The Honolulu Academy of Arts' wildly popular ARTafterDARK gives young urbanites a reason to stop by and explore pau hana. It's also an event that has grown more successful than organizers ever imagined.

The monthly now regularly attracts 1,000, much more than the 200 who showed up for the debut "Kung Fu Friday" in February 2004. The goal: attract new patrons to a lifetime of art collecting and involvement in community arts programs. ARTafterDARK is now the academy's only self-sustaining program. Profits go back into it, and help museum programming and exhibits.

ARTafterDARK events are planned around the museum's exhibitions. This month's is "Art-See," in connection with "Artists of Hawai'i," with music by Jerome James and the Universoul Beat Orchestra, zip tours of the new exhibit, and a gallery talk by the Catherine E.B. Cox award-winning featured artist, Kaili Chun.

ARTafterDARK's theme last month was alluring enough: "Holy Grail! Behind the Da Vinci Code." The flick, based on Dan Brown's millions-selling novel, had opened a week earlier. And several hundred smartly dressed Honolulans gathered to nosh on Italian eats (salade Caprese, petite osso bucco) and beer (mmmm! Birra Moretti), listen to live, Euro-themed acoustic music in the main courtyard and get palm and tarot readings. Many also explored the galleries, a la the book's Robert Langdon, for clues to a surprisingly tough art-related quiz.

Piped-in Gregorian chants (the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo) blanketed a crowd far larger than at my last Night Stuff visit, in February 2005. An actor dressed like a monk — no doubt channeling "Da Vinci" villain Silas — slinked around the Mediterranean courtyard trying to look creepy, despite sporting rubber slippers and not being albino.

" 'Holy Grail' was really about the Western (art) galleries," said coordinator Lori Admiral. "We knew the film was opening in May, so we worked around that."

There's no formula for what brings in large crowds, Admiral said. ARTafterDARK's thirty-something-aged committee doesn't make decisions with that in mind.

"While we do want the theme to attract a 'younger crowd' ... we tend to think about events that we would want to go to. Something that sounds like a fun tie-in to whatever exhibition we happen to be highlighting," Admiral said.

A no-repeat policy on themes hasn't yet proven difficult either.

"Art is ever-changing, so there's always so many new things to do."

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.