This Heav3n is a genreless, genderless party for the next generation of club kids

© (Jett Lara / For The Times)
Lillith Van Buren, center, poses with her friends while attending Heav3n. ((Jett Lara / For The Times))

When you get to the gates of heaven, down a dark alley under the 10 Freeway and past a bacon-wrapped hot dog cart, there is no judgment. There is just a man who wants to see your ID and look in your purse. After that, all are free to enter.

Inside, a thousand people bop to 2000s Eurodance, a triad of goth dancers in clownface dance onstage, 3-inch rhinestone nails reflect the laser lights, and prosthetics and body makeup can be found on VIPs in the smoking section. This isn’t the heaven that Lulo Logan — who usually goes just by their first name, “like Cher” — learned about while growing up in a traditional Catholic Mexican family in Temecula. This is Heav3n, the genreless, genderless, dress-code-less paradise Lulo created where everyone is welcome.

© (Jett Lara / For The Times)
A member of the audience dressed in a devil suit looks toward the stage, left, and Satanna getting dolled up in front of the mirror, right. ((Jett Lara / For The Times))

Heav3n isn’t just a dance club. It’s a variety show. Between DJ sets there are live music performances, five-minute drag interludes, dance breaks, sword swallowers, burlesque and uncategorizable combinations of all of the above. A ticket to Heav3n starts at $15, with a lineup that boasts 15 performances from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.

It’s a lot to wrangle. Lulo, 31, started the event in December 2014, and it’s happened every month since. It passed through a handful of Los Angeles venues before landing at 1720. The downtown L.A. warehouse space allows attendees over 18, expanding Heav3n to a younger audience than most club events, which set 21 as the age minimum. Many of Heav3n’s younger attendees are drawn to the Y2K aesthetic and electronic music they’ve otherwise heard only as trending songs on TikTok. In 2020 and ’21, during the COVID-19 stay-at-home, Lulo partnered with streaming service Twitch to bring DJ sets and performances into the living rooms of thousands.

Lulo, who is trans, moved to Hollywood at 19 knowing no one. As a teenager they were inspired by the party photography of Mark Hunter, known as the Cobrasnake, and dreamed of moving to L.A. to work in nightlife. They walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard meeting the promoters who ran the neighborhood until they scored a job as a host, bringing cute girls to party for free at bottle-service clubs. Eventually, the exchange started to feel seedy, and Lulo’s experimental fashion crowd wasn’t what the straight, Hollywood spaces were looking for. “I was bringing all my weird friends to these basic clubs and realized, OK, I need a safer space for everyone,” Lulo says.

When Lulo says “weird friends,” they mean the fabulous, and in some cases spooky, party people who fill Heav3n every month, especially the 200-plus regulars who consistently max out the guest list. Lulo describes Heav3n as a “queer safe party, but not exclusively a queer party.” When asking for the pronouns of interviewed attendees, several replied, “Any and all of them.”

On a warm spring night at Heav3n, some attendees take inspiration from club kids, a sect of partiers made famous in the New York City club scene in the late 1980s and early ’90s for their avant-garde outfits, hair and makeup.

Eamon Riley, a loyal Heav3n attendee, identifies as one. On this night, she’s dressed in orange fur with white makeup, large false lashes and yellow cones affixed to her head and outfit. “I love club-kid style because it’s just so free and you can be whoever you want,” she says.

Younger partyers take the opportunity to wear their most scandalous graphic tees with phrases we can’t print. Others come in drag, whether or not they’re performing. One of the night’s performers, Abhora, a “drag monster” and contestant on Shudder’s “The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula,” debuts a terrifying new costume featuring their signature pointy nose and sharp faux teeth.

Nearby, Chandler “Titus” Burton wears a prosthetic chest plate with large breasts packed into a corset top. Full sleeves of tattoos are covered by a single black glove on one arm. His red beard protrudes from bright white makeup contoured with yellow and green pigment. His neon-yellow wig has been styled with choppy layers and short bangs. “I’m giving trailer trash meets skater meets Tomb Raider,” he explains of the look, which he designed himself.

© (Jett Lara / For The Times)
Artist TECH GRL with her red eyelashes, left, and Lillith Van Buren’s stunning nails, right. ((Jett Lara / For The Times))

Lillith van Buren, a drag queen from East Los Angeles, calls her look chaotic. Her green and blue striped hair and sharp makeup match the colorful beaded jewelry she’s layered. Her top is shaped like a butterfly and made of pink sequins. “I had nothing ready and I told myself I’m going to put everything on and look crazy, look cool, and whatever happens out there, happens, and I think I killed it tonight,” she says. In the past, she’s performed as a drag queen at Heav3n but is most frequently booked at events for the gay Latino community.

