Let There Be House during the Patio Nights

Uh-oh. House heads have a dilemma: Fridays haven’t been the best for checking out their favorite genre of dance music (save afterhours or small parties), but now we’ve gone from famine to feast. There are two new parties for the house-hungry.

Patio Nights at Rok Vegas inside New York-New York kicked off in July, reinvigorating the outdoor section of the club. Bringing local scene favorites to the ones and twos, the intimate patio has been reconfigured to make the DJ more of a focal point, rather than banishing them to the back recesses of the patio. Judging by last Friday’s turnout, the night appears to be an immediate success.

DJs SmashBOX and Miss Dust, accompanied by Steve Walker on percussion, kept the music bumping so hard it could be heard from Las Vegas Boulevard and likely enticed tourists to check out the party, as well. (Though, we admit we were a bit confused by the hour-long sets with the two DJs switching back and forth throughout the night.)

Further up the street at Paris’ Risqué, Let There Be House made its official launch last Friday night, but with less-busy results. Also featuring local DJs for the night (Pat Schoolestra, Levon James, Josh Abrams and KC Ray), it looks like house fans have already fallen into a pattern for Fridays, and the turnout at Risqué’s house room saw only a smattering of people, regardless of who was spinning. (Abrams, for example, played the first Patio Nights at Rok and had a more successful turnout there). Other scene regulars tried to bounce back and forth between the two clubs, but once they left Risqué for Rok, they were sucked into the energy on the NY-NY patio and didn’t make it back across the street.

With two competing house nights, will the local core of fans be divided causing both venues suffer? It’s too soon to tell, though it’d be nice if the two properties were within drinking and walking distance. Weather won’t stay lovely forever and there’s no official word yet on what the outdoor Patio Nights will do when the desert turns frigid. Perhaps the house kitties will migrate from New York to Paris for the winter.