I love a good partnership in the nightlife. The best is when the people partnering up don’t have too much overlap in their reach. Then it’s like the sky is the limit. I myself have done it once or twice and for the most part it’s fantastic. When you’re alone, sometimes you can get so far up your own ass that you might lose sight of what you’re doing. As someone who prefers going out alone and working alone, I can tell you first hand that it’s a good thing to allow someone to share some of the responsibility (and profits). It’s not easy to give it up and there certainly has to be compromises made, but in the end I’ve always found it to be worth it. If, for anything, to learn more about your own self.

Flash Hansen is no stranger to partnering up, as many still refer to him as “Flash from Flash & Matty Boy.” Decades in the scene and year after year of working to keep things fresh, he has decided to partner up with Blaise Sato to take over The Modern Honolulu for New Year’s Eve. As a sort of nod to the days when Flash & Matty Boy used to take over the entire W, Blaise decided to call on Flash to work with him on the event that he had simmering for quite some time with the hotel. With the long term in mind, they are working to create the kind of party that will be defined as the place to be for their crowds. The place to be being a one-stop shop with the party all over the hotel that night, room packages and a beach club at the pool the next day. A bottle servicey, fancy-fancy, indoor/outdoor party spectacular that lasts the entire weekend. Of course, being a partner at Apartment3 keeps Flash pretty busy. They have their own Glitteratti event on New Year’s Eve, with the Cherry Blossom Cabaret and lots of glitter makeovers. With the cabaret Saturday nights already being a max capacity crowd every month it was a natural step outside Flash’s surroundings to really do something big like he’s used to doing.

Speaking of The Modern Honolulu, I was just a little bit worried about their new nightclub Addiction in the soft opening weeks. I wasn’t sure how the scene was going to receive the new management team or the new club. There were still some grumblings about the way the takeover was handled, and it was spilling over to the Internet. Still, it turned out to be one of the best openings I’ve seen in a while, with many service industry and club owners in the crowd to support. That speaks volumes about the hard work Nightlife Director Matt Bendik and his team put in to it. It was truly the place to be Thursday night at their official grand opening. With more structural changes in the works, the club only plans to get better. My favorite is their extended night time to day time with a Beach Club at their upstairs pool every Sunday. There’s nothing that beats a Sunday day time party to have drinks and recap what the hell happened the night before. Lazing around in the shallow pool feels amazing for a hangover. Even with thousands of light bulbs above our heads in Addiction, it’s hard to see all that hard work people put into their fitness. Now with the Beach Club, there’s a place to do just that. I’m not mad.