Due to its potentially beneficial properties, there has been an increased interest in recent years on performance of self-compacting concrete (SCC) in structural members. The capability of SCC in flowing through and filling in even the most congested areas makes it ideal for being used in congested reinforced concrete (RC) structural members such as beam-column joints (BCJ). However, members of tall multi-storey structures impose high capacity requirements where implementing normal-strength self-compacting concrete (NSSCC) is not preferable. In the present study seven full scale beam-column joints (BCJ) were designed following the guidelines of the New Zealand concrete standards NZS3101; namely four high-strength self-compacting concrete (HSSCC), one conventionally vibrated high-strength concrete (CVHSC), one conventionally vibrated concrete (CVC), and one CVC with HSSCC in its joint region. Factors such as the concrete type, grade of reinforcement, amount of joint shear stirrups, axial load, and direction of casting were considered variables in designing these specimens. All BCJs were tested under a displacement-controlled quasi-static reversed cyclic regime. As experimental investigations on large scale specimens impose restrictions and difficulties, the effect of every single parameter cannot be thoroughly scrutinized. Therefore, DIANA (a finite element based analysis software) was utilized to further investigate the impact of influential parameters on seismic performance of BCJs. It was found that not only none of the seismically important features were compromised by using HSSCC, but also the quality of material and ease of construction boosted the performance of beam-column subassemblies.