Strictly ballroom

By Steve Baltin

Dec. 25, 2003 12 AM PT

Special to The Times

It sounds like a movie script. Nearly 10,000 dance music fans overrun the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, turning the downtown L.A. locale into a giant nightclub on New Year’s Eve.

Inside the enormous California Ballroom, DJ Paul Oakenfold spins his signature trance grooves for a few thousand fans. In the lobby, video screens show Oakey’s performance to the overflow while lasers flash overhead.

It is not a scene from the latest rave flick, though.

It is the “vision,” as DJ Sol calls it, of Dave Dean, director of the dance club Giant. That vision becomes reality on New Year’s Eve for Giant Venture, a massive New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day party featuring Oakenfold, the Crystal Method, Sandra Collins, a rare tag-team performance by Danny Howells and Lee Burridge and several other top DJs.

“This year instead of trying to make it bigger, I’ve gone in a completely different direction,” Dean says of Giant’s fourth annual New Year’s Eve event. After last year’s successful downtown show, which was both outside on Flower Street and inside at the Standard Hotel, Dean is centralizing the event to one locale.

Giant Venture offers 36 hours worth of music, utilizing three hotel ballrooms, as well as the Bonaventure’s famous revolving rooftop lounge and the outdoor Rooftop Garden.

“The Bonaventure is really the only hotel that we could do something like this at because it’s got the big ballrooms. Nobody realizes that underneath there are city blocks of high-ceilinged, well-powered ballrooms,” Dean says as he walks through the hotel.

Dean, who’s been promoting and booking events since the 1980s, including the legendary Limelight in London, where Oakenfold was a resident DJ, is particularly looking forward to this New Year’s.

“I’m really excited about this event because I think we have more to offer than we’ve offered before. Doing the street,” he says, pausing for dramatic effect, “interesting. But when it’s said and done, it’s still a block of asphalt and you can only do so much to it.

“But you can get lost in this place.”

Although that prospect excites Dean and the talent, such as DJ Sol, who says, “I think it’s great how he’s building the night around a hotel,” Dean understands that some people want a mellower New Year’s Eve. “Not everyone wants a big event,” Dean says.

So Dean, as marketing director of Avalon (the venue where Giant hosts its weekly Saturday nightclub), will bring in iconic DJ John Digweed for his first L.A. appearance since 2002.

The progressive DJ will be spinning a marathon set at Avalon in Hollywood. “Digweed is for the serious dance music fan who doesn’t want the big hullabaloo,” says 32-year-old Gena Nason, whose destination of choice for New Year’s will be Avalon. His show will also feature a simulcast from New York, where Digweed’s long-running DJ partner Sasha will be spinning.

Howells, whose marathon performance with Burridge is one of the most anticipated of Giant Venture, says he’d like to check out Digweed. “I’m hoping to see Sandra Collins because she’s a great person to share a bottle of tequila with. And then I’d like to get off at some point and see Diggers,” Howells says of his New Year’s plans.

Although Giant Venture and Digweed offer two exciting options for dance enthusiasts, both are limited to fans 21 and older. However, underage dance fans are not shut out of the New Year’s festivities. Two of the city’s biggest dance promoters, Go Ventures and Insomniac, are teaming up to present the sixth annual Together as One festival at the Los Angeles Sports Arena and surrounding grounds.

The nine-hour show features a range of DJs, including drum & bass hero Goldie, UK radio favorite Judge Jules and local house music hero Richard “Humpty” Vission.

There are also several smaller alternatives (see accompanying box), but ultimately New Year’s Eve is a night meant for celebrating and togetherness. Giant Venture has those qualities in abundance.

The Bonaventure will be available only to guests attending Giant Venture on New Year’s Eve. Thus, everyone in the hotel during that two-day period will be there as part of the Giant Venture. And with all of the usual restaurants and shops open during that time, as well as special events such as a 24-hour buffet, the hotel will realize Dean’s promise of “a city within a city.”

Sol is excited about the communal aspect the event creates. “It’s cool because all my friends are going to be there,” she says. “And then all your friends that you see around; so you get to hang out with them too and maybe even get closer.”

Those kinds of memories are what Dean is striving for.”When you look back on a career,” he says, “these are the events you remember.”

Where to get your groove on New Year’s Eve

Together as One 2004

Featuring performances from DJs Judge Jules, UK Fergie, UK Goldie, Lemon D and Dillinja. Drum & bass, from D&B; superstar Goldie, and the always-stellar Dillinja and Lemon D, lead the way. And there’ll be indoor fireworks.

Where: L.A. Sports Arena, 3939 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles

When: 8 p.m.-4 a.m.

Cost: $40

Contact: (323) 960-5155

Venture 2004

A five-room extravaganza featuring performances from Paul Oakenfold, Danny Howells, Lee Burridge, the Crystal Method (DJ set), Sandra Collins, Mark Tabberner, Architects of Sound and more. An array of sounds, including the trance of Oakenfold and Collins, L.A. favorites the Crystal Method, and a rare tag-team set by Howells and Burridge.

Where: The Westin Bonaventure Hotel, 404 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles

Cost: $75

Contact: (323) 464-7373 or (323) 464-7373

Limelight Massive

Featuring DJs Stress, Alpha, Chuey, MRD, Derrick Toran. Sure to be one of the glitziest scenes. Where: The Ivar, 6356 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

When: 8 p.m.-2 a.m.

Cost: $35

Contact: (310) 286-8839

Avalon Hollywood Presents NYE Coast to Coast with Sasha and Digweed

While Sasha waxes poetic in New York City, which will be shown via satellite at Avalon, his tag-team partner is live and in the flesh.

Where: Avalon Hollywood, 1735 N. Vine St., Hollywood

When: 9 p.m.-10 a.m.