Beauty Bar Tweaks Name Of 'Zero Gravity' Halloween Party Amid Legal Threats
By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 26, 2017 5:50PM
Another teen rager, at the real Zero Gravity / Facebook
Oh, the perils of the Chicago pop-culture-themed popup. A day after news emerged that the Beauty Bar would "go as" Naperville's shuttered Zero Gravity Nightclub this Halloween weekend, organizers behind the event have tweaked the name amid intimations of legal action from the team behind the original club.
"WE ARE TAKING PROPER ACTIONS AGAINST THIS ILLEGAL MISLEADING ACT," posted an all-caps-angry Zero Gravity—the infamous, suburban teen-friendly party zone—on Facebook.
Organizers behind the bar-sized costume apparently decided it wasn't worth the risk and changed the name to the vague-enough "Beauty Bar as 90s suburban club." Name aside, the party will go on as planned.
The name change was noted by Eater Chicago, which also rightly points out that bars and restaurants "dressing up" as another venue—real or fictional—is nothing new. Perhaps most famously here in Chicago, Lula Cafe held an annual Halloween "costume" tradition for 15 years, including mini-runs as Not Doug's and Taco Hell, through 2014.
But there seems to be a heightened awareness of potential legal pitfalls as themed popups become more and more in vogue. We all remember how Netflix nixed Emporium's potential plans to extend the run of the bar's massively popular Stranger Things popup. Interestingly enough, the team behind the Zero Gravity party is the same one that launched the successful Saved By the Bell-themed diner popup in Wicker Park—so they would seem to know the ropes as well as anyone.
On a similar topic, lets hope Lincoln Park arcade bar Replay, which is dressing up as Moe's Tavern, from The Simpsons, for Halloween, has already made sure things are cool with Twentieth Century Fox. Because it wouldn't be the first time that the studio has gone after a Chicago bar for drawing direct inspiration from Homer's favorite watering hole.
Amended flyer, sans reference to the club that shall not be named.