What Makes A Great Dance Club? Visuals? Ect.?

[vjdude]

What makes a great dance club? visuals, drink specials, the name of the club, music? The lighting? The crowd?

[disassembler]

Experienced people who know what they're doing running the show. Lots of $$$$$.
:nod:

[LEVLHED]

copious amounts of BASS

[karmavideo]

live & or quality viduals
good music
nice lighting
drinks (hopefully reasonably priced)
SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

[LEVLHED]

oh, I should also add:

NO lights, just projections and lazers (maybe I'm biased though)

[Lara]

I like small clubs best, weird venues with character, but then they are the worst for ease of setup. For me its not a proper club experience when you don't have to bring your own bog roll ;)

*but* then halfway through the night when the condensation is running down the screen of my laptop and I have to pay ?3.50 for a warm can of red stripe (because the bar has no more gin and tonic) then I start to wish I was a classy lady who played in all the uptown joints :rolleyes: :D :cool:

[oxygen]

the music....
hate to do gigs with boring dj's..

[unjulation]

me on a bottle of wiskey, well not neseserily, but it will cirtainly maske for some interesting, if not embaraseing tales the morning after
:biggrin: :roll: :biggrin:

[holly]

Different rooms with different energy levels. High ceilings. A balcony. Photobooths. :eek: At the Tunnel in NYC the women's bathroom was like another club unto itself. So crowded they put another bar in it!

There was an old club in Times Square called "Club USA" made from an old Broadway theater. They had great furniture by Phillip Starke, and a big curving slide that went from the balcony to the main dance floor. There were so many nooks and crannies and secret stairwells we took to calling it "Shoots and Ladders". The thrill was to get all your friends and go to a new room every 15 minutes or so. Like club-hopping without the cabs. It was plowed under for the new Times Square.
:sad:

[ristuuk]

Hey holly,
There was a sort of documentary in England about Club USA and the honeytrap @ the limelight.
It was about a promoter called Michael someone doing 'raves on tube platforms and Mcdonalds etc.
He did lots of K and killed someone called Angel and cut him up into little bits.
Was this true?

[complexvisuals]

He did lots of K and killed someone called Angel and cut him up into little bits.

It was I who did it.

[holly]

Actually, (I wasn't there of course) it was this guy called Freeze. The guy was totally creepy and you looked at him and you just knew he didn't have a soul. He gave me chills and I always stayed as far away from him as possible. My guess is that Freeze got jelous of Angel and killed him, then convinced Micheal that he'd done it while he was too high to remember. They left Angel in their apartment for 5 days while Allig went to his parties and asked everyone what was the best way to get rid of a dead body....

Micheal Allig was just a toon head. Total mess who always tried to bring out the worst in people because he thought it was entertaining. I guess he had no morals, but it was deliberate, you know? I think being involved in that scene is why I don't like transgressive/degenerate art or parties/scenes. Allig made a career out of showing people at their worst and exploiting them as freaks. I knew like 3 people who committed suicide and like 20 who tried. A close friend of mine jumped out a 5th floor window because of that scene and the next day Allig and others ran to the newspapers to try to exploit the situation for their publicity. They sucked. He deserves to be in jail forever.

Why did I go to these parties? ...the ecstacy was free, free, free!

[ristuuk]

Cheers Holly,
Nice to hear a different side to the documentary, which showed exploitiation but came across as all a big laugh, no harm intended, probably why I thought it was possibly faked.

[PilotX]

the atmosphere is the most important.. the best clubs for me have been those that have a regular crowd.. ones which you can go to on your own, knowing that there will be lots of people there you know.. whether thats a 3,000 person rave or a 100 person club doesn't matter..
the next is that the clubnight does something interesting with the venue, to surprise people as they come in.
after that, the music and visuals come in.. I've often found lighting to be a distraction more than anything, so long as there is enough ambient light (provided by beamers preferably) then that is all you need..
good music, over named djs/bands.. a promotor who thinks about the ordering of the djs, even if it means the headliner plays the first set, so that the music follows a logical route, building in tempo/feel through the night. ditto for visuals..

something different, doesn't matter what is key for a night..

Holly, I wish I'd experienced club USA, it sounds like my kinda venue :)

[brain]

underestimated by 99% of clubowners/promoters: FRIENDLY and COMPETENT staff. starting at the door, even more important at the bar and a major point all throughout.

if you like the club/evening as a VJ, give your share and be friendly too! it makes so much difference to the audience if they feel like having contact and fun with you and the other people performing! don't just stand there pokerfaced staring at your previews... being too cool is boring to watch:)

[holly]

Yeah, I liked that PilotX: the best club is where your friends are!

But that also works out to: if a club isn't willing to grow a loyal base then it will always suck. We've had this problem with the space where we throw Eye Wash. it's a really nice bar, but the owners just want corporate parties and one-offs there (like $20 per head openbars! gag! We're doing a free party!). They don't want to become a local scene or hang-out. It's kinda my fault because I wanted it in an "upscale" place so it wouldn't just look like art-hippies with laptops and we could get some hi-profile publicity etc, but now I just want a cozy spot for my art-hippies w/ lappys to hang out in.:D :cool:

Another good club in NYC is The Limelight. It use to be a gothic church so you can imagine what it looks like inside. It's closed now and vacant. The NYC club scene sucks right now. It's all small neighborhood bars and big sterile lounges.