Before Utah changed its liquor laws in 2009, every bar in the state was technically a "private club for members." Most venues treated it as a bureaucratic inconvenience. Area 51 made it a philosophy.
Located at 451 S. 400 West in Salt Lake City, Area 51 operated on two floors, each with its own identity. Upstairs ran the '80s flashback and new wave nights — electroclash, alternative, trance. Downstairs was something else entirely. That's where "Sanctuary" and "Subculture" nights lived: old-school industrial, EBM, darkwave. If you were in SLC and into Manufactura, Attrition, or Icon of Coil, this was the only room in the state built for you.
Two Floors, Two Worlds
The venue hosted national touring heavyweights — Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Manufactura vs. Terrorfakt, UK darkwave pioneers Attrition — and staged the Dark Arts Festival in June 2008, a three-day event headlined by London After Midnight. Monthly Fetish Nights drew regulars in full attire. The City Weekly Slammys held their Goth/Darkwave Showcase here.
The door policy that built the scene
Utah's old private-club law forced every bar to operate as a members-only venue. Most rooms saw it as red tape. Area 51 treated it like a door policy — and used it to carve out a room for the music nobody else in the state would book.
What Stayed
When the liquor laws changed, the private club model dissolved. But the community Area 51 built — SLC's goth, industrial, and dark-alternative underground — didn't disappear. It scattered. You can still find its DNA in every dark alternative night running in this city today.
Were you a regular? Do you remember Sanctuary nights or the Dark Arts Festival?
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