The Nightclub Game: Grown Man Business
[***This post is long. Like Panama-length long. I'm dropping k-nowledge that many people might find useful. I'm trying to save you motherfuckers money. Do the k-nowledge and read. ***]
For the past 9 months now, I’ve been managing a nightclub in DC. It’s a pretty well-known spot and we hold all types of events. We’ve had Erykah Badu hosting a party and have had 9th Wonder (of Little Brother, Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z production fame) spinning on the 1′s and 2′s. We’ve held court for The Roots crew and had ?uestlove spinning old school classics. We’ve done concerts and happy hours. Cornel West has been there as has Malcolm Jamal-Warner. Dick Gregory randomly strolled by one day. We’ve hosted First Fridays. We’ve hosted fundraiser gala’s.
Basically, we’re all purpose like a motherfucker. For as many successful events as I’ve seen happen at our club, I’ve witnessed a million terrible events. And by terrible I mean, nobody shows up…period. Bad planning. Just an all around fuckfest of an event. In fact, we often joke about the worst parties we’ve had. The running joke–and I’m not sure how it started–between me and one of the owners is that whenever a bad party happens, “it’s another Panama party”. Me no know.
I know that there are are a lot of burgeoning event planners and party promoters out there who think that they can throw parties and just know that they’d be good at it.
Yeah. Okay.
Before you put all of your money where my hand is, let me explain to you how to throw a bad party. People often times tell you what you need to throw the party to end all parties. Fuck that. Let me explain to you the mindstate that goes into throwing a bad party. Follow me.
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10 WAYS TO THROW A SHITTY PARTY AND HEAR THE OWNER SAY, “FUCK YOU, PAY ME”
1) Think that just because you’ve throw a few successful house parties, you can step up into the big leagues.
Methinks that this is where everything goes wrong for most people. You see, house parties, though they involve planning, are just that. House parties. You don’t need nearly as many people to fill a house as you do to fill a club. Folks don’t pay a cover. Further, you can tell people to bring bottles of liquor and most will comply. You need a marginal sound system. Basically, the ONLY think you need for a house party is really the house and some speakers. And some red cups. You can tell people to bring liquor but the least you can do is get the Solo cups. And do you know what luxury you have by throwing a house party? No cost…well, aside from the potential damage that may occur during said houseparty. But really, if you know enough broke people…ya know, the motherfuckers who DON’T feel like getting dressed up and paying for the luxury of seeing people that they don’t know, you can throw successful houseparties once a month or more than that if you throw one party where major shit went down that keeps people talking.
Hell, people LIKE house parties because they’re low maintenance and low budget. It’s the “I have shit else to do” alternative to sitting at home scratching your balls and being a loser on a Friday night.
2) Think that your friends are going to support you in all of your endeavors in life.
Hmm…yeah. No. If you think that just because you’re throwing a party your friends will come out and be your source of support you are sadly mistaken. Unless you are known for throwing the banging ass house parties (see 1) a solid 10 percent maybe of all the friends you invite are going to come to your party and PAY to get in to said party. Let’s just be real here. Friends feel like they should get friend priveleges. They want that $Free.99 hookup. Problem is, maybe the owner is getting a cut of the door and he’s going to be very careful about you letting in everybody unless it’s outlined upfront. Shit…I fuckin’ MANAGE a nightclub and do you know how many people I know who’ve ONLY been there for shit like my birthday?! And they’d get in free. Just because you’re doing it doesn’t mean that anybody is coming. That Field of Dreams shit? For birds and white people.
And to piggyback on #2…
3) Think that everybody who says they’re coming…is coming.
Most promoters use the half-half metric. This means that if they get 300 RSVPs, they expect maybe half will show up. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in meetings with promoters who tell me, “yeah man, it’s looking great, I have like 1000 RSVPs!” Day of the party and 30 people show up. I’m not sure why this little facet of life eludes people but read this very carefully:
IT TAKES NOTHING TO RSVP TO AN EVENT. Hell, I can’t go to shit because I work on every Friday and Saturday night but do you know I RSVP for damn near every event that comes my way…AND I KNOW I CAN’T EVEN GO! Everybody RSVP’s for shit like free guestlists so that they can cover all of their options SHOULD THEY decide to actually go out.
Word to the wise, don’t be a dolt…any motherfucker can RSVP.
4) Think you can do it by yourself.
Look, the only things in life that ALWAYS works out okay solo are masturbating and first-degree murder. Word to OJ Simpson. Everything else helps to have a partner or somebody to help cover the bases. This is the catch-22 that most solo promoters get themselves caught up in. Sure, if you’re night is a success, you reap all the reward. But if it doesn’t? You lose dunny. You stay losing too because unless you got major dolo, you probably weren’t expecting to have to come off of $3,000 dollars to cover the bar minimum that you didn’t reach.
Here’s a little knowledge for you folks thinking about joining the wonderful world of club promotion. It’s a business. Wait…y’all must didn’t hear that Tribe Called Quest shit…
IT’S A BUSINESS. You and the owner agree to terms that are going to be beneficial for you both, but moreso for the owner. You’re getting a bar miminum. For the uninitiated, that means you will have an agreed upon amount that the bar must meet in order for you to basically walk out of the club breaking even. This also supposes that the owner is not taking anything off of what you charge at the door.
Many club owners want some of the door and want the bar. Promoters want the door and some of the bar. You see how that can get muddled?
So say you have a party on a Friday night with a bar minimum of $5,000 (which is cheap actually, I mean it is Friday), and you’re charging $20 at the door. Well, if 100 people show up, that $5000 is a pretty hard number to reach because everybody has to spend: what class??!?!
