Tale of two cities: quiet in Newcastle, but chaos reigns in the Cross The aftermath of a Kings Cross assault. NEWCASTLE'S night-life gives the impression of young people out having fun, Kings Cross a bloody, boozy mess. The Daily Telegraph visited both in the early hours of the morning on Friday and Saturday and in Sydney's northern neighbour, where 1am lockouts apply, it was possible to have fun free of the heavy drinking and violence blighting Sydney. A man sits before being escorted to Kings Cross police station for further questioning in relation to an assault. Even as 1am rolled around, the city centre stayed relatively calm with one group of guys turned away by a bouncer who politely told them "not tonight" and they obligingly moved on. As one punter said to me of Newcastle, "it's hard to get drunk in this city." A fight broke out outside one pub, but with eight police officers around the corner it was stopped before any punches were thrown. A man argues with police as he is being placed in a police car. Students Bridie Dawson, 18, from Charlestown, Monique Horadam, 18, from Hamilton and Jessie Lancaster, 18, from Eleebana said they all felt safe when out in Newcastle, and attributed some of this to the lockouts, which started in 2008, and ID scanners at venues to weed out troublemakers. "I know a lot of people, the drunker they get, the more violent they become and so if they're just allowed to keep moving on and moving on to each bar and each club, they just get drunker and drunker," said Miss Horadam. Street brawlers in Hunter St, Newcastle which was otherwise a more calm environment compared with the Cross. She added ID scanners were a minor concession for keeping them safe "ID scanners - that's the best think they've done in Newcastle, because it keeps out people who are either too drunk or who have been violent or abusive and you don't want those kinds of people around if you're trying to have fun," she said. At 11pm Saturday, the same time Newcastle's night-life picked up 24 hours earlier, in the Cross, people were already drunk, slurring words and carrying their shoes, with big groups of people on the street between venues. Lauren English, 20, Ben Too, 22, Sarah Blyton, 23, and Katlyn English, 22, line up to have their IDs checked at the King Street Hotel in Newcastle. By 3am a fight broke out, leaving one man with a bloodied nose As one group of girls told us, they'd just 'pre-loaded' with half a bottle of tequila between them on the train in As midnight hit, the cross started to get rowdy and by 1am the kebab shops were filling up with drunks, including one guy who vomited outside a shop at the feet of a passer by, cheered on loudly by his friends. While one group of friends out for a hens night told me they usually avoided the cross because they felt unsafe, another group said their friends had stopped coming out. Lauren has her ID scanned before entering the hotel. A group from Sydney's south, Nic Welsh, 19 and Michael McFarlane, 19, both from Engadine and Ben Cowa, 18, from Woronora Heights said it was usually the "juice heads" on a cocktail of steroids and drinking who caused the most trouble. It can be a bit sketchy, people just walking around and you can tell they're all cracked up and you just don't know what they're going to do next. They're unpredictable and kind of walk around very aggressively," Mr McFarlane said, "I feel like I have to put my head down around people who walk around really aggressively." The group had been sitting near a sign put up in memoriam of king-hit victim Daniel Christie, near where he had been hit, but in a sign indicative of the lack of respect within the cross, a bouquet of flowers which had been lain beneath it had been stolen earlier in the night.