New Year’s Eve bash in Hollywood is kaput

New Year’s Eve 2005, which was 2004’s installment of a long-running club promotion popular with the Hollywood underground, has been canceled because of problems with the venue, one of its organizers said.

Promoter-DJ Jason Lavitt, who has run the event with partner Joseph Brooks since 1996, said increased costs at the Hollywood American Legion Hall made throwing the party a losing proposition.

“As we got closer to the event, the costs just kept adding up and adding up,” Lavitt said.

“We weren’t used to a venue tacking on additional charges, and we didn’t want to raise our ticket prices.”

The festivities, held the past five years at the Hollywood Athletic Club (where in 2003 about 2,500 attended), has been a mainstay in the glam and gothic rock ‘n’ roll underworld, highlighted by the scene’s drag queens and fetish crowd and visited by L.A. art and fashion icons. The club was not available for this year’s date because of a recent change in ownership.

The New Year’s Eve celebration brought together clubgoers from four regular Hollywood promotions -- Beat It, Bang!, Tigerheat and Coven 13. The Legion Hall party would have drawn 1,500 had it sold out this year.

“We’ll be back,” Lavitt said. “New Year’s Eve has always been my favorite part of club promoting, and this was special because you see the goth crowd mix with the mod crowd mix with the Top 40 crowd.

“But I’m determined to find a multi-room, multi-floor venue that’s suitable.”