{"id":2209069,"date":"2025-12-22T21:01:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T21:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2209069"},"modified":"2025-12-22T21:01:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T21:01:11","slug":"celebrating-32-years-of-vancouver-nightlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/celebrating-32-years-of-vancouver-nightlife\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating 32 Years of Vancouver Nightlife"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>For over a decade, the building sitting on the comer of Burrard and Davie street (now named <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CelebritiesNightclub\/\" target=\"_blank\">Celebrites Nightclub<\/a>)\u00a0has been the epicenter of entertainment and nightlife for Vancouver. From weekly events to some of the biggest names in electronic music, Celebrities has become one of the city\u2019s hottest clubs. While 1\/3 of the building\u2019s life has been host to progressive house music, it has seen a mixture of people from all walks of life. The building\u2019s history stretches back all the way to 1914 when it was first built, giving Vancouverites it\u2019s first legal cocktail establishment.<\/p>\n<p>Architect Thomas Hooper originally designed the building in 1911 for Maud Lester, owner and operator of the\u00a0Lester M. Dancing Academy. The building would later see a name change to The Embassy Ballroom, and remained so until briefly being known as a teen dance club called The Grooveyard in the early 1960s. Its true claim for fame wouldn\u2019t come until later when it was known as Dante\u2019s Inferno, and later\u00a0Retinal Circus. The venue was host to acts such as the The Grateful Dead, The Velvet Underground, and The Doors. Adding more to the building\u2019s already growing history is Tommy Chong\u2019s underground afterhours named\u00a0Elegant Parlour.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_70850\" style=\"width: 5018px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-70850\" class=\"size-full wp-image-70850\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dancemusicnw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/21fae8a3-ba95-4362-8e21-2dfc4c9f344b-A17723.jpg\" alt=\"Lesters Court - Thomas Stuart (1922)\" width=\"5008\" height=\"2024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dancemusicnw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/21fae8a3-ba95-4362-8e21-2dfc4c9f344b-A17723.jpg 5008w, https:\/\/www.dancemusicnw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/21fae8a3-ba95-4362-8e21-2dfc4c9f344b-A17723-768x310.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dancemusicnw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/21fae8a3-ba95-4362-8e21-2dfc4c9f344b-A17723-1920x776.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 5008px) 100vw, 5008px\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-70850\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lesters Court \u2013 Thomas Stuart (1922)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The building would remain quite quiet after\u00a0Retinal Circus final show in 1968 until it\u2019s rise back into the nightlife in 1984. It\u2019s at this point, the building dawns the name Celebrities Nightclub, and transforms into a LGBT club in the heart of Davie Village. Eventually, by the late 90\u2019s, the club would be known for accepting all forms of sexual orientation, while providing a safe place, free of judgement and prejudice to the city of Vancouver. Celebrities has been noted for being one of the the premiere venues in Vancouver for electronic music.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, Celebrites would see a massive overhaul with intentions of making it an international destination. The <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biv.com\/article\/2013\/3\/celebrities-reopens-after-1-million-renovation\/\" target=\"_blank\">$1 million renovation<\/a> would transform the venue into a \u201chigh-tech chameleon\u201d including wall to floor LED lighting, state of the art Funktion 1 sound system, and improved layout. As Blueprint Events flagship club, the venue has played host to some of the biggest names in electronic music including Porter Robinson, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dancemusicnw.com\/seasons-festival-2016-review\/\" target=\"_blank\">Datsik<\/a>, REZZ, and every Blueprint Afterparty\u2026 just to name a few from this year.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_70851\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-70851\" class=\"size-full wp-image-70851\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dancemusicnw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/14718748_1402599579752901_6918467339812755133_n.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: Brendan Leong Photography\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dancemusicnw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/14718748_1402599579752901_6918467339812755133_n.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.dancemusicnw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/14718748_1402599579752901_6918467339812755133_n-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-70851\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Brendan Leong Photography<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Despite having the unfortunate nickname of \u201cThe No Fun City,\u201d Vancouver\u2019s Celebrites Nightclub has continued to carry the torch for providing the city with entertainment for 32 years. The building\u2019s deep roots, extending all the way to the turn of the 20th century, only adds significance. It\u2019s seen countless changes, numerous musical acts, and likely millions of visitors. A crucial facet in not only Vancouver\u2019s nightlife but the cities history itself. Helping celebrate 32 years of Celebrities history is non-other than German house hitmaker <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/celebritiesnightclub.com\/events\/celebrities-32yr-anniversary-w-robin-schulz\" target=\"_blank\">Robin Schulz<\/a>\u00a0on November 17th. We congratulate Celebrities on their 32nd birthday and look forward to what the future may hold!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.dancemusicnw.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For over a decade, the building sitting on the comer of Burrard and Davie street (now named Celebrites Nightclub)\u00a0has been the epicenter of entertainment and nightlife for Vancouver. From weekly events to some of the biggest names in electronic music, Celebrities has become one of the city\u2019s hottest clubs. While 1\/3 of the building\u2019s life [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2209070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[426576,426577,309464],"class_list":["post-2209069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-blueprint-events","tag-celebrities-nightclub","tag-vancouver"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Celebrating-32-Years-of-Vancouver-Nightlife-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2209069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2209071,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209069\/revisions\/2209071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2209070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2209069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2209069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2209069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}