The Conga Room at L.A. Live is thinking big
'This is a legacy project,' founder Brad Gluckstein says.
At the new Conga Room -- call it Version 2.0 -- the guiding philosophy seems to be the opposite of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s famous dictum that "less is more." At the revamped, relocated incarnation of the popular Wilshire Boulevard Latin music venue that went dark 2 1/2 years ago, the owners are hoping that more will be more.
"My kids are growing up. I just turned 47. So if not now, when?" said club founder and principal owner Brad Gluckstein, explaining what inspired him and a co-owners group that includes Jimmy Smits, Jennifer Lopez and Clippers guard Baron Davis to reopen a bigger, splashier Conga Room across from Staples Center in downtown L.A.
"This is a legacy project, not just for my family but for the city," said Gluckstein, a native Angeleno, real-estate developer and self-described "inherently Jewish" guy "with a corazón Latino" (Latino heart).
It's a high-profile gambit that could tap into the synergistic energy surrounding the neighboring Nokia Theatre and the rest of the massive, $2.5-billion L.A. Live complex as well as the just-opened Grammy Museum around the corner -- or fall flat in the current southbound economy. That would be an embarrassing blow to AEG, the Los Angeles development company run by billionaire Philip Anschutz that controls L.A. Live and has an exclusive talent-booking deal with the Conga Room.
But Gluckstein's big words are not without basis. The old Conga Room, squirreled away in a former health spa, served as a prototype for the new club. But the difference in scale and ambition between the venues is roughly akin to the difference between Kool-Aid and a caipirinha.
For starters, the new club, with 15,000 square feet and a capacity of about 1,000, is nearly three times the size of the funky, elbow-bumping old club. (Basic cover charge for the new venue ranges from $18 to $25.) Gluckstein said the concept for the Conga Room "outgrew" its old location, which was hampered by poor freeway access and by being on the edge of a primarily residential neighborhood.
When the new Conga Room officially opens Wednesday evening, long-time patrons also might be surprised by the expanded musical menu. The offerings naturally will include heaping portions of salsa and merengue, the club's signature sound. But there also will be a tapas bar's worth of World Beat, tropical, rock en Español, jazz, mariachi, Brazilian and alternative Latin sounds, all under the guidance of the Conga Room's newly appointed musical director Oscar Hernandez, leader of the Spanish Harlem Orchestra and collaborator with the likes of Paul Simon and Ruben Blades.
