In-tents time awaits car show, FBR revelers

The trendy Scottsdale club set will be roughing it in tents for a couple of weeks this month.

Barrett-Jackson’s Garage hopes to rival the FBR Open’s Birds Nest in attracting the local party crowd.

Both events, aimed at car collectors and golf lovers respectively, have become annual lifestyle happenings, attracting hordes of people who just like to be where the rest of the Valley’s hip set are. The partiers clearly outnumber those who want to buy or sell pricey cars or pick up putting tips by watching the PGA pros.

Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction set up shop at WestWorld of Scottsdale on Sunday and wraps up this Sunday.

The FBR Open, the most attended stop on the PGA Tour, moves into the TPC Scottsdale course Jan. 28 through Feb. 3, virtually a fairway length from the car auction’s site.

The two venues obviously don’t coincide on dates, but Barrett-Jackson expects its upstart tent club, the Garage, to get respect similar to longtime favorite Birds Nest.

Both signed up local favorites the Chadwicks and Metalhead, but the Garage pits all-female cover band Shirley’s Temple against aging disco don KC and his Sunshine Band at the PGA-focused party venue.

In fact, there are more differences in the venues’ plans than similarities.

The Garage has several fashion shows on the agenda, but the Birds Nest offers up more bands. The Groove Merchants, Tainted Love, Super Diamond and Duck Soup, a national PGA favorite, will perform.

And the golf tourney, by virtue of its fortunate timing, will host a major sports lovers attraction this year only. Fox Sports plans to broadcast its “Best Damn Sports Show Period” for three days from the party tent in the run-up to Super Bowl XLII Feb. 3 in Glendale.

Still, a little friendly rivalry will boost both venues, said Tim Louis, FBR Open chairman.

“It can only bring more attention to both,” he said.

While the Birds Nest won’t compete directly with the Garage, this year it will go up against lots of pricey, and in some cases private, celebrity-sprinkled Super Bowl parties, many of them happening nearby in Scottsdale.

“It will be unbelievable — the entertainment in town that week,” Louis said.

On a typical year, about 80 percent of the Birds Nest revelers come from the golf tournament, said Rob Myers, FBR Open spokesman. The club tent sits on a piece of parkland just outside the FBR Open gates.

All of the Garage crowds will be Barrett-Jackson attendees, since the tent is inside the auction’s gates.

But Phil Neri, Barrett-Jackson’s vice president of sales, said the auction has a “happy hour” entry price of about half the all-day admission fare. He predicted that the bands are so good, people will be willing to ante up and come for the evening’s fun.

“The Birds Nest is a lot bigger in the number of people (it can accommodate), but bands are definitely better at the Garage,” he said. “We’re trying to create excitement, buzz,” Neri said. “We’re trying to create an environment that will, in the next few years, rival the Birds Nest.”

Tent-style clubbing

What: Garage

Where: WestWorld, 16601 N. Pima Road

When: 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Monday, 10 a.m. to auction close, Tuesday-Sunday

Admission: Varies with day, time

What: Bird’s Nest

Where: 82nd Street and Bell Road

When: 3:30 p.m.-10 p.m., Jan. 30-Feb. 2

Admission: $25, through Ticketmaster or at gate.