The nightclub business is booming

LUXY opened its doors for the first time on Tuesday night and the "night life complex" attracted plenty of local TV cameras eager to see what the fuss was going to be all about.

The Taipei nightspot on Zhongxiao East Road is expected to draw over 2,000 punters on Saturdays and will be open seven days a week. It's going to put on the most expensive dance music acts in the world and nurture the underground scene by giving local DJs and artists the spotlight.

In a way, it appeared, rave music came out from the cold and got comfy inside. The TV crews took pictures of cocktail waiters, good-looking wait staff and the club's opulent interior. How different from the usual media coverage of clubs, which generally condemns them for being the hidey holes of drug-crazed lunatics.

LUXY, however, has been granted a nightclub license by the Taipei authorities, which is unusual in itself, since it is only the second club in the city which has one. The other is 2nd Floor. Both are majority owned by the Hsia family, for whom you could say business is booming.

Alan 夏 (Hsia), who runs Loop promotions for 2nd Floor, said the club's concept was "born long ago" and was targeting clubbers who had grown up.

"We developed our crowd [at 2nd Floor] from an untapped market, college kids who liked outside parties. People have graduated from the hardcore party zone. They still want to experience underground music but they don't want the trouble," Hsia said. "I guess we're the sharp end of the MTV crowd."

He described LUXY's design, by Scala Wu (吳昭立), as "renovated Euro" and a "night club complex ... Basically, it tends toward the US theater experience rather than the Taiwan carbon copy and zen." Which figures, since it used to belong to local playboy Johnny Hwang, who called it his "Shanghai Parliament."

The space sprawls over 1,000 pings, with chandeliers set off by laser lighting, fine dining areas, glass-topped bars, booths, VIP areas, smoke and mirrors.

Tonight is the "hard" opening and the price of NT$800 will allow you entry to Bliss Production's Citrus Party, with house DJs SL, Saucey, Victor and Edmund, while DJ Noodle and Phifty-five will be knocking out the hip-hop in the second arena. There will be an open bar before 11, so the party should start early.

With Luxy and 2nd Floor as the only fully licensed clubs in the city -- and the biggest, along with Texound -- the Hsia family business is obviously booming. But then they know what's coming round the corner ...

A dedicated superclub "the like of which the country hasn't seen" according to its promoters, is coming to town, or rather Neihu. The Ministry of Sound [yes, the second Asian branch of the fabled London clubbing institution] is being fashioned on a plot of land in the eastern area of Taipei as we read and is expected to open in December, after its license has been granted.

As for the parties last week: One, in Ilan's Daxi, on the beach, turned out to be a muted affair as the weather turned chilly and then started pissing down. Around 60 people turned up. Perhaps it is a sign that winter is, indeed, coming.

Staying inside, there's a British Council party at Saloon tonight. DJ Paul Cawley, VJ Damien Smith and Clyde Lawson will be delighting the senses after 10pm, at 107-2 Xinyi Rd, Sec 4, Taipei (台北市信義路4段107-2號). Entrance is NT$300.