LALate.com - Vegas Venues Recap

[lalate]

Friday - OPM

Venue.

OPM is located inside Wolf Gang Puck's restaurant in the Forum shops at Caesar. The venue claims to be the top venue in Vegas and 8,000 square feet in size. The second statement is only true if you include the square footage of the separate restaurant.

The nightclub is an approx 3000 square foot balcony-designed venue on the second floor of the restaurnt. The decore gets a B+. The first floor dance floor is a standard square box design. That leads down a stunning Caesar-styled hall with majestic drapes and columns to a second room. That room offers great decore with low back retro sofas in a red-drenched colored room. The hallway then proceeds to a balcony bar, well lit, but small.

Overall the venue styling is attractive, but nothing great or inspiring like you would expect of Vegas.

Music.

The first room was hiphop, second house. The house music was good but not good enough to get people dancing. The hiphop room was packed from the beginning of the night. The dancefloor is too small, too crowded. You could not dance. The music was poorly blended but the track selection excellent.

Crowd.

Horrible. The crowd was perhaps the most unattractive you could ever imagine, all under one house. Down right hideous crowd.

Entrance.

We had a hookup and got in free. By around 11, there was a huge line.

Overall.

An average looking venue with average music and hideous people.

Friday Afterhours - Dre's

Venue.

Dre's is located in the basement of the Barbary Coast. Two things to consider. First, Barbary Coast is a non 4 or 5-star hotel. Second, Dre's is in the basement. These two factors help lend to the vibe that is Dre's, a down and dirty, less glossy Vegas styled joint. The venue is a series of small room in stunning decore. The look is hot red and jet black with splashes of animal prints. The lighting is good. The offering of a series of small/mid sized lounge rooms works well.

We arrived at 3 am and was told that would be too early. Well, every table was filled with half drunken bottles.

Overall, the vibe was the best we saw in Vegas. A naughty but not raunchy aura in the air.

The dancefloor was one of the smallest dancefloors we've ever seen.

Overall the venue styling is great but the dancefloor is too small.

Music.

There is one dancefloor and here the music (house, techno) was decent with horrible blending of tracks.

Crowd.

This was the surprise. One local told us Dre's is hit and miss. Well this night it was a huge miss. We left at 5:30 after doing a survey of the ratios in one room. This is how they stood. Back room - two girls out of approx 150 in the room. Dancefloor - approx 6-10 girls out of a approx 100+ people. Overall, the crowd was just a couple hand full of girls between arrival to depature at 5:30.

Entrance.

We got into the venue in a second. $20 cover. When we left, the line was from here to Kansas and again virtually all guys. The few local girls said the place has been hit and miss lately.

Overall.

Overall, the best vibe in Vegas but with no girls. Definitely worth returning to and hoping for a better night.

Saturday - Light

Venue.

Light is located in the Bellagio Hotel. Now pause for a second here. Bellagio has a lake in the front of the hotel that looks as big as the state of Delaware. So, of course, Light will have a huge dancefloor with all this land that Bellagio has, acres and acres of land? Wrong.

Another venue with an undersized dancefloor for the crowd it provides.

This venue receives the worse review of any venue. The decore .... there is none. It's a square box with the dancefloor in the middle and the bars on the size and tons of ramps and hallways. There is no decore. And don't be mistaken - this is not a minimalistic place. There is just no decore.

The design smells money motivation and no concern for clubgoer desires. Booths, booths and more booths is this venue. Just a sea of table services, one after another, as many as you can build, like a New York deli, in square pattern.

If you get on the dancefloor which is a chore until itself, you cant dance. No space.

Music.

Perhaps the worse music ever heard in a venue. From opening till 2 hours into the night, when we couldnt take it anymore, the venue would drop a hiphop track, then play Jackson 5, then another hiphop track, then Earth Wind and Fire, then hiphop again. Tracks were not blended. Tracks would literally just stop midsong. One time the DJ actually slammed on the breaks on the dancetrack to a quick stop and started a midtempo song.

Crowd.

Hot crowd. Very hot. Great ratios. Late 20s to Late 40s. The problem however is the venue is too dark to see anyone, too loud to hear anyone, has no cosy area (because the venue is one mere room), and no place to meet people. The bars' aisles were so packed you couldnt even walk. So despite how good looking the crowd was, you couldnt get to interact with them.

Entrance.

Ridiculous. We got there early and got in a second. $20-25 this venue was not worth it. We left and returned later around 11 and the line was so long that it felt like a convention itself. We had more fun meeting people waiting to get into club then in the club itself.

Overall.

A venue with no decore, badly dj'd music, and zero vibe. With the longest line of any club we've seen in ages, this venue has exceptional public relations for offering a horrible, overpriced clubgoing experienced. This venue should be skipped.

Saturday - Risque

Venue.

Risque is located in arguably Vegas' most stunning hotel, the Paris Hotel. And to no surprise, Risque is stunning too. Risque was one of the best designed venue we've ever seen.

The venue has mutliple layers. Two rooms are offered - a hiphop room and a house music room. The hiphop room is stunning. This room gets an A+ on design. There was so much to see and enjoy. Later in the evening, a G-rated striptease show goes off on the bar courtesy of the venue. The drinks are powerfully strong.

The veune offers a series of balcony and hallways. The house music room was drenched in dark red hues.

Risque doesnt do what Light does - kill the venue with booths. It offers some, but not too many. What Risque does do is attention to details. Case and point - bathrooms. Sinks are stunning stainless steel filled with Parisian glass beeds.

Overall, this venue lives up to what you would expect for top design for a Vegas venue.

Music.

Good. Well blended tracks, good track selection. The house music room was very avergage (and for some cities would be considered below average).

Crowd.

Very average. The ratios were great. About 2 guys to 1 girl. This crowd was average looking in extremely average looking attire. If you are hoping to see hot people in hot attire, that's not the case here.

Entrance.

Easy. And pleasant staff.

Overall.

A stunning stunning venue with good music, strong drinks. Better to bring a date then look for one.

Vegas Summary.

There are many venues in Vegas that we didn't hit up, some that we wanted to but didn't have time. And every venue is different every night and depending on the weekend. Some venues are good one night and bad other nights.

But from those we attended on these nights, we saw a trend of very bad dj'd music and a greater attention to making a buck for the venue than a vibe for the venue.

Overall, we rated the total nightlife experiences (venue, music, crowd, etc.) at these venues on these nights extremely far below an average Los Angeles venue.