Smoke & Mirrors — Local services in West Chicago Township

Smoke and Mirrors is one big, swirling shadow, and they play music that locals will like.

You should know that I was only there for 15 minutes. I don't think anything needs to change. But I got nervous from how dark it was. I've just never been to a club that was so dark. The whole venue is under ground, so there's zero natural light, and when I went, the whole joint was lit up by the DJ booth and 3-4 0.5w LEDs. I pointed my flashlight at the floor and yeah, it was probably as bright as every single light in there combined. I'm not really exaggerating. I wonder if the other reviews complaining about lights just couldn't put their finger on their issue, cuz what little light there was was not disorienting or anything. Even the bar was only illuminated by its alcohol..... BUT ITS SOOOO COOL 🤩 The lounge in the back by the bathrooms with the SMOKIN HOT furniture is a little brighter, and back there is where I realized just how much the FOG makes it EVEN HARDER to see anything. There's definitely a comfort to be found in the privacy of the darkness. That lounge was the most vampiric room I've ever been in. I probably only left because a patron said they don't wand everybody that comes in... I shouldve asked him for more details because I have no idea how truthful he was being. But there was a lot of dudes wearing excessively heavy coats and sunglasses. For me, it was hard to trust anyone there, even though I got ZERO bad vibes from anyone. Even the dudes in shades looked or acted friendly when approached. I'm just not used to not being able to see anything. It's intense. The security all seemed stone cold sober, which is probably good. They seemed like they were mostly Green Berets dude. I was intimidated. But that's on me. I wanna go back so bad xD I'm pretty sure it was just the opener playing at that point and it was perfectly good music. The DJ was a pretty "caramel" girl, that's about all I could discern. Chicago style beats. I saw a lot of ppl shmoovin in the crowd. Perfect volume (assuming it would get turned down at SOME point over the course of 4 goddamn hours, which other reviews imply) and great sound, and I'm a huge advocate for turning it down when it gets stupid loud like it does sometimes. If you have experience clubbing, I would call this a...

This is the one Auris venue that has so much potential to actually be somewhat cool yet they drop the ball every time I go. They have an L-Acoustics sound system that should sound amazing but the sound guys who usually work don’t know how to tune a room. It’s either too quiet or too loud and they’re usually playing on their phones instead of walking around the room trying to make it sound good. It’s sad cause I’ve had friends of mine literally go to the sound booth and tune the room for their friends playing cause we’re embarrassed for our friends who came into town and headlined. (Dustin Zahn). They don’t know how to set up turntables correctly for DJs. Shocker. They also don’t know how to slot headlining DJs. PUT HEADLINING DJS 12-2am! Not 2-4am. We are not NY OR LA. The crowd can be really young, uninterested in the music and your typical Auris crowd who wants hard techno. Bro-y dudes bothering girls time vibe I’ve seen first hand. The drinks are crazy expensive cause they usually just let everyone in free with the RSVP. No free water stations anywhere and waters are like $5-6 bucks. The best thing about the venue is ticket girls. They are super nice and do their job well. Security is decent from my experience, a lot better than other Auris venues. Overall, you will probably be disappointed when coming here so don’t be surprised if that’s your experience. This place should be much better than it...

normally i would just not write a review but sometimes i think certain things need to be called out. this is a very mediocre venue. it is borderline unsafe. there isn’t appropriate lighting to keep you from walking into things or not seeing stairs. there isn’t appropriate floor mats in the bathroom so when you dry your hands under the air dryer it just creates a puddle on the tile below that you track back into the club and down a tile ramp, creating invisible slippery patches bc everything is either painted black or a mirror. someone told me that this place has been open for a year. if that is the case these are inexcusable oversights that will eventually result in injury, all to provide a short term financial benefit to the unqualified individual who owns and operates this venue. and as a final note, every single staff member (that wasn’t a bartender) were just hanging around doing nothing. maybe it’s time for the team at smoke and mirrors (terrible name btw) to take a field trip to a proper club and learn how to operate something other than a moneygrab. sorry chicago, your nightlife is still...