"Created by the owners of The Box and known on TikTok as Joe Jonas’ favorite club, The Stranger doesn’t give away too much online. On Google, it shows up labeled as a “coffee stand.” Its Instagram has only one photo, and its website has little but the page to buy tickets, which go for $56.45 in advance and $86.87 night-of at the newsstand. For the crowd of people gathered around the newsstand on a Friday, the price was apparently worth it to experience this so-called “panoply of pleasures.” 

The Stranger brings the trippy, bizarre, and scandalous to center stage—literally. After walking through a black-light-illuminated corridor lined with performers wearing everything from devil costumes to latex leggings, the view opened up to the main room. Adjusting to the bright lights, my eyes made out a stage at the front with a 15-foot-tall robot shooting lasers out of its hands. A plush llama dangled high above the stage. Through the flashes of colorful light and disco ball reflections, I took in the colossal scoreboards, stuffed animals, graffiti, buoys, fishing nets, and fake ivy around the room. They followed no apparent theme but somehow stayed cohesive. It was set design on steroids.”