Revelers get down on the Bonham dance floor. Credit: Julian Ledezma

In a 2012 article titled “The Worst Holiday,” The Atlantic summed up New Year’s Eve as overhyped and anticlimactic.

“On Dec. 31, mediocre restaurants throughout America string absurd velvet ropes outside their doors, inflate black and white balloons as decoration, and charge three times the usual price for the same old fare plus bad champagne,” journalist Conor Friedersdorf quipped. “Is it any wonder that our elders, as they grow older and wiser, opt to stay home and turn in before midnight?”

While there’s plenty of truth to that cynical perspective, we’re of two minds — not willing to shell out wads of cash … but also not willing to retire before the countdown. With an abundance of similar events planned across town — complete with interchangeable flyers co-opting Great Gatsby-inspired fonts — we’re leaning toward ringing in the new year at the wonderfully old Bonham Exchange, the undisputed grande dame of San Antonio nightlife.

Boasting multiple levels and rooms to explore, affordable drink prices and a consistently mixed crowd, the historic club is an ideal space to lose yourself for a spell — even if that takes shape in doom-scrolling over stiff cocktails until the downtown fireworks begin.

Hailed as “San Antonio’s biggest New Year’s Eve dance party,” the Bonham’s final shindig of 2024 brings a different DJ to each of its key rooms. While revelers can shimmy the night away to jams by DJ Cobweb in the main room and DJ Cece in the cozy video bar, we’re most excited to exorcise our demons to the tribal stylings of Twisted Dee upstairs in the Rainbow Ballroom. Born Dee Martello, the Orlando-based DJ and producer has remixed songs by a slew of major artists — from Beyoncé and Michael Jackson to The Killers and Fall Out Boy — and landed multiple original tracks on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart.

Call us crazy, tacky or both, but we’re hoping Twisted Dee throws down her famed remix of the Material Girl’s bratty 2015 comeback “Bitch I’m Madonna” featuring guest vocals by queen Nicki Minaj.

$5-$15, 8 p.m.-3 a.m., Bonham Exchange, 411 Bonham St., (210) 224-9219, bonhamexchange.com.

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This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2024.