Raves and underground dance parties have a tendency to get messy at times, particularly those with colorful themes. Just ask Arizona Event Center owner Wayne Craig, since his cavernous Mesa venue has hosted a few such events in the past year that left things gloriously sloppy by the end of the night. To wit: The annual Bloodfest last October saw participants drenching the place and each other with gallons of crimson liquid, while August's Splat! paint party involved much of the same, only with a rainbow of glossy pigments instead. And Bubble Bobble 5 in March featured flocks of ravers grinding in a shoulder-high sea of soapy foam, leading one onlooker to describe the scene as a "giant sweaty bowl of raver soup."
Thank goodness for plastic dropcloths, which promoters lay down in abundance beforehand, obviously the reason Craig doesn't seem to mind the mess so much. "They do a nice job to prep things, and we have some good folks that work for us to help out afterwards," he says. A crack cleaning crew and an agreeable proprietor aren't its only amenity, as the 30,000-square-foot former nightclub and big-box store also has three stages, a full bar for 21-and-over types, and even a mechanical bull (a holdover from a brief stint as a country bar). Its tiny smoking area often gets a little too crowded but allows rave kids the pretense to get closer to partygoers of the opposite sex and offer to clean off some of the excess paint, fake blood, or foam.