Inside Beyoncé’s “Club Renaissance” Event in Los Angeles

On Friday night, lines formed outside of Skylight’s Forgotten Edge, a relatively unmarked warehouse space in downtown Los Angeles, for “Club Renaissance,” a two-night event in celebration of Renaissance, Beyoncé‘s seventh studio album. Released in July, the album is a kaleidoscopic exploration of genre, escapism and self-expression; on it, Beyoncé experiments with different shades of dance, house, disco, pop and R&B.

The party’s unspoken 1970s-era theme was interpreted by attendees for their outfits in a range of ways, much like the sonic versatility of the project itself. The event, presented by Amazon Music and Parkwood Entertainment, featured several notables in attendance, including Kenya Barris, Lori Harvey, and singers Syd, Victoria Monét and Lucky Daye.

The building was lined with graphic posters of a Renaissance promotional image, which several partygoers used as a backdrop for their photographs. And there was another wall ripe for photo opportunities, decorated with neon signs that bore song lyrics and titles from the album, like “Church Girl” and “Cozy.”

Guests chatted and sipped thematically named cocktails (“Cuff It” and “Alien Superstar,” also Renaissance titles) once doors were open, and approximately an hour after the event started at 9 p.m., the DJ began to play Renaissance top to bottom and in spatial audio. Attendees enjoyed it from the dance floor for the duration, creating the very Studio 54-esque dance party the project promises. (A group of engineers tucked along the periphery were controlling the sensory displays, which included strobe lights and fog elements.)

The glowing, holographic horse Beyoncé is seated on in the album’s cover art was prominently placed in the center of the room, enclosed in a glass box like a museum artifact. Throughout the night, the air was buzzing with the question of whether Beyoncé herself would join the event, as she did in previous cities (ultimately, she did not).

Saturday’s event is expected to draw more of the singer’s fan base. Free tickets were released online to her subscribers earlier this week and sold out in under 20 minutes.

The first “Club Renaissance” was essentially the album’s official release party and was held in August at Times Square Edition hotel in New York. There was also a Parisian edition of the event in October during Paris Fashion Week.