It's hard because I see both sides of the issue and agree with both.
Wilhelm is right that two rooms does look empty although I don't really care about a crowd. I'm happy just hearing music myself as was the case on City Club Sundays when DJ Riccer was spinning with 15 people in the club and ME on the dance floor spinning around acting like an idiot till I fell down, simply because I could.
However I felt the same way Helena does when John would close the two upper levels of the bar. People stopped coming because of that fact. Hell I still can't decide which floor was my favorite out of two and three, but it certainly wasn't the first floor. Part of the draw of that club was the three bars on three levels. Most of the time people didn't care if one of the bars was closed, they just wanted a change of view.
Another good example is The Labyrinth when the upstairs bar was a part of it and people could chill out up there as well. I mean I loved that, why did they ever change that? They did it too late though because if they did it back when The Lab was packed when I first started going they'd probably have made even more money.
Oblivion is certainly not more important than the patrons though (and I'm in the troupe saying this). The patrons come first because the patrons bring us money. The night exists for them first and always, otherwise it would just be a warehouse practice space. That being said Oblivion does give The Works a sweet deal for letting them use their space to practice. I'm sorry it went a little over last night but that was due to the fact there will be some bands at an all ages show running from 7-9 tonight at The Ritz (which none of us over there are happy about either but this was planned MONTHS ago).
Believe me I and all the other DJs have been nagging Wilhelm as well because it means more time for each of us to do our thing. However we also understand his point of view as well. It costs money to run the sound system and lights back there as well. There are 7 power amps driving two large speakers. Then there's the back heater which costs money because otherwise it's freezing back there.
I also like the hard core dedicated crowd that shows up every week and I'm glad we have that. I do what I can to make the night awesome and I'm sorry Helena that you missed my really awesome set. However I do like that we do a variety of things, two rooms or not. We do Deathrock and Goth, and we do Industrial and neoEBM. If we're so inclined we'll even throw down some metal and punk. Although it's really hard to please everyone we still try.
Believe me though that you're concerns have not fallen on deaf ears.
I will post the playlist later, I'm at a friends house right now and my gear is in the car for tonight's show. Rest assured though it's all awesome.