Baton Rouge's long-shuttered nightclub scene gets a one-night resurrection this Friday, when Prom Macabre brings DJ Prep back behind the decks at the Cary Saurage Community Arts Center for a dark retro celebration built for people who remember when dance floors in this city never seemed to close. The 21-and-older event starts at 8:30 p.m. on Oct. 30 at 233 St. Ferdinand St., with a costume contest, a crowned prom king and queen, and a soundtrack pulled straight from the city's vanished club era.
The gathering is presented by the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge and Big in Baton Rouge Productions, who are billing it as a one-night reunion of South Louisiana's club scene, according to The Advocate. An Eventbrite listing confirms the Oct. 30 date and venue, identifying DJ Prep as the headline act, with the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge also listed on the ticketing platform as an organizer of upcoming events in the city.
A DJ Who Never Really Left the Booth
DJ Prep has been a fixture of Louisiana nightlife since the mid-1980s, per The Advocate's reporting, with residencies at a string of clubs, including The Kingfish in the Lafayette area and Shelter, T.Trax, Luna and Gridlock in Baton Rouge. His sets have long blended dark wave, 1980s dance, breakbeat, techno and trance, a mix that traces back to his years spinning records in rooms that shaped a generation of dancers, DJs and night owls across the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.
That history checks out beyond the seed reporting. A Mixcloud page preserving one of his sets confirms he was the resident DJ at The Shelter, and the mix itself is dated to 1998, placing him squarely in the breakbeat-and-dance-floor era the event is built around, according to a recording hosted on Mixcloud. The Kingfish nightclub was in the Lafayette area; setlist.fm lists performances there by acts including Leon Redbone, The Roches, The Police and Robert Gordon, according to setlist.fm.
Event organizer Sariah Sizemore described Prom Macabre as a reunion for people who spent their best years on a dark dance floor in South Louisiana, or wished they had, The Advocate reported. Guests are encouraged to show up in their fanciest dark attire, with the night's costume contest running throughout the event and ending in a crown for the best masculine and feminine looks.
Inside the Venue Hosting the Reunion
The party unfolds inside the Cary Saurage Community Arts Center, a creative space topping 12,000 square feet built for artists and arts organizations to meet, work and create, according to the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge. The building houses a Black Box theater, recording studio, visual artists' studios, an exhibition gallery, conference rooms and a rooftop terrace. The Black Box specifically is designed for uses that include dancing, music, theater and celebrations, making it a fitting stage for a night centered on a dance floor.
Tickets are available on Eventbrite in three tiers. Student and artist admission runs $25, general admission costs $35 with a cash bar, and a $50 open-bar ticket covers drinks all night. More details on the event are posted at biginbatonrouge.com/prom-macabre/.
Echoes of an Earlier Reunion
A Kingfish reunion took place in 2018. A gathering called the Original Kingfish Reunion: A Tribute to the Music brought back memories of the club and its 1980s dance music, according to The Advertiser. That same report described the original Kingfish as a late-1980s after-hours dance destination that drew fans from as far as New Orleans and Houston, with the building later sitting vacant on the property of a demolition and construction company at the time the article was published.
Prom Macabre doesn't try to rebuild the Kingfish itself, but it draws on the same well of memory, pulling together the DJs and dancers who filled rooms like Shelter, T.Trax, Luna and Gridlock before those clubs closed for good. For one night at the Cary Saurage Community Arts Center, that scene gets its dance floor back.
