Even though NYC club life is "dead"....

[xtreme-1]

its still way better the SoBe, so why do so many eople complain about NYC nightlife?

[pod]

I think the complaint is that the authorities in NYC are a lot harsher on clubs than down here. In the past 3 months, there's been the temporary closings of Exit, Sound Factory, and others.

I've been up to New York, and even shot a few times up there, and the biggest thing I've heard is that "Miami has it good, they've got nice weather, and some places with 24-hour liquor licenses, along with top DJs stopping in all the time, even outside of conference..."

New York and Miami are different, and one is not necessarily better than the other...

Miami pros:

24 hour clubs like Space 34, The Beach (is it open yet?).

Nice weather

Great scenery

The clubs themselves look great, with fantastic sound systems

and great lighting arrays

Great DJs and performers at least 2-3 times a month

All the clubs are within a few miles of each other.

Lots of locals are well-known worldwide (Edgar, Stryke, Oscar, Roland --- just wait!!!)

Miami cons:

Snooty people abound (see Opium, Nikki Beach, Privé, BED)

Uncultured morons abound (every club has 'em), you know the type, the sweaty misfits on too many drugs harassing girls all night....or the sweaty girls who think they're god's gift to men.

Tourists

Hip-hop has just about taken over the beach

One genre seems to dominate all the time, sometimes it's hard to find variety. 2 years ago, it was trance, now it's prog-house, next year it'll be something else.

Lots of shitty little venues.

New York pros:

Lotsa DJs and performers call it home, have steady residencies up there (DT, Howells, Trendroid, etc..)

Less amount of snooty morons, once they got over the suspicion of my camera, everyone was really nice.

Lots of variety

Most clubs are decent looking, with great sound systems and lighting.

Good local DJs (Bill Patrick, the Plant guys at Centro-Fly, CJ's New York Editor DJ DiMaggio hehe...)

New York cons

The clubs are all over, you can't really "hop" without blowing ten bucks or more on a cab or twenty or more on parking. Late night subways take awhile sometimes...

No 24 hour venues...Arc is open late, but it doesn't have a liquor license...not that it matters, Arc usually has great performers. Clubs that do serve booze seem to close around 3:30 or so...some go as late as 5 AM, but they're hard to find. People tell me the Sound Factory is open forever, but they turn off the booze around 4 AM.

From my perspective at least, no one bloody knows how to run lights up there (except for the guy at Arc), sometimes it mangled a good song.

What snooty people you do encounter are usually the "art-fag" type, or the Hamptons type...the worst kind.

I've been told, but never seen, some venues that are heavy on the juicehead factor, worse than Miami even.

Some people in New York are convinced it's the center of the clubbing universe...sorry guys, but that title probably goes to somewhere in Europe or the UK.

[magua0]

As someone who lives in new york, miami clubs are much better than the new york scene. First off, any club you enter in new york now, you are being searched completely, coming back from the WMC, i was never searched or checked once in any club. Not to say there shouldn't be security but waiting on line at the roxy for a half hour or longer to be completetly searched is a bit out of hand.

Secondly, it seems like new york is trying to rid of itself of the club scene, constant raids of new york clubs and now the smoking ban.

The age crowd of new york clubs is much younger than miami scene.

[wallmill]

it truly is getting bad down here with the authorities at the big clubs, factory, exit. for example, went to factory wasnt that bad, alot of undercovers, starin you down, and you really cant get in your groove with that happening, then we left and all 3 of our cars were broken in to, that sucked. but the little clubs are where its at centro, discotheque and other little lounges. all in all theirs something good in both sobe and ny. i personally love them both.

[wallmill]

the smoking ban in ny sucksssssssss.

[pod]

Heheh...suffer!

pod (non smoker!)

[chaos33]

All I know is going to see Jonathan Peters during WMC is as close to NY as I want to get right now. The place just had a weird vibe, too many juiceheads dancing around with their shirts off. Dark, hard and evil is the best way to describe what I saw that night. It was like they took sound factory and moved it to menage for the night. I'll take the Miami crowd over that any day.

[diegonyc]

personally, it didn't bother me a bit that Exit and SF were shutdown. In the 4 years I have lived up here, I think I have frequented those 2 clubs combined maybe 5 or 6 times. 2 of those times it was our event in one of the rooms.

If NYC had the venues that Miami has along w/ the 24 hour liquor license, this would be the place to be as far as clubbing goes. Sad truth, it's no where near that and we have to suffer a bit and deal with stupid cabaret licenses and the difficulty in obtaining a liquor license. Amidst all that we manage to have fun. It's all about the smaller parties at lounges, lofts, and warehouses.

Another pro as POD mentioned is the abundance of local talent. I can't stress enough on how much talent we have in our own backyard both on the producing front and djing.

Hopefully things will turn for the better soon but we'll just have to wait and see. As far as the smoking ban is concerned, I doubt it will be enforced, especially in clubs.

[alexx]

I live in NYC and I was down Miami for WMC. Club scene is so much better down in Miami. So many more places to go. Everything is also alot more upscale. Crowd is older too. In NYC its just sf,exit and vinyl pretty much. No place has a 24hr liquer license, and now you can't even smoke in clubs. Only thing is NY has better djs I think, too bad the clubs suck right now.

[southof5th]

So now the smoking ban is effect, they enforce no smoking in the clubs???

that fucking blows....I smoke when I go out...couldn't even imagine not.

I LOVE MIAMI