Dusk Never Sleeps

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

The uber-popular nightclub is open three nights per week, and will soon add a multi-faceted, live-music component called the 21 Bar to be open daily.

By Ray Schweibert 

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Dec. 7, 2011

ATLANTIC CITY — Pride abounded during Dusk’s guided tour and ribbon-cutting ceremony inside Caesars during the summer of 2009 — and with good reason.  

The multi-tiered, 10,000-square-foot nightclub was cutting-edge to the core, more spacious and designed differently than anything Atlantic City had seen to that point, and bolstered by a top-flight lighting-and-sound system and some of the best house and special-guest DJs in the business.  

With the club came the catchphrase “The Evolution of Nightlife,” which many may have assumed was little more than that — a catchphrase. Not so, though, as since that debut the club has not only perpetuated a trend of attracting the latest in nightlife aristocracy, it tweaked certain components to maximize its location on the Boardwalk.  

A low-key lounge area called the Dawn Room was converted into a popular live-music venue called the Boardwalk Beer Garden during the summer, and now a third element is due to debut by the dawn of the New Year — the 21 Bar.  

“We had a bit of an epiphany,” says Kevin Friel of Dusk Management Group, the nightclub’s parent company. “We have this real estate on the Boardwalk in a centralized location, with plenty of foot traffic going by, but it was being underutilized. The club itself is three nights a week [Friday, Saturday and industry night Tuesday], and the 21 Bar will be open seven days a week from around noon till 3am or even later on Saturday nights, giving those leaving Dusk a place to stop and maybe get a post-nightclub cocktail or extend their night a little longer.” 

The 21 Bar — a name playing off many references, among them the number of specialty cocktails the club provides — will be accessed off Caesars’ second level where the main entrance to the nightclub is located.  

“We’re putting a decent amount of capital into that space and it’s going to be a bit of a hybrid,” says Friel. “It will fulfill the aspect of a sports bar at certain times, with 11 55-inch high-definition televisions and a drop screen that comes down over the stage to be used during big events like a Floyd Mayweather fight, the Super Bowl — anything like that. It’ll be a great place to check out that kind of action. There will also be live music there seven days a week, similar to the Beer Garden, but on weekends it will likely be more high-energy cover bands backed up by a DJ, and on weekdays maybe acoustic duos and trios. That will be the staple of it — a place to go see live music and get a great beer or a great cocktail.  

“There’s also a dance floor — we have the ability to change that into pretty much anything we want and work on the fly. I think it’s going to be very, very successful and be a great addition to the building.” 

And of course the nightclub itself will continue to bring in the hottest action in contemporary entertainment, including a special industry-night appearance (Tues., Dec. 20) by Swedish House Mafia singer John Martin, who will sing his hit song “Save the World Tonight.” Dusk’s New Year’s Eve party will feature an open bar of premium top-shelf spirits from 9:30pm-12:30am ($99 per person), and those entering the club after it reverts back to cash-bar status can do so at $20 per head. Also on the horizon, Nadia Ali, a Pakistani-American singer/songwriter and prominent figure on the electronic music scene for about the last decade, will appear at Dusk on Jan. 13.  

“As you know, we’ve won ‘Best Place to Spot a Celebrity’ [at the AC Weekly Reader’s Choice Nightlife Awards] both years we’ve been open, and are going for our third straight award this year [the fourth annual awards will be announced Jan. 27; vote now at acweekly.com/nightlife]. We have some pretty cool stuff lined up.” 

Dusk’s house DJs — DJ Sat-One on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and DJ Royale on Friday nights — are both longtime veterans of the Philadelphia nightclub scene.  

“When we first opened we were sort of Los Angeles-centric and we were bringing in a lot of guys from New York, but we’re in our third year of operation now have been watching to see what works,” says Friel. “Philadelphia, as far as the DJ music scene goes, is one of the most respected cities in the country. It’s a great town and a big feeder market for us.” 

Sold out nearly every Friday and Saturday night, Dusk’s bottle-service tables line the fringe of the club’s dance floor, unlike other clubs where bottle service is a segregated component. “When you have a table, you want to have a table surrounded by the energy of the club, not in some section that can seem sort of elitist and, after a while, not much fun,” says Friel. “That’s why people like coming to Dusk. That’s how we’re designed.” 

For more, see duskac.com