So after years of vowing I would never become a nightclub promoter.
I kinda become a nightclub promoter.
I blame Jimmie from Infinite, and this whole 944 Influential Nightlife thing.
But, it is an extremely interesting experience, and most everyone I know has some interest in the subject, so I'ma blog my experiences involving our rise/fall in Scottsdale nightlife.
First things first, we took our inspiration for doing this from none of the current Scottsdale promoters, who are successful for reasons that are completely beyond my ability to fathom. What exactly do they do? Why can't they graduate to real money? I see some success, mainly my man who bartends almost every night of the week and promotes at the same time, he's on his game, and then people who build communities, like the Groove Candy crew.
My lack of respect for most local promoters stems from Super Bowl, where the immense shit talking by out-of-towners about the complete joke our promotions scene was was a bad reflection on everything I was trying to put together business-wise. These people were breaking MAJOR bread for parties and it seems no one really took advantage. I lived off super bowl for about 2 months after, and I just did design...
Anyway, I digress, our inspiration comes from early Next (a now defunct nightclub out here), and a lot of New York nightlfe. First off: forward fashion flyers, second: community based crowd, third: a musical formula, fourth: an extremely diverse team (diversity is seriously missing in promotions out here, not racially, just people with different crowds to bring to the table), fifth: sponsors sponsors sponsors, sixth: new, forward thinking theme, seventh: exclusivity of our attractive elements.
Our night was a Tuesday. I was brought into this night by two promoters who did Next back in the day and really made the Tuesday's happen. Their direct superior was getting half the door and abotu 35% of bottle sales and making a damn killing on a night packed with ballers and people unafraid to drop $40 at the door. This club was the launch point for a myriad of successes out here, Synergy, some of the 944 people, PHX, even Carnegie's boy Brooke who now runs top tier clubs in Canada we're all getting it in over at Next.
Tuesday is unique in that the crowd is extremely interesting. A lot of industry who want to go out after working thurs-sat. College kids who are serious 7 day a week partyers. People without 9-5 jobs. People with said jobs who are getting so much money they don't care about being hungover Wednesday morning. Ballers who know Tuesday is the night for trendsetting. The party/jetsetter crowd who do Tues Thurs Sat. DJ's. Sports players in town for games. The no job demographic ensures rappers, hi-end criminals, entrepeneurs, IT department guys, trust fund babies etc. are definetly there, and that drives up a serious demand for the opportunity to ball out.
We wanted to cater to this, the recession has led to a severe drop in bottle sales in the clubs, especially on off nights, but we wanted to counter this with a unique baller opportunity. Through Infinite we secured exclusivity with Armand De Brugnac (Ace of Spades) champagne, the holy grail of balling out, and our host club became the only distributor in Arizona until All Star Weekend. Now we had something to promote, and we can offer it at around half of the 1500 it costs in LA/NY/ATL/Miami. Athletes, music videos, rap stars, rock stars and real ballers now have a home.
Just the idea of buying a bottle has never really been something I understand. It costs you 5-10 times the actual cost minimum, and honestly it doesn't seem to be magic mojo any more than ordering a dozen shots of patron. Whatever, as long as people keep doing it, I figure I'll learn the science of wasting money...
Being a home to these bottle sales is great, because despite what one might think, the main money from a night isn't the bar. If between the 13 tables at the club we see 20 bottles popped we're seeing as much money off that as we are from the bar percentages. If ten of those are Ace of Spades people are having armed security walk us to cabs with the night's cash.
How do you appeal to ballers? Exclusivity, establishment, press presence, music etc. Girls follow the ballers, so focusing on getting girls there becomes irrelevant. We'd been looking for a place for Tuesday's for a long time, my band's quality relationship with Lyte gave us an in at probably the best looking club in Old Town, which was a definite plus for attracting our clientele. The reputation of the club was mediocre, based on the fact the spot was cursed, it had been a series of failing clubs before the Lyte crew came in and made it beautiful.
Anyway, part one of a continuing series of details about going about our club night, which launches Tuesday.