$50 bucks! Yeah, that ain’t happening. Consider that women are cheap bastards and also that folks do not want to blow $50 bucks on drinks AFTER they just blew $20 at the door.
And if the party is wack, folks will leave early. Sure they’re mad that they paid $20, but chances are you said folks would get in free before 11pm or something ANYWAY to get them there. Effectively, you’ve made NOTHING at this point. With 100 people you’re lucky if your bar does $2,000. So say it does. And say 50 of those 100 paid to get in.
What you’ve effectively done is made $1,000 at the door and the bar did $2,000. And let’s say the owners benevolent and doesn’t take anything from the door. Chance are you paid at least $1,000 up-front to reserve the party since owners ain’t stupid. They want some cash (or credit card) as a deposit…and it’s non-refundable. If you meet your minimum, you get it back. So you have a $5,000 minimum, you made $2,000 at the bar so you owe $3,000. Well, you put down a $1000 deposit, so now you owe $2,000.
My guess is that you AREN’T going to ante up that $1,000 you made at the door though its the smart thing to do. So you’re in the whole 2 stacks. Solo. All by yourself.
You don’t want that. Believe you me. You might be doing well in life, but coming off of 2 stacks solo because your party flopped is not a good look.
Promoting is a team sport unless owners all just like you and let your party happen without consequence. But umm…Roseanne ass chance there bucko.
5) Think that just because you’re nice you can be a good promoter.
Fact is, everybody ain’t a promoter. Just because you like talking to people doesn’t mean you can be a good promoter. You know why? All nice people ain’t sales people. Promotion is sales. You have to effectively convince people to come to your party and spend their money on your vision. Why should anybody come to your party and spend their money to make you money? Especially if you have no resume, so to speak. I’ve met people who’ve convinced themselves that they’re promoters and their parties always suck. Always. Nobody comes. And you know who notices that nobody comes?
Club owners. They do not like not making money. It is not a good look. Your party will get Republic Gardened (RIP). And the manager, me, will come and shut shit down early much to your disdain but guess who won’t give a shit?
Me. The manager. If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense. People don’t realize that when you open club doors, you start out losing money in wages. All the people that come to work HAVE to be paid whether anybody comes to your shit or not.
6) Think that you don’t have to spend a lot of time ACTUALLY promoting.
Promoting sucks. You have to get flyers and meet people all the time. It’s tiresome. Once you’ve been in the game long enough where word-of-mouth carries then you’re straight. You can just send out emails and people will come because you have a track record. But until that point, you’re ass is a campaigning fool. You have to hit the streets gathering emails and making nice with women and babies. You can’t just assume that folks will show up to your even because you got some place to open the doors. Basically, you AREN’T Marc Barnes. Promoting is hard work. Not only that, you have to convince owners to let you throw parties at their place. And if you’re Black and cater to a Black crowd…well, that can take some major convincing.
7) Think that some people wouldn’t rather sit at home reading a book than come out to your party.
This is more of a niche market thing. If you’re target audience is the urban professional crowd. Know that some of these people, namely the women, won’t mind sitting at home reading a book or watching Lifetime instead of coming out to your party. People who read ALWAYS have options. They can go out for drinks early and go home and be comfortable at home and not have to worry about some overly-aggressive behemoth palming their asses because he IS one of those folks who will spend $50 bucks at the bar (or a couple thousand because he’s a baller…and an idiot). Pretty simple there.
8 ) Think that because you threw ONE good party that all of your parties will be good.
I’ve seen this one with my own two eyes a few times. Circumstances created a party that wasn’t into the party of the year. There is a term for this occurrence:
fluke.
Flukes do happen and it’s probably best to operate under the auspices of recognizing that flukes do happen. When your party erupts into something way bigger than you expected, be happy and bask in the success. Do not however, think that it gives you leverage and come to people with an attitude of, “I think my track record speaks for itself.”
It doesn’t speak. In fact, it’s mute. Your track record was a fluke and you will get yourself in trouble because owners want to make money and might bank on a fluke. Thing is, YOU are left holding the financial bag. And we’ll be more than happy to add bags to you.
Realize that people come to the club of their choice because they felt it was their best option on that particular night, not because they like you. In a major city, those options can change instantly.
One good party does not another good party make.
9) Think that spending all your money on a big-name (or pseudo big-name) DJ is going to bring out the people.
A great DJ of national fame will always bring out people. Thing is, those people have proven track records of rocking parties…pretty erroneously. Somebody had to get those people INTO those venues at some point to GET those DJ’s to national prominence. Another thing to remember is this, much like HDTV’s, all DJ’s are going to play the same shit anyway. Unless, of course, you’re going for a totally different type of party. You don’t get a DJ who specializes in Afro-beat if what you want is Souljaboy. They’re all playing the same songs. On a good night, folks will say, “MAN…who WAS that DJ?!?! He was rocking.” On a regular party night, folks will just dance and enjoy themselves.
Of course, you NEVER want folks to say, “who the FUCK was that whack ass DJ?! He played ‘Hello Eireen’ between Souljaboy and Richboy.”
*cough?uestlovecough*
10) Think that because you ARE somebody, you can’t throw terrible parties.
Being humble in this business is a must because even Love has bad nights. Even the dudes with the biggest followings can have off nights. It happens to everybody. Once you go thinking that you’re such-n-such and that your name alone brings people out, you get a wack night where nobody shows up and a slight melee ensues between you and security and the manager and the owner causing little dudes to break up fights in the middle of the dance floor.
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These are all things to consider when thinking of throwing a party. It’s way easier than you think to catch a brick on a party…even if you are somebody.
Before you get ready to throw your next party at any club and end up owing the club $5,000, read these rules and think.
Just think…
…we’ll be more than happy to take your money.
Don’t be so quick to give it all up.