Last Look Inside: 8TRAX

This space opened in 1989 as Videopolis East, a club with more than 150 video screens catering to teens and featuring 80's New Wave.  It didn't last long given the adult-focus of Pleasure Island and it was replaced about a year later with Cage, a Progressive club with dance cages and even the main dance floor surrounded by fencing.  Four years later it would be renovated again, reopening in 1994 as 8TRAX, a 70's Dance Club.  Brilliantly catching the nostalgia of Disco, the music was expanded to include 80's music in the early 2000's.

Arguably Pleasure Island's most popular club, 8TRAX was a place that was crowded even on weeknights when the other venues were generally barren.  We've read that on a per square foot basis, it was at the time the most profitable nightclub in the country!  The attraction of course was the campy 70's Disco tunes and 80's Classics that everyone of all ages knew the words to and were best danced to when on holiday away from home!  You'll remember that when it got crowded, the AC system never could keep that main dance floor cool.

 8TRAX was a happy place!

 The back stairs to the DJ booth area that no one seemed to know about.

 The specialty drink menu.

One of our Save Pleasure Island Blog roving reporters was invited into 8TRAX in October, 2010 and this is what it looked like.  The famous dance floor was still in place!  Where was John Travolta when you needed him?

Where were all the dancing queens?

But much more deplorable was what had become of the club.  Remember the downstairs bar area?  This is what had become of it!

Looking from downstairs up towards the main dance floor, the place had become a collection of junk and was also being used for merchandise storage from shops in Downtown Disney.

Untouched since that fateful night in September, 2008, the 8TRAX drink menu board was still behind the downstairs bar....and ironically, that "Great Gatsby" poster.

Merchandise against the wall of the main dance floor behind it.

Is demolition coming?  Is a Food Network restaurant moving in?  We don't know yet.  But long live 8TRAX!