Even though he knows as well as anyone about the lack of gay nightlife programming on the Las Vegas Strip, Eduardo Cordova was still a little surprised at the solid showing during the sneak preview/debut of Roi Sundays September 20 at Chateau. “It was packed. Everybody loved the venue and the event,” he says. “It was like the community was waiting for this.”
Cordova, a mainstay in the local club scene who also publishes the Spanish-language In Vegas magazine, has teamed with the nightclub at Paris and Pacifico Entertainment to make Roi Sundays a weekly event—the only LGBT night on the Strip.
Roi is French for “king,” and the royal French dancers that perform on Sundays help the event match Chateau’s Euro-vibe. An Absolut-sponsored open bar runs from 10:30 to 11:30 p.m. (Absolut bottles are $150, and shots are $5 all night) while the sounds are provided by resident DJs Nick Ayler and Ryan Kenney. Locals always get in free.
Cordova hasn’t been involved in nightlife since last year, when he helped Victor Drai open Liaison at Bally’s. That club’s closure, paired with Krave’s 2014 demise after moving Downtown (and then briefly back to the Strip), created the void.
Sundays have always been a big gay night out in Las Vegas, says Cordova, who ran successful weekly events on that night at Revolution Lounge for Light Group. He’s hoping to rebuild the gay party scene on the Strip, and Roi Sundays might only be the beginning. Cordova will launch a Wednesday night party at Caesars Palace’s Fizz bar later this month, and he’s eyeballing different casinos for a permanent club location, including one property with a well-known reputation for its gay pool parties.
“I do believe it’s the right time for a gay nightclub on the Strip to be very successful,” he says. “It just doesn’t have to be a huge megaclub. That was the mistake of Krave; it was too ambitious. It just has to be a different product from what we already have.”
Roi Sundays at Chateau October 4, 10 p.m., $20, no cover for locals. Paris Las Vegas, 702-776-7770.