Let’s throw it against the wall and see what sticks. This seems to encapsulate the marketing and operations plan for most strip clubs. The club I hang out at just implemented a new rule that got a “what the fuck” reaction from me. The club decided that the waitresses now have to wear two inch heels when working. It’s supposed to make the club look classier. I really wonder if the club managers have been in the environment so long they’ve forgotten what its like to be a customer.
Last time was at the club, I had to walk past a bathrobe wearing dancer screaming at her boyfriend on the phone on the back porch. I wasn’t in the door for five minutes before the DJ was yelling profanities on the mike. I’ve often thought a strip club is the perfect place for somebody with Tourette’s syndrome to go. Screaming profanities will hardly be noticed in a strip club. I even think some DJ’s have actually managed to turn Tourette’s into a career. If they are really worried about making the club classier why don’t they do something radical like put a door on the men’s room? Most customers aren’t going to notice what kind of shoes their waitress is wearing. They are going to notice how quickly they get their drinks, and how polite the server is. Putting them in heels will just slow them down and make their feet hurt.
The April 2009 (page 58) Casa Diablo ad is another example of “what were they thinking”. Exactly what point were they trying to get across? I have to give them credit for trying something original, but everything else about the ad is a disaster. Who is the target customer for the ad? I’m not sure the wake and bake crowd is a huge untapped market for strip clubs. Sometimes I wonder who is the target customer for any of the ads in Exotic. As far as I can tell Exotic is only distributed in strip clubs, probably porn shops and similar places (No, I don’t go into porn shops. I spend all my money in strip clubs). That’s a not a large number of people, and more importantly its probably not many new customers. The people who read Exotic are most likely already familiar with the strip club scene in Portland.
The ads almost always say the same thing. We have a cold beer, hot women, and an address. To prove that they have hot women they always include a picture of a dancer in one of five stock poses. It’s kind of funny to go through back issues and track dancer’s migration from club to club by seeing what ads they are in. It virtually impossible to get any sort of feel of what kind of club it is. Is it a laid back club, a big club, or the basement of a Chinese restaurant? You can’t tell. It’s really rare for a club to do any sort of branding. The only club that mounted a slight hint of branding was Stars. Their initial campaign was “A little bit of Vegas in Portland”, implying that it had some of the glitz and glamour of Vegas. I think they succeeded in making the place sounding classy with a tag line, not by putting their waitresses in high heels. I can’t remember if Star’s waitresses have to wear heels, which probably reinforces the point that it doesn’t matter. But I do remember that I usually get good service from the wait staff when I’m at Star’s.
With the advent of the internet, cable TV, and mobile media it’s really hard to pick where to advertise. You have to be a lot more focused and where you are advertising. I’ve noticed as I gotten older the ads I see have changed a lot. Gone are the good old days of Lego’s and G. I. Joe with the Kung Fu grip. Seems like all I see now are ads for Cadillac, Rogaine, and Viagra. I wished they would just combine it all into one ad for “Rocadillagra”. You can get there, with hair, and something, something. If only to minimize the amount of time I get reminded I’m old when I’m watching the History Channel. It would really change the meaning of Cadillac Fleetwood though.
I think would advertise on the golf channel. The typical profile of golfer is a relatively affluent male. Guys with money, that sounds like a good target market for a strip club. Spike TV is another channel. I don’t think their audience has same level of affluence as the golf channel but they are usually male. I’m not trying to be biased against female customers but I think most dancers plan paying their bills around getting male customers. Kind of curious question for the dancers out there, have any of you had a female regular customer?
On a operational note, I've changed the comment settings so anybody can leave comments. Hopefully the spammers and trolls will find other places to play.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
That could be me
First, quick thank you to all of you who have taken the time to read my blog. Traffic to my page has started to pick up. Another thank to everybody who has tweeted and linked to my blog as well. I’ll try to link back to the folks who link to me. Your point of view always shades your opinion. In Natalia’s blog about time management I noticed dancers agreeing with her, but my initial reaction was “yeah, but…”. When I read other customer comments I sometimes find my self aligning with their opinion. It always surprises me that I can always almost always feel some sympathy for the customer point of view, despite how ridiculous his screed is.
I say almost because I’ve read a couple customer post that are just simply horrible misogynistic rants that aren’t worth the electrons their printed on. These are vitriolic hateful things that scare me to a small degree. Would I be capable of something like that? I don’t think so but I see small pieces of my self in them though, and I don’t like it. Some posts aren’t quite so generically hateful of women or dancers. Usually some sort of tirade about how shallow and greedy dancers are. I can understand their point of view. I also understand their point is wrong.
