, he knew how to pick a song right for that time and place. Playing mostly house with an obvious retro soft spot, the joy here was infectious as George admiringly surveyed the dancefloor, puffed on his cigarette and danced between tracks.

In all our excitement we forgot to go and check out the Dome, which was banging with the sound of The Presets. Covered in silver foil and painted to symbolise sensation, the space was minimally lit with an array trained on the plaster relief inside. But the ventilation was set to minimum, making the place feel like a gay sauna. It was a great setting for Stereogamous – the duo of Seymour Butz (of Klub Kooky fame) and Paul Mac – but less so for the Bang Gang DJs, who were spinning one of the slowest and sleaziest sets I’ve ever heard from them. This was a shame really – on the flyer we received on entry I had this space pinned as where I’d spend most of the evening, but each time I snuck away to check it out the tempo never really rose above semi-comatose. We ventured out the side for a moment, into a chillout space dubbed the White Room, then headed outside, this time to the New Mardi Gras Member’s Bar and Forum cabaret space.

So far we’d seen everything from trance to house, and classics to, hmm, atmospheric, so the biggest shock came here. Like Stonewall on a Friday night, this was diva central and handbags at 20 paces – and it was slammed to the rafters with a queue 10 metres long outside. Under bright lycra bunting, drag queen Vanessa Wagner was belting One Night Only, made popular again on the Dreamgirls soundtrack, while several hundred punters on the dancefloor sang along. I ducked upstairs, to see the much-hyped lovesacs (very comfortable oversized beanbags), grab a drink from the no-queue bar and watch the chaos below from above. It’s Raining Men blared out and below, I could see everyone was having a damn good time. In some ways, I wished this space could have been a little more disco, a little more Paradise Garage say, than old bar campout, and with the divas starting to strain again I high-tailed it out of there to Fuse, the lesbian space next door.

An old reviewer I once knew used to say to me, “you know you’re at a good party when the lesbians have their tits out,” and if that rings true then here was one helluva knees-up. Sadly, the door was about as far as we could get with Fuse – but from the outside it had the appearance of say, Taylor Square’s Deckbar on a packed Sunday afternoon. The music here was probably my favourite on the night – upbeat, catchy, cheeky and without anything resembling a handbag, but as it was a women’s-only space there was buckley’s chance of us ever getting in. I’ve always held that within the gay and lesbian scene, only lesbians know good music when they hear it – and I’m sticking to that.

Which really was just as well, since by now the sun was starting to creep over the floodlights of Fox Studios and the crowd had noticeably thinned. We picked up our bags from the cloakroom, popped by the Dome in for a quick boogie to Mark Murphy, and grabbed a cab to a warm cup of tea and a hot shower. This Party virgin had well and truly popped his cherry; and the surprising thing really was the range of sounds we’d heard all night. Sure, there’s always going to be a certain amount of handbag in the mix, but for a night that ties up what Mardi Gras is all about and really showcases the diversity of Sydney’s gay and lesbian scene, the Party stands in a league of its own.

I don’t know why I let it elude me for so long!