Questions on SIm rental/ownership

[friscolives]

I've been thinking of opening my own sim, based on a rp concept of mine. I don't think I would need a full Sim area. I could probably get buy just as well on 1/4 of that, perhaps a half sim size maximum. I would probably want it to be in either an adult zone or at least mature zone, as it deals with some mature themes. I basically need something where I could set up a night club and be able to invite people over for parties/events, probably collect some funds via tip jars or even have some merchants set up places there to sell their goods.

I actually think I could get away with doing most of what I plan on a skybox sized lot that I am currently renting, which is zoned adult anyway -- but I'm not sure if I would be allowed to host an event there or have people selling items or collecting funds with the tip jars.

Basically I'm trying to do it on the relative cheap, but also do it properly and not break any rules and wind up in trouble.

Any advice owuld be helpful.

thanks

[Ceera Murakami]

For running any sort of a club, bear this factor in mind: A sim can usually only support 40 people at once. 

Now consider how many people you want to be able to attend events at your club, including shoppers in your retail area.

• Is 10 enough? Then a 1/4 sim parcel may do fine.
• 20? You're using half the sim's resources, so should have half the sim owned by yourself.
• 40? You need the whole sim to yourself.

Can you do it with less land? Yes, but you'll be using resources that your neighbors are paying for, and that they have every right to expect fair use of. Consider how you would feel if you owned 1/4 of a sim, and liked having 5 to 10 friends over for social activities, and a club appeared in your sim on a 1024 M2 skybox parcel, and was constantly crammed with 40 people, so you could not ever have a visitor of your own. You wouldn't have a very high opinion of that club owner or their guests, would you?

A club and retail area can be a good addition to a sim. But one that hogs resources far in excess of what they pay for is a very bad neighbor.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

If you can't afford to pay all the expenses yourself, don't even consider this.  You can't rely on donations as people just don't donate much. You will be lucky to have 5 percent of your tier covered this way.  Most of the time you won't have but a few dollars from this and sometimes nothing.

Shop rentals are not certain anymore either.  Most merchants are having a hard time covering the tier on their main store and can't afford to rent mall space unless they have good sales there.  They won't have good sales unless you have a lot of people there constantly who shop. You need a proven traffic record to be able to charge much for rent.. A new club has a hard time finding tenants and turnover will be high.  Tenants won't flock there to rent either.  You will need to actively seek them out yourself.

If you build it they will not come.  You will have to rely on friends to support you and show up there to keep the place hopping initially.  You may also need to put up money for prizes or liver performers to attract others.  What you want to do is build a large core group of patrons with L's to spend that make your club 'theirs'. You will need to offer a unique and quality experience and be able to reinvent the experience periodically to keep it fresh or just like RL the crowd will move on to the next 'new or big' thing.

Don't expect DJ's and hosts to work for free, especially good ones.  They will work there for tips only if you have a crowd there and they tip well.  Otherwise you will have a constant turnover in your staff and only be able to attract new DJ's and hosts that aren't that good and are looking for experience. then once they have it they are gone to greener pastures, or you will only be able to keep the poor quality ones.   A good DJ wants a MINIMUM of 1K per shift and a good host 500L, otherwise its not worth their while.  You can guarantee them this minimum by paying them the difference between it and the tips they make. However,even if you guarantee a minimum, if they get a shift somewhere else that pays better they will be gone.

So the bottom line is that clubs are money pits and unless you want to do this for your own personal pleasure and are able and willing to pay all the expenses out of your own pocket, work hard yourself at finding vendors, staff and attracting patrons your wasting your time. Both patrons and employees are fickle and will leave if something better comes around. Rarely do clubs make any money at all.  A rare well established one may but you can bet the owner works hard  and is willing to be there and put in a full days work every day and spend months or years making it profitable.

I speak from experience having owned two very popular clubs in the past.