Dude, what were you thinking? Did you really believe she was going to give up dancing and live with you in your parent basement? At the surface this is usually the first reaction I have to some posts. But when you consider the fantasy world of a strip club it’s not hard to see how somebody could feel that way. The strip club experience can be a very personal thing. I have had feeling that a dancer really interested in me as something other than a customer. I’ve run with a couple times at first only to be shot down. Justified or not you feel betrayed and rejected. But that’s life, get over it. Going home and writing a drunken post about those evil dancers might make a person feel better, but it destructive thing without real justification.
Getting shot down isn’t what upsets me, it’s when a dancer does something really crappy to me that really sets me off. The dancers I see at the club I consider my friends. It’s probably not fair, but when I get screwed over, I feel like I’m being screwed over by a friend. My one saving grace that prevents me from posting something I’ll really regret is my massively poor proof reading skills. Believe it or not it takes at least three or four revisions to get a post to this marginal condition. My first drafts only vaguely resemble the English language. Having to reread and fix the massive amounts of grammar errors gives me time to cool off and reflect on what I’m writing.
When I go off on one my rants it’s rarely vicious but it’s hugely sarcastic. After resetting the sarcasm meter to reasonable level there usually a kernel of validity to my anger that I can turn into a more thoughtful post about the industry. As oppose to the post about the platform heel wearing thug that is incapable of following through anything other than collecting money and drinking herself into a stupor.
When you write a ranting post you have to realize that there is a living breathing person out there it’s about. Can you really justify the arguments you make post? If you can’t you should probably pull them. The anonymity of the internet lets people get away with things that they wouldn’t do face to face.
I say almost because I’ve read a couple customer post that are just simply horrible misogynistic rants that aren’t worth the electrons their printed on. These are vitriolic hateful things that scare me to a small degree. Would I be capable of something like that? I don’t think so but I see small pieces of my self in them though, and I don’t like it. Some posts aren’t quite so generically hateful of women or dancers. Usually some sort of tirade about how shallow and greedy dancers are. I can understand their point of view. I also understand their point is wrong.
Dude, what were you thinking? Did you really believe she was going to give up dancing and live with you in your parent basement? At the surface this is usually the first reaction I have to some posts. But when you consider the fantasy world of a strip club it’s not hard to see how somebody could feel that way. The strip club experience can be a very personal thing. I have had feeling that a dancer really interested in me as something other than a customer. I’ve run with a couple times at first only to be shot down. Justified or not you feel betrayed and rejected. But that’s life, get over it. Going home and writing a drunken post about those evil dancers might make a person feel better, but it destructive thing without real justification.
Getting shot down isn’t what upsets me, it’s when a dancer does something really crappy to me that really sets me off. The dancers I see at the club I consider my friends. It’s probably not fair, but when I get screwed over, I feel like I’m being screwed over by a friend. My one saving grace that prevents me from posting something I’ll really regret is my massively poor proof reading skills. Believe it or not it takes at least three or four revisions to get a post to this marginal condition. My first drafts only vaguely resemble the English language. Having to reread and fix the massive amounts of grammar errors gives me time to cool off and reflect on what I’m writing.
When I go off on one my rants it’s rarely vicious but it’s hugely sarcastic. After resetting the sarcasm meter to reasonable level there usually a kernel of validity to my anger that I can turn into a more thoughtful post about the industry. As oppose to the post about the platform heel wearing thug that is incapable of following through anything other than collecting money and drinking herself into a stupor.
When you write a ranting post you have to realize that there is a living breathing person out there it’s about. Can you really justify the arguments you make post? If you can’t you should probably pull them. The anonymity of the internet lets people get away with things that they wouldn’t do face to face.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Time Dialation
There is a unit for the measurement of time only used in the strip club industry: songs. As in “I go up in two songs” or “two songs will cost forty dollars”. You are buying the dancer’s time usually defined in songs. Some time VIP sales use the more mundane “minutes” methodology. For the most part, the industry sells time in units of songs.
This creates some problems. There are no NIST standards for the exact amount of time one song is. Typically a song lasts from three to four minutes. In theory the DJ is tasked with making sure each song falls into that range. In practice it tends to vary greatly from the three/four minute mark. Sometimes there are technical difficulties. Sometimes there are managers who insist on talking to the DJ while the song plays on. Other times the DJ needs to grab a quick smoke (of some sort), attend to biological needs, wants to irritate the dancer on stage, or just forgets.
From a customer point of view you want the songs to run long. You get more for your money. From a dancer point of view she’ll want the song to run short, she earns more per minute. If the song is too short that will back fire. The dancer is put in a difficult situation of either extending the song, or going short. This may piss off the customer who will feel ripped off and result in an argument. Continuing into the next song she risks giving away her time or setting a precedent that she owes the customer more time. Most dancers are pretty fair about time. A few have told me “thank you” after the song stopped roughly a minute after it started then ask me if I wanted another. Uhm, no.
