Where in the World is Mark Knight? (And What Not to do When Your Headliner Goes AWOL)

Sunday night at around 1 a.m., I and maybe a hundred or so people stood around at LiFE Nightclub at the SLS Hotel in Las Vegas with the same collective thought: Where in the world is Mark Knight? (Just to clarify, there were more than a hundred people present, but I figure the bottle rats using two iPhone flashes to get the perfect #Selfie were oblivious to the matter.)

Yes, it was a case of the infamous DJ no show, while not a common occurrence (aside from a certain former “Mafia” member), it can certainly be an agitating one. I mean, you’ve been fangirling with excitement since the announcement, you plan your entire day to make sure you get in a good disco nap before the evening, even as a rather low maintenance female, it takes me about an hour to get “Vegas club ready” (no showing up in sweatpants. Trust me, I tried).

Only I get to the club and suddenly embrace the utter confusion over why the opening DJ for one of the most well-known deep house DJs is playing Calvin Harris’ now overly-cliché summertime banger. As you stand there joking to yourself, “It’s not even summer, why is the DJ playing ‘Summer?’” rumors among well-connected friends start swirling. “Mark never checked into the hotel.” “He never made his flight to Vegas.” “Friends of his can’t get in touch with him.”

Now, to Mr. Knight. Or Mark–can I call you Mark? As of this writing, we’ve still had no word from you. Not even a single scripted tweet from your PR guys. I really hope wherever you are (I’m assuming LA, since you had just played a gig at the Avalon the night before and from all accounts, seemed perfectly fine), that you are OK and have a perfectly justifiable reason for falling off the radar last night. Maybe you’d gone for a late night drive to clear your head and your phone broke (I bet it was one of those damn iPhone 6’s) and you got lost somewhere in the Santa Monica Mountains. Maybe you’d had issues sleeping, took an Ambien, slept-walked to Disneyland and you’re now nestled up next to one of the animatronic pirates in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Whatever the case may be, we’re worried about you, Boo. Please call. Or text. Or tweet. Carrier pigeon. Something. ANYTHING.

To LiFE Nightclub: being a Vegas local, I know I’m not your normal target demographic, but in this case I am. For those unaware, Sunday is what’s referred to as “industry night.” It’s a night focused on bringing out Vegas locals and employees of the other clubs in town in the wake of the mass exodus of departing Vegas weekenders. In an effort to differentiate itself in an oversaturated market for nightclubs on The Strip, LiFE made the bold decision to brand their industry night as “Underground Sundays,” booking the likes of Richie Hawtin, Green Velvet, Apollonia and Eric Prydz playing as his techno alter-ego Cirez D. Namely, it’s become a sanctuary for those of us who’d rather bang our heads against a wall than hear another DJ set full of club bangers, bass drops and bad transitions (because frankly, both seem to have similar effects.)

So when it became apparent that Mr. Knight was going to no show, why on earth would you switch to an open-format full of exactly the same music that we’ve so faithfully flocked to your venue every Sunday to escape from? Even more so, knowing this is a night that attracts locals, many of us with day jobs, who are willingly forego sleep and struggle through our Monday mornings for the sake of supporting your gamble to bring underground music to Vegas, why would you wait until 1:30 a.m. to announce via Twitter the headliner was a no show? I’d like to think that you were holding out til the last possible moment in vain hope he’d appear, but the fact your opener was pretty much playing open format from the get go says to me you knew well in advance what was going to happen. I realize the headliner no-showing puts a club in a major bind, but the judgment calls made on Sunday scream of poor communication and the management being out of touch with the venue’s audience. Bad form LiFE, bad form.

In summary, Mark, hope you’re alright, but you got some ‘splainin to do. LiFE, do better next time.