Lots of Las Vegas DJs spent the long months of COVID closures developing new music. Maria Romano made the most of her downtime by conceptualizing and creating new experiences.
One of those ideas came to life in January with Brunch Club University at Jing restaurant and lounge at Downtown Summerlin. The Pennsylvania native, who’s been knocking it out of the park with open-format parties at seemingly every club on the Strip in recent years, started her own marketing company during the pandemic and began branching out.
“Jing is one of my clients, and they’ve always done brunch, but it wasn’t a party except for once a year at Halloween,” Romano says. “I’ve been wanting to start a brunch party, but we weren’t sure about it in the fall. I just decided to take the responsibility and start it up, so I approached them again in January and said, ‘I’m doing it, and I’d like to do it here.’”
The monthly bash has sold out all five times, she says, and if you’ve ever been to Jing, you know why; it feels like a Strip space, and the food, drinks, atmosphere and service style are all primed for parties. Romano’s event is somewhat inspired by Lavo’s party brunch at Palazzo—“not as crazy with the presentations and stuff, but it’s a big party,” she says. “We keep it light in the beginning then close the curtains and create that big party vibe around 2 p.m., and it goes until about 6.”
Maria Romano performing at Jing during Brunch Club University
May’s Brunch Club University was themed for Cinco de Mayo, and the next edition on June 4 will be all about “Jing Beach” for the summer, with a Casamigos tequila partnership to boot. Romano is on the decks every month, and she rotates other locals into the mix; there are typically three DJs at each event.
Sustaining a daytime suburban bash is no easy feat, and it’s certainly a world apart from the big club gigs on the Strip with which Romano is familiar; she’s spinning at Ayu Dayclub at Resorts World and Drai’s Beachclub at the Cromwell this weekend alone. The audience couldn’t be more different, but Jing’s established reputation offers an advantage.
“If you don’t live in that area, you’re 20 minutes away, so you have to plan accordingly,” she says. “But locally, nobody does it like Jing, and it’s held that name for a while. You know there’s going to be a DJ, the food is great, there are always good-looking people there, and if you don’t want to go to the Strip, you have this place that still feels like going out without dealing with a lot of tourists.”
Crafting a musical event for locals and by locals is ultimately rewarding for Romano, whose DJ career really kicked into gear when she moved to Las Vegas. She’s known for her versatility and for keeping up with the changing culture and tastes in the scene, and while she says she’ll always consider herself a true open-format DJ, she’s dabbling in different genres and broadening her horizons.
“If I need to play a country set, I can play a country set, and that’s important here,” she says. “But during the pandemic, I was going to Tulum [in Mexico] and really took a liking to that sound, tech house and Latin house. I’ve done Latin and hip-hop for so long, my ears were just attracted to that sound, and now it’s traveled from Tulum to Vegas and Miami and it’s becoming more popular.”
When she landed the gig at the Zouk Group clubs during Resorts World’s opening, incorporating some of those deeper house sounds into her sets helped her find the right groove for those globally accessible venues. And the themed parties she witnessed in Tulum certainly helped inspire the extra touches applied to her own events at Jing.
“My main focus during the pandemic was inventing new things for people to do, creating new experiences, and when you have a smaller venue like Jing, you can do a lot of different things,” she says. “You can decorate the entire venue, and it feels different every time.”
MARIA ROMANO With Nervo, May 12, noon, Ayu Dayclub, zoukgrouplv.com; May 14, 11 a.m., Drai’s Beachclub, draisgroup.com.
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