Running a song long seems to be a favorite way for DJs to piss off dancers. I've seen a few times when a DJ decides to play the entire uncut version of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” for that special dancer, stranding a dancer on stage for all 18 plus minutes of 60’s psychedelic goodness. This will usually enrage your average dancer. Another favorite trick is to start a song, stop it after a minute, and start another song. This puts the dancer is situation of getting her set extended for no benefit. Once the “second” song starts she’s stuck until it’s finished. Most guys at the rail quickly forget the first partial song, and the dancer may get into trouble if she abandons the stage.
I’ve noticed that dancers tend to use the term song slightly differently than customers. When Dancers refer to “song” it’s usually only for the time when she’s getting paid. Customers think of songs in absolute terms. A dancer will tell me she is going to do three songs for another customer and she’ll be back. The number of songs that go by before she returns will probably five or six. It will take probably one song for her to get the other customer get him settled on the couch, dance for three songs, take another song to collect the money and say good by (five songs). Then maybe one more if she goes back to check make-up or burn her outfit depending on the customer. Sometimes the maintenance can go on for longer than a couple of songs. Is she putting on makeup or painting the Sistine Chapel?
From the customer point of view he’s started counting songs the second she walks away. After exactly three songs have transpired he’s beginning to wonder where she is. I know I’ve come across as an impatient jerk to a couple dancers for this exact reason. Three songs came and went why is she making me wait? Until I learned more about the dancer’s job it was a point of irritation with me. I didn’t know any better at the time if the dancer if had explained things to me she would have made more money. When you add to this the experience most regulars go through with a dance who genuinely doesn’t give a shit you’re waiting, I have to be sympathetic to customer. I know there are massively egocentric customers out there, but getting upset with a customer because they don’t know any better just kills your money.
This creates some problems. There are no NIST standards for the exact amount of time one song is. Typically a song lasts from three to four minutes. In theory the DJ is tasked with making sure each song falls into that range. In practice it tends to vary greatly from the three/four minute mark. Sometimes there are technical difficulties. Sometimes there are managers who insist on talking to the DJ while the song plays on. Other times the DJ needs to grab a quick smoke (of some sort), attend to biological needs, wants to irritate the dancer on stage, or just forgets.
From a customer point of view you want the songs to run long. You get more for your money. From a dancer point of view she’ll want the song to run short, she earns more per minute. If the song is too short that will back fire. The dancer is put in a difficult situation of either extending the song, or going short. This may piss off the customer who will feel ripped off and result in an argument. Continuing into the next song she risks giving away her time or setting a precedent that she owes the customer more time. Most dancers are pretty fair about time. A few have told me “thank you” after the song stopped roughly a minute after it started then ask me if I wanted another. Uhm, no.
Running a song long seems to be a favorite way for DJs to piss off dancers. I've seen a few times when a DJ decides to play the entire uncut version of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” for that special dancer, stranding a dancer on stage for all 18 plus minutes of 60’s psychedelic goodness. This will usually enrage your average dancer. Another favorite trick is to start a song, stop it after a minute, and start another song. This puts the dancer is situation of getting her set extended for no benefit. Once the “second” song starts she’s stuck until it’s finished. Most guys at the rail quickly forget the first partial song, and the dancer may get into trouble if she abandons the stage.
I’ve noticed that dancers tend to use the term song slightly differently than customers. When Dancers refer to “song” it’s usually only for the time when she’s getting paid. Customers think of songs in absolute terms. A dancer will tell me she is going to do three songs for another customer and she’ll be back. The number of songs that go by before she returns will probably five or six. It will take probably one song for her to get the other customer get him settled on the couch, dance for three songs, take another song to collect the money and say good by (five songs). Then maybe one more if she goes back to check make-up or burn her outfit depending on the customer. Sometimes the maintenance can go on for longer than a couple of songs. Is she putting on makeup or painting the Sistine Chapel?
From the customer point of view he’s started counting songs the second she walks away. After exactly three songs have transpired he’s beginning to wonder where she is. I know I’ve come across as an impatient jerk to a couple dancers for this exact reason. Three songs came and went why is she making me wait? Until I learned more about the dancer’s job it was a point of irritation with me. I didn’t know any better at the time if the dancer if had explained things to me she would have made more money. When you add to this the experience most regulars go through with a dance who genuinely doesn’t give a shit you’re waiting, I have to be sympathetic to customer. I know there are massively egocentric customers out there, but getting upset with a customer because they don’t know any better just kills your money.
Friday, April 2, 2010
What she's not telling you.
Too much information can be a problem once a dancer really gets to know you. I’ve had bodily functions, infections, drainage, injuries, family problem and more all described to me in exquisitely repulsive detail. Way more than I ever wanted to actually know. I take this as a badge of honor that I’m trusted with less than elegant information.