Tru “XOXO” Padolsky, a tattoo artist with a shop in downtown L.A., calls Heav3n a staple in Los Angeles nightlife and comes for the eclectic performances across genres. Tonight, he wears a gold grill with pointed fangs. His face, neck and body are covered in tattoos, while his entire outfit is pink. “I have a pastel goth style,” he explains, citing Sanrio, the brand behind Hello Kitty, as one of his inspirations.

C.C. Williams is at Heav3n for the first time. She stands tall in the general-admission patio in pink stilettos and ripped black socks and matching dress. Her long hair has pastel extensions that match her makeup. She’s used white paint to exaggerate the size of her eyes, almost like an anime character. “My look tonight is Ganguro style,” she explains. “It comes from Japanese culture, when they exaggerated European beauty standards to show that the strict beauty standards of Japan weren’t necessary. But the problem with it was that they incorporated blackface into the style, so now people of color are reclaiming it. We can wear it because it’s literally already our skin.”

Back inside, despite running a tight ship, Lulo’s demeanor is calm and collected. These days they’re wearing all black, a uniform well suited to working behind the scenes. In the past, they starred in music videos for artists like Lil Peep and Marshmello, and DJed for Alice Glass on tour, but now they prefer to stay out of the spotlight. They even traded their signature green hair for medium-length black curls. A flash of long legs and a pint of beer and they’re off into the shadows again.

Onstage, DJ Ty Sunderland maximizes his 30-minute set by playing chunks of songs perfectly suited to internet attention spans. Kim Petras and Nicki Minaj’s new single is mixed between Charli XCX remixes and Bebe Rexha’s cover of Eiffel 65. DJ TECH GRL, a member of the NeoPerreo collective, a group that brings a darker flair to reggaeton, plays remixes as her evil clown dancers move in the foreground.

© (Jett Lara / For The Times)
Artist TECH GRL looks into the mirror as she puts on her lip gloss, left, and Eamon Riley takes a sip of a drink, right. ((Jett Lara / For The Times))

Love Bailey performs three original songs alongside her male dancers in erotic matador costumes. In between choreography, she takes a minute to address the crowd seriously about issues in the queer community. “There is so much love in this room; we need to make sure it is sent out into the community. We are dying. We need this love,” she shouts.

Singer Lucy Loone belts her bedroom pop while dancing barefoot in fishnets onstage. Rapper Deto Black leads the crowd in a call-and-response of “I’m hot, you’re not.” The crowd is the loudest thus far for Emma Vauxdevil, a burlesque performer who saunters onstage in an ivory rhinestoned number before stripping to nipple tassels that she shakes at the climax of her two-minute performance.

It’s hard to declare a headliner at Heav3n. The event flier presents everyone equally. But a little after midnight, Chloe Cherry, a now-retired adult performer who made her mainstream acting debut in “Euphoria” Season 2, takes the stage to DJ for the first time. She fits right in, wearing another T-shirt we can’t describe.

Performing at Heav3n, even if just for 10 minutes, is a milestone for artists. Lulo handles all the booking, planning big names a few months in advance, sourcing talent from deep wormholes of the internet they find themselves in, occasionally reviewing the many inbound requests they receive begging to perform.

In the past, the event has hosted artists including Alice Glass, Pussy Riot, Noah Cyrus and Pabllo Vittar. It’s an incubator for talent; Grammy winner Petras’ first live show in Los Angeles was at Heav3n. A livestreamed video of visionary producer Sophie’s performance at Heav3n one year before her death now has 1.6 million views.

It’s no surprise that plenty of parties both in Los Angeles and around the world have used Heav3n as their blueprint. Lulo has collaborated with some newer events, including hyperpop parties sksksks in Brooklyn and Fake and Gay in San Francisco. But Heav3n has been around long enough not to cling to one subgenre when defining itself. The night’s curation and reputation are its secret sauce, one that could sustain it for years to come.

Lulo dreams of opening their own Los Angeles venue one day, but until then, they will be busy keeping the gates of Heav3n open to all.

© (Jett Lara / For The Times)
Heav3n’s venue is tucked away in the Fashion District right below the 10 freeway, where you’ll find warehouses and walls lined with street art. ((Jett Lara / For The Times))

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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