After all the talk on Iowa State’s campus about “going dry” for Veishea, students never hear of places that have gone wet.

But due to a lack of business from its intended clientele, the local dance club The Scene announced Wednesday it will close its doors to the under-21 crowd, abandon its initial mission and transform into a bar.

The former all-ages club secured a liquor license this week and beginning Friday, customers must be at least 21 years of age to enter.

The Scene opened for business just seven weeks ago at a prime 124 Welch Ave. location and promised to be a fun, non-alcoholic alternative for underage students.

“Our original idea was a dance club designed for freshman and sophomores who hadn’t made it to 21 yet,” owner Andrew White said. “We had two pool tables, dancing, good music and a dart board.”

But these elements weren’t enough to attract enough business.

“It just wasn’t able to catch on with 18, 19 and 20-year-olds,” White explained. “Between parties at dorms and fraternities, it didn’t seem like something people were interested in. Well, up until we opened people were saying ‘yeah that’s great, we’d like to go to a place like that.'”

As the seven weeks dragged on, the club was not receiving much of a crowd, and White concluded that the only way to ensure the success of the club was to go wet.

“The No. 1 one complaint we got was that there was no liquor,” White said. “Apparently, alcohol is an important part of dancing and socializing, unfortunately.”

The staff at The Scene did everything in its power to encourage people to come to the club. Several thousand flyers and posters promoting theme nights, radio station promotions, advertisements and distribution of free passes still didn’t draw a large enough group of customers.

They even visited residence hall house meetings and fraternity and sorority houses to get the word out.

White said one event The Scene used to expand its audience was a swing night on Thursdays. Free lessons were offered at 9 p.m. with dancing afterward.

“We’d get a big turnout for the lessons, and then people would leave,” White explained. “A strong effort was made, but it just didn’t work.”

Tonight’s swing night is the last opportunity for those who are underage to go to The Scene.

The Scene employs one disc jockey, who White said has been well-liked by customers.

White pondered the addition of live music at the club, but since he thought it would be difficult to recruit an audience, the idea was never initiated.

Another issue that was brought up was a setup similar to that of The M-Shop, allowing liquor to be sold in addition to being all ages.

“As far as I know, Ames doesn’t allow that,” White said. “My understanding is that it is not legal to have alcohol and underage people present at the same time.”

Because The Scene was opened to provide an outing alternative for underage students besides “going out for pizza and to a movie,” White said he is disappointed that he had to change the format of his business.

“We had a good alternative, and [underage students] did not seem interested,” he explained.

The new 21-and-over version of the club will be in essence the same as the original idea, but with alcohol, White said.

“It was an easy transition, but not my preferred one,” he said.

One of the most notable changes is that The Scene will now be open six days a week, opening at 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4 p.m. on Friday, 8 p.m. on Saturday with the club closing at 2 a.m. each night.

On Friday night, the central Iowa radio station KKDM will be on hand from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. to give out concert tickets and CDs.