There is one subject most dancers are very reluctant to talk about: Their boyfriend (or girl friend as the case may be). There have several dancers I’ve considered really good friends that never mention if they are in a relationship or not. It’s none of my business of course. It still a weird to listen to them dance around different subjects. They’ll be talking about decorating or something to do with their living space and they’ll unconsciously start referring themselves as “we”. We went down and looked at carpet, we went and bought new furniture, and so forth. I once pointedly asked “we?” when one dancer was talking about buying furniture. Kind of a stupid thing to do, it just made her uncomfortable and made her come up with a quick lie.
I understand why dancers don’t talk about their dating life. In the fantasy world of strip clubs dancers are more desirable if they might be obtainable. I think an even more telling reason is how absolute this rule is. This seems to be a pretty universal standard in dancer blogs and twitter posts. Even when dancers have told me they are married or dating somebody, they are still really reluctant to talk about it. Perhaps reluctant isn’t the best word, more like conditioned to not talk about it. It’s definitely the exception when they won’t bring up a subject. Usually getting a dancer to quit talking is a bigger problem.
Does it make a difference to me if the dancer is in a relationship or not? It does a little. I don’t delude myself thinking the dancer will want to start dating me. I have to admit the idea is in the back of my head. I suppose if I didn’t I wouldn’t find her attractive. Its does alter the way I’ll talk to her. I stay away from the subject of boyfriends since it usually only makes for an awkward situation, but I’m much more inclined to ask questions if the dancer is in a relationship (provided she rings up the topic). The odds are if she is wandered on to the subject with out realizing it, it will just get difficult.
From a purely practical point of view, look at all the dancers working a shift. To think they are all currently available at the moment in time is utter lunacy. Meeting guys is not a problem for a typical dancer (meeting decent guys is a different issue). I discovered that while dating a dancer. She got hit on constantly. If was funny, the first time we went out, she showed up wearing a bandana, baggy peasant blouse, long skirt, and boots. She could have walked off the set of Fiddler on the Roof. I didn’t say anything at the time, but she told me later she just wanted to have dinner without a bunch of guys trying to dry hump her leg.
Strip club customers can be a rather unstable crowd. I just read a blog post by Natalia where she expertly shreds a customer tantrum. Hazards like that are something way beyond the experience of most people. There are some subjects probably best left unmentioned. Espeically when it affects your income.
There is one subject most dancers are very reluctant to talk about: Their boyfriend (or girl friend as the case may be). There have several dancers I’ve considered really good friends that never mention if they are in a relationship or not. It’s none of my business of course. It still a weird to listen to them dance around different subjects. They’ll be talking about decorating or something to do with their living space and they’ll unconsciously start referring themselves as “we”. We went down and looked at carpet, we went and bought new furniture, and so forth. I once pointedly asked “we?” when one dancer was talking about buying furniture. Kind of a stupid thing to do, it just made her uncomfortable and made her come up with a quick lie.
I understand why dancers don’t talk about their dating life. In the fantasy world of strip clubs dancers are more desirable if they might be obtainable. I think an even more telling reason is how absolute this rule is. This seems to be a pretty universal standard in dancer blogs and twitter posts. Even when dancers have told me they are married or dating somebody, they are still really reluctant to talk about it. Perhaps reluctant isn’t the best word, more like conditioned to not talk about it. It’s definitely the exception when they won’t bring up a subject. Usually getting a dancer to quit talking is a bigger problem.
Does it make a difference to me if the dancer is in a relationship or not? It does a little. I don’t delude myself thinking the dancer will want to start dating me. I have to admit the idea is in the back of my head. I suppose if I didn’t I wouldn’t find her attractive. Its does alter the way I’ll talk to her. I stay away from the subject of boyfriends since it usually only makes for an awkward situation, but I’m much more inclined to ask questions if the dancer is in a relationship (provided she rings up the topic). The odds are if she is wandered on to the subject with out realizing it, it will just get difficult.
From a purely practical point of view, look at all the dancers working a shift. To think they are all currently available at the moment in time is utter lunacy. Meeting guys is not a problem for a typical dancer (meeting decent guys is a different issue). I discovered that while dating a dancer. She got hit on constantly. If was funny, the first time we went out, she showed up wearing a bandana, baggy peasant blouse, long skirt, and boots. She could have walked off the set of Fiddler on the Roof. I didn’t say anything at the time, but she told me later she just wanted to have dinner without a bunch of guys trying to dry hump her leg.
Strip club customers can be a rather unstable crowd. I just read a blog post by Natalia where she expertly shreds a customer tantrum. Hazards like that are something way beyond the experience of most people. There are some subjects probably best left unmentioned. Espeically when it affects your income.
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