“Kimber is the DJ. Get ridiculous.”
The two phrases, plastered on posters around the city, are hallmarks of popular Atlanta party collective Nonsense ATL. Co-founded by Kimberly Turner, Scott Lockhart, Joseph Fuller and Rob Jones in 2007, Nonsense is 15 years into partying with no intentions of slowing down.
Today, the Nonsense team is small but dedicated: Kimberly Turner, known by her DJ moniker “Kimber,” is the group’s only full-time employee and resident DJ. Scott Lockhart manages marketing, decor and other details, while TAD is the “mad scientist” in charge of creative fabrication.
Together, they throw various themed parties in different venues across Atlanta, like the monthly Hot Mess dance-pop or Heyday 1980s hits at the Basement, the twice-annual Lady Gaga ball and several holiday-themed parties throughout the year. Over the years they’ve hosted about 35 different recurring events. Each one boasts hours of music, costumed partygoers and themed decor to transform the venue.
Turner and Lockhart said the parties take intense work and preparation to come to fruition. But the pair sees Nonsense as a joyful alternative to a nightlife scene that isn’t for everyone.
“The whole sort of reason that we exist is that we think too much of nightlife isn’t fun,” Turner said. “We feel it should be less about looking cool being seen.”
As longtime partiers, Turner and Lockhart see the Atlanta nightlife scene as a very self-conscious space focused on bottle service and VIP venues. Turner wants parties to be a chance to “let go” of personal and social stressors.
“We’ve always focused on trying to give people an opportunity to, like, get stupid and play,” Turner said.
The two came into the nightlife scene as participants first, over 15 years ago. They frequented parties with Decatur Social Club, a group that shut down in 2008. When it closed down there was a gap in the social scene, and the duo wanted to fill it.
Turner, a longtime Atlanta-based journalist and editor, picked up deejaying after she saw a friend learn the craft. As a perfectionist, Turner started working in private on her skills. At her first gig as Kimber, she brought a desktop computer and panicked at the 15-person crowd.
“I was like, ‘I can’t do it,'” Turner said. She packed her things and left.
Since that shaky start Turner has come far as a DJ, now working in the field full-time and playing events like the Atlanta Braves’ annual pride celebration. But a lot of work has gone into Nonsense’s success over the past 15 years.
“One of the things that has really helped us is that Kimber is so versatile as a DJ,” Lockhart said.
She puts hours of research into each set, always looking for new trends in music and songs from around the world. Turner said the music quality is vital to Nonsense ATL.
“I want you to be able to go out and dance to music that you love while feeling like you’re not being judged,” Turner said.
The music is only one part of Nonsense ATL’s trademark “ridiculousness.” Lockhart said there are a “million little things” that come up with every Nonsense party. While Lockhart works a full-time day job, his nightlife tasks are numerous: he makes all the fliers and runs marketing, transforms venues, maintains connections with ticketers and event spaces and feeds intel to Turner during sets.
“Basically, I do all the stuff that Kimber’s not doing,” Lockhart said.
Meanwhile, TAD is the group’s resident fabricator. Lockhart said they often work on concepts and just let TAD “go for it.”
The fabricator joined Nonsense in 2018 after becoming friends with Turner and frequenting Nonsense parties. At the time, TAD worked in the textile industry designing showroom displays, but burnout pushed him out of the industry.
“Burnout caused me to eventually leave, and I decided I no longer want to do that kind of corporate creative work,” TAD said.
He took on a non-creative day job, but the artist still needed an outlet for his combined skills of puppetry, prop design and set fabrication. It wasn’t until he talked to Turner and Lockhart that TAD found an aesthetic match.
“They showed me that we support each others’ aesthetic,” TAD said.
Lockhart often reels in his ideas by encouraging TAD to reuse existing materials to design props. The fabricator gets creative with his work, often using dollar store supplies to make things like horror film-themed shadow boxes from hot glue, foam board and broomsticks. It requires a lot of trial and error for him to execute each vision.
“That’s kind of the process of me bringing it up and gauging interest, and then step by step, I start trying it,” TAD said.
He makes a range of items for the parties, from neon thread recreations of the Nonsense logo to balloon props. For the Nonsense 15th anniversary party in the summer of 2023, he crafted a giant hollow birthday cake from cardboard and paint that attendees could take pictures inside of.
At the end of the night TAD learned a partygoer stole the cake topper, but he thought the theft was “really kind of funny.” He said part of his creation means everything could be broken or stolen. For him, it matters more that the person who took the cake topper had a good time.
Lockhart has seen the good times firsthand when people first enter the transformed venues.
“Seeing the looks on peoples’ faces, where it’s a wonderland, and it’s like, ‘I can play here!'” Lockhart said. “People just don’t get that, they don’t, and that one thing is why we’ve kept on doing it for 15 years.”
Not every Nonsense night is smooth sailing, though. Turner and Lockhart said one of the biggest challenges is getting people to come out at all. Several of their favorite spots, like Noni’s on Edgewood, have shut down over the years. The duo was forced to end their repeat Indie Sleaze night at pizza restaurant and bar Ammazza in December after the venue announced it would close at the end of 2023.
“I would say one of the biggest challenges that Atlanta has is a lack of venues,” Lockhart said.
Turner thinks there has been a change in nightlife culture, too. The onset of COVID-19 pushed many people back into their homes, and now people still come home earlier – or don’t go out at all.
“I feel like people behave in ways they never would have behaved before that,” Turner said.
The pair hope that Nonsense can show what a good nightlife scene brings to Atlanta and, in turn, lure a new generation to the scene. Still, Nonsense has built a loyal base of repeat attendees.
“Over time, the crowd sort of self-selects to people who are cool being dorks,” Turner said.
The team said Nonsense has a “big gay following” and attracts all ages and demographics.
“You often never know who is going to be showing up in Nonsense,” TAD said.
No matter who attends each night, the team at Nonsense ATL wants to bring joy to each attendee. That joy is what brings them back year after year to the Atlanta crowds.
“I think at the end of the day, it just comes down to joy,” Lockhart said.
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