Gladstone Paint and Sip Recap at The Queens Hotel: Santorini Doors and a Surprise Duet

Gladstone, you turned it on. The Queens Hotel filled up for a paint and sip night that did exactly what a good 80s and 90s singalong is supposed to do, running the room from the first nervous brushstroke on a Santorini Door all the way to the last belted chorus on the dance floor. We took the private function area and the deck. You brought the lungs. Lotti Rem pulled up with a mic and a setlist that knew exactly what a full Central Queensland room wanted to hear. The bar was pumping, the meals coming out of the kitchen were the kind that made people order an extra one for the table, and the heaters held a line against the cool evening just enough to keep the deck doors open. Somewhere in the middle of all that, a guest stepped up to the mic for an unannounced duet that brought the whole place to a standstill. Stick around. We got most of it on camera.

The Queens Hotel set the stage right

The Queens Hotel sits right in the heart of Gladstone, and it has the kind of layout that paint and sip in Gladstone loves. A private function area for the easels and a deck out the back for breaths of evening air between songs. Both got used. Plenty. Our team rolled in early, set up the easels, palettes and a Santorini Door reference on every spot, and by the time the first guests walked in the room was ready for action.

There is something about a full house that lifts a paint and sip night before the first stroke even lands. You can feel the room settle into the chairs, lean over to introduce themselves to whoever they sat next to, and clock the easels with the kind of eyebrow raise that says oh god, can I actually do this. The answer is always yes. That is the bit beginners need to hear before they pick up a brush, and our host on the night made sure every guest got the memo before the music kicked in. There are no mistakes at a Paint Juicy night. Only happy little detours, the occasional accidental masterpiece, and a heap of laughs along the way.

The bar ticked over from the first round. The kitchen sent out plates that had people across the room asking for the menu. The heaters did exactly what heaters should do, holding the warmth in without making anyone sweat into their cream paint, and the evening cool out on the deck was the kind of perfect Central Queensland night that puts you in the mood to throw paint at a canvas and sing along with someone else's nostalgia.

The Santorini Door, brought home one canvas at a time

The painting on the easel for the night was the Santorini Door, and if you have ever scrolled a travel feed and stopped on a photo of a blue door framed by pink bougainvillea, you already know the brief. A weathered blue door set into a sun-warmed yellow wall. A pair of sandstone steps leading up to it. A bougainvillea vine clambering over the top of the arch with petals dropping onto the threshold. A small painted vase on the step. The Mediterranean Sea winking on the horizon. Sounds simple. Then you sit down with a blank canvas and four colours on a palette and realise the bougainvillea is the bit that makes or breaks it.

We have run this painting in plenty of rooms, and every single time the variation in finished canvases is what makes it. Look around the Queens Hotel at the end of the night and you would see the same Santorini Door rendered fifty different ways. Some painters pulled the door into a navy so deep it sat almost black against the yellow. Others went lighter, into a sky blue, and ended up with something closer to a Greek island holiday brochure than a pub function room. The vase moved from cobalt to coral to clay depending on the painter's mood. The sky shifted from afternoon to dusk depending on who was holding the brush. One guest signed off with a tiny red mouse in the bottom corner of their canvas, no explanation given. We do not know who they are. We love them for it.

This is the part beginners do not believe until they have done it themselves. The room had every level in it, from never-picked-up-a-brush right through to art-teacher-in-a-past-life, and not a single canvas walked out looking like it had no business hanging above a kettle. Gladstone, your old high school art teachers would be proud, and a little bit surprised.

When Lotti Rem hit the mic

Here is the truth about 80s and 90s singalong nights. You think you have forgotten the words. You have not. Lotti Rem hit the first track and the entire Queens Hotel proved it inside thirty seconds. Loudly. And mostly in tune. Brushes kept moving. Glasses kept getting topped up. Every chorus came back around like an old friend who never left, and the bougainvillea on the canvases got a little more textured every time the room hit a high note.

Lotti has been our headliner on enough Paint Juicy nights to know exactly where the energy needs to land at every point in the evening. She runs the room the way a good DJ runs a wedding. Reads the easels. Watches the bar. Sees who is laughing and who is concentrating. Picks the next song to swing the room whichever way it needs to go. The 80s and 90s setlist on the night did exactly that. Whitney for the warm-up. Bonnie Tyler when the brushes needed steadying. A song or two that turned into a group anthem inside the first eight bars, and a few that nobody saw coming. We will not name every track that made the cut. Some things are sacred. But you can guess.

Then came the moment nobody saw coming. One of the guests stepped up to the second mic. She happens to be a professional singer in her own right, which we only found out the moment her first note left the speakers. She looked at Lotti, looked at the room, and the two of them launched into a duet that brought the whole night to a standstill. Brushes went down. Phones came up. Every single person in the Queens Hotel knew they had stumbled into a once-off. The dance floor formed without anyone needing to suggest it.

This is the part our guests bring up again and again, long after the paint has dried. The canvas is the souvenir you take home. The singalong is the bit you actually came for, even if you did not know it yet.

Brushes down, dancing up

By the back half of the night, the easels had well and truly done their job. The Santorini Doors were dry. The blue aprons came off. The Queens Hotel function room turned itself into a dance floor without anyone needing to call it. That is the bit that always tells you a paint and sip has actually landed. No one needs to be talked into the dancing. The painting carries the first half. The music carries the second.

The crowd in the room was every Paint Juicy demographic dropped in one place. A teenage daughter painting alongside her mum. A couple of partners who got dragged along and quietly loved it. A bloke in a Gladstone Golf Club polo who turned out to be one of the best sports in the room. Friends who had not seen each other in months. Friends who saw each other every week and still booked a paint and sip together. A handful of guests in full 80s shellsuit kit. Gladstone, you delivered on the dress code in a way that other towns should take notes on.

Have a look for yourself.

Massive thanks to everyone who came along, and to The Queens Hotel for having us. Gladstone sits right in the middle of a Central Queensland coastline we hit on rotation, which means there is almost always another Paint Juicy night warming up close by. We run paint and sip across Queensland, with regulars in Rockhampton paint and sip to the north and Bundaberg paint and sip to the south, and a packed event calendar through the Gladstone region year-round. If you would rather have the whole night to yourselves, a private paint and sip session sorts a hens do, a milestone birthday or a work night out without the stress of herding everyone into a public booking.

See you at the next one. Trent & James.