john eden
male pale and stale
well, the chill-out room is a very specific thing really and was pretty much like that at most techno/hardcore things for a good while.
it only really changed with jungle.
the idea of room 2, however, is much more interesting than the chill-out room.
after all, everyone knows that the second rooms at jungle clubs used to play US garage and thus begat 2step etc...
I think both the 2nd room and the chill out room can act as areas of experimentation and development - it's almost as if they arean afterthought which people with a bit of nouse can take over easily... similar to how it was possible to be a bit experimental on b-sides of records in some instances.
Even with trance, there was a period where chill out rooms were playing dub, which then heralded a sort of psy-trance dub genre. Admittedly it wasn't very good, but it was an interesting direction to go in.