Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Lyrica Closes Downtown, Vain to Open


After just a year of operation, downtown's largest club Lyrica has closed down. A new club, Vain, is to open in that space on October 28th. Not sure if the existing owners are just starting over or whether there are new owners. Lyrica had some success with live bands and their Visage reunions. Less successful was their July attempt at House music on Saturday nights. No one knew about it. And if you're off Orange Avenue, you're invisible so heavy advertising is critical. Back in the day though, club Cairo did well there for a few years.

I don't know much about the club business but one observation I've had about a lot of clubs is the total lack of theming. Mannequins had a theme. 8TRAX was heavily themed. In the city, Aahz used to have an Oz theme. Antigua has a Caribbean-island theme. Red Coconut has a 50's Vegas theme. But how do you develop a theme out of club names like Bliss or Tabu or Vain? Writing from the perspective of the customer, clubs ought to use names that are catchy and can be themed to death. Those kinds of places are more likely to catch-on.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... so, what you're saying is clubs should advertise or occasionally "re-invent" themselves, and not necessarily just sit there waiting for people to find them.

I wonder if management of a certain Island knew that.

Anonymous said...

yes the island knew about it DUH!
Disney NEVER wanted PI! but some CEO wanted it and got it! now that is gone PI is gone get it got it good!

Anonymous said...

Maybe if every club didn't try to go "upscale" with a name that makes no sense. (Vain?.. really? WTF does that mean, only stuck up b***s will go there???)

Eh, then again what do I know.

Anonymous said...

It sucked as a club. Bathrooms were terrible.
And those stairs really sucked. If it would have been a free entre and better lighting, music, better drink specials,friendlier people,it might have had a chance. Maybe the new "Vain" will fair better.