Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Sad News About St. Louis Nightclub

We were sorry to hear that Velvet on Washington Avenue will be closing on October 29, 2005. Although it was rumored for months, we are sorry to see another nightclub close. Velvet was probably the nicest club on the west side of the Mississippi...the sound system was great, lighting incredible, staff and managers gay friendly, and they consistently delivered talented resident and internationally known guest DJ's. When the owners opened their first club on Washington, Sanctuary, there was nothing there but empty warehouses, dark streets, and a handful of pioneering nightclubs....Evolution was a block away....Twist was across the street....and that was about it...Evolution boomed then was sold a few times and eventually closed....Twist was the hot gay dance club for several years, then moved down the street and became Fall Out, also a hot gay dance club until the crowd abandoned it after a gay warehouse party was raided and closed and Fall Out's owner was blamed for the raid.... Sanctuary went upscale 10 years ago after a tasteful remodel and became Velvet....we worked with Velvet and it's sister club Rue 13 on quite a few shared events (guest DJ's) and they were always cool people...never homophobic...in fact the owners, manager, and DJ's used to party at Faces (before they grew up and got married).
Someone will write a book about nightclubs in the the last 5 years....but I think the owners of Velvet will agree that their best year, like ours, was 2000....before the Supreme Court appointed a new President...before that President received a briefing on terrorists that he ignored (he never even had a meeting about that memo)....before 9/11 turned our country into a nation of frightened, cocooners....overnight, clubs saw their customers disappear, preferring the safety of home over the excitement of clubbing with strangers. As people stayed home, the Internet grew in popularity, to the point where many club goers replaced nightclubs with a night on the computer....downloading the music they used to dance to and hooking up online instead of going out to get laid. After the fear of an attack subsided, the economy nosedived....club goers were either downsized or lost their commissions and bonuses...in every other economic downturn (Ford and Bush I's tenures) people still partied....this time is different....
While experiencing this change in nightlife, Velvet found itself in middle of a real estate boom on Washington Avenue...the empty warehouses are now million dollar lofts....so it became a matter of time before the new residents decided they didn't want to live above a nightclub....before the developers decided they could make more with retail space (Velvet will be a bank) then they could make with a nightclub. While the influx of new residents and huge investments in housing is a positive thing for the City of St. Louis, it is too bad that there wasn't room for both.....a thriving nightlife and a place to live. Most experts in the industry predict that the era of the super club, the big room, are over in nightclubs. Instead, the trend both in St. Louis and across the country seems to be small lounges, bars with a fraction of the space of Velvet that are cheaper to operate and easier to fill....25 people looks like a crowd at Freddies or Novaks but barely fills lobby at The Complex or Faces. Velvet owners just opened the old Drake Bar space behind The Complex...called The Clubhouse...a much smaller space...no dance floor...but they will offer many of their Velvet DJ's....they are also involved in a restaurant/lounge in Clayton with food and music...again, a small space and no dance floor. While this trend only makes clubs like Faces and The Complex even more unique...it isn't something that we welcome.