CRIMEWAVE doesn’t do warm-up. When DJ Steve Prinsen opens at Photo City Music Hall on October 9, the expectation is that you arrive already in the right headspace — dressed for it, committed, not making a slow transition from your regular Friday night into something darker. The whole thing goes until the early hours of Saturday, and that’s by design.
About the Show
The nationally touring goth, darkwave, and post-punk dance party series produced by What The Dance (@thedanceparties) has worked more than ten cities in 2026 alone: Minneapolis’s Fine Line, New York’s DROM, Chicago’s Bourbon on Division, Milwaukee’s Vivarium, Albuquerque, and more. Each stop runs the same format: a DJ deep in the shadow spectrum of goth, post-punk, new wave, and industrial, and a crowd that came dressed. The organizers’ framing is consistent across every city: “Dive into the shadows and lose yourself to CRIMEWAVE — a night of your favorite goth, darkwave, new wave, post-punk, and industrial music.” The people who attend treat that as a literal promise.
Each city gets a local DJ. For Rochester, that’s Steve Prinsen, spinning from a confirmed playlist that includes Depeche Mode, The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, Mareux, Molchat Doma, Boy Harsher, and Crystal Castles. The range covers synth-pop and new wave classics through contemporary darkwave and post-punk, a set that moves across decades without getting stuck in any single nostalgia corner. This is not a tribute night or a single-era revival; it’s a working DJ set built across the full width of the genre.
CRIMEWAVE’s dress code, “dress to impress and dance into the darkness,” functions as the event’s social contract. The people who take it seriously are the ones who own the floor. If you’ve been waiting for a Rochester night where the black velvet is expected and not explained, October 9 is it.
Venue & Logistics
Photo City Music Hall brings CRIMEWAVE to the Finger Lakes region on October 9, co-presenting the event alongside What The Dance. The club is the right size for a night built on density and bass, intimate enough that the sound has nowhere to go but through you. Doors open at 8 p.m. The event runs into the early hours of Saturday, October 10. Attendance is 18+.
Tickets
At $14–$20, it’s a fair price for a touring series working this size of room. Tickets are available through PhotoCityMusicHall.com and on Eventbrite. No refunds. Buy tickets