Music Club Peeve & A Bit of Overdue Ranting

[Ginger Blackwood]

1 hour ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

There's one R&B club that plays great music, ruined every 10 seconds on popular night by people trying to outdo each other's gestures.

Oh yeah, I know the one your talking about. Always a group down the end of the floor pack dancing? Fantastic tunes and one regular hot DJ? Yes, the crowd there are just stupidly annoying.

[Jaylinbridges]

22 minutes ago, LilNosferatu said:

Also your post wasn't even directed at me, I was just on the sidelines, I wasn't invested in the context

Yes, I didn't direct you to my post, Nick did.  I was responding to Sam1, who asked why clubs didn't pay DJ's.  Ask Nick why he pinged you.

If I seem aggressive, it is because I am actually involved in the club side management for the last 11 years now.  This thread started as a Rant against clubs, DJ's,  owners, and hostesses.  Those are my friends, and I get tired of some in this forum constantly trashing ordinary non-professional  SL people simply trying to do their job, as they are told to do it by club owners and managers.

If the OP is so bothered by most of the SL clubs, she should start her own.  Good Luck surviving for 13 years.

 

[Nick0678]

2 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

Yes, I didn't direct you to my post, Nick did.  I was responding to Sam1, who asked why clubs didn't pay DJ's.  Ask Nick why he pinged you.

If I seem aggressive, it is because I am actually involved in the club side management for the last 11 years now.  This thread started as a Rant against clubs, DJ's,  owners, and hostesses.  Those are my friends, and I get tired of some in this forum constantly trashing ordinary non-professional  SL people simply trying to do their job, as they are told to do it by club owners and managers.

If the OP is so bothered by most of the SL clubs, she should start her own.  Good Luck surviving for 13 years.

 

Are you OK?

[Kathlen Onyx]

36 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

BTW it is possible to break even with a good club, if you do all the things that the OP and most of you hate.  The club I work at has done that for 13 years. I don't think they need any advice from the cheapskates in this forum.

 

Personally I'd rather see regions with clubs that had no DJ's. Most are annoying anyway. I'm normally listening to my Spotify playlist anyway so it wouldn't be a change.  Just put a really personable host there to keep conversations going among the people that are there. Better yet, have the owner of the club do their own hosting.  I go to clubs to meet people because unfortunately that is where people congregate. 

"Hi Sam! Welcome to club No DJ. How are you today? Come in and join the conversation. We are discussing *insert topic* What do you think about that? We are playing rock music today so pull up a dance and enjoy the music. 

I'd tip the hell out of a host that could keep a room full of people entertained with interesting conversation and interacting with each other way before I'd tip a DJ playing their same old playlist over and over any day. 

Most clubs have 3-6 hecklers anyway that seem to enjoy bantering with the DJ and Host leaving all other guests basically spectators and ignored besides a cursory "Hi Sam" when you land.  Trust me...I rarely see those people tip and they are there all the time.

How about mixing it up? "Hi Sam. welcome to the club..oh is that the new Truth hair release. I love it!"  

Do I tip mediocre DJ's that do the same thing over and over day after day? Nope.  

signed - cheapskate

 

 

[rasterscan]

party in Belli. No tip jars permitted. It's refreshing.

[Syo Emerald]

My current problem is finding good/new clubs... the new look search isn't helping so far.

[Ashley Darkheart]

21 minutes ago, Syo Emerald said:

My current problem is finding good/new clubs... the new look search isn't helping so far.

 

I am in the same boat

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Syo Emerald said:

My current problem is finding good/new clubs... the new look search isn't helping so far.

Try [Club] 511.  No DJ that I've noticed the couple times I was there but retro ish feel, jazzy. 

Their description...Sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself at this cozy little venue. With an old timey feel and smooth jazz on the stream feel free to hang out, talk, dance, or engage in some more adult type activities .

Edited January 3, 2022 by Rowan Amore

[Solar Legion]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

Try [Club] 511.  No DJ that I've noticed the couple times I was there but retro ish feel, jazzy. 

Their description...Sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself at this cozy little venue. With an old timey feel and smooth jazz on the stream feel free to hang out, talk, dance, or engage in some more adult type activities .

What's their stance on anthropomorphic types?

[Chris Corvinus]

4 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

Yes, I didn't direct you to my post, Nick did.  I was responding to Sam1, who asked why clubs didn't pay DJ's.  Ask Nick why he pinged you.

If I seem aggressive, it is because I am actually involved in the club side management for the last 11 years now.  This thread started as a Rant against clubs, DJ's,  owners, and hostesses.  Those are my friends, and I get tired of some in this forum constantly trashing ordinary non-professional  SL people simply trying to do their job, as they are told to do it by club owners and managers.

If the OP is so bothered by most of the SL clubs, she should start her own.  Good Luck surviving for 13 years.

 

You don't have to be professional to take others opinions and ideas into consideration to create a better club environment. The OP gave some great pointers. My biggest gripe is all the super annoying gestures hosts do. Do you want people at your clubs to listen to that crap or the music? Because when I walk into a club and its nothing but gestures over the music, I leave. Instantly. 

Do you want people to listen to music or a talkshow? Thats another gripe I have is when the DJ consistently talks about whatever over the music. I am pretty sure no one is there to listen to a podcast, Jay.

There has to be rules. Rules for hosts and rules for DJs. These rules create a better environment for your patrons. No club has such rules which is why we all just pretty much...deal with it. As someone else mentioned, its been the same way since before 2010. I wonder why that is. So don't get aggressive when people come to the forums to complain.

I get tired of some in this forum not taking others gripes seriously and just blow them off as "attacks" and "trashing". Its why nothing has changed since before 2010. Club owners and their management are 100% the problem.

One more thing, saying "Those are my friends" is highly biased. You're part of the problem, Jay.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

5 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

If the club pays Live singers, who usually ask from 2000 to 8000 per performance, and has only 4 daily Live singers,  that is $L3000x4x30 = $L360,000/month = $1440 USD/month.  Most of these larger clubs have a full sim with shops and rentals (which seems to annoy some here as well).  Add in another $250/mo for land tier.  Now we are up to $1700/month.  So I will revise my cost estimate to $1000 to $2000 USD/month.  And since most here think you should never tip the venue, we can't subtract attempts by the club owner to reduce the cost by adding other business ventures around the club. 

This is why clubs don't pay DJ's, and instead run shoestring operations on a small parcel.  

BTW it is possible to break even with a good club, if you do all the things that the OP and most of you hate.  The club I work at has done that for 13 years. I don't think they need any advice from the cheapskates in this forum.

 

Some performers are negotiable depending on your club. When I ran mine I had 5 performers and they wanted to play at my place. When I PMed with them I have a low budget, they worked with me. I ran a small club and I didn't make any Lindens. I did it for fun and enjoyment and a simple place for performers to play at.

I was a one person club owner. I booked, hosted and managed on my own. I had some tell me I was doing it wrong and needed hosts, managers, etc.  But I told them I got it covered. The places that have trouble are those who have too many queen bees and not enough worker bees.

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Solar Legion said:

What's their stance on anthropomorphic types?

I honestly don't know but I'll check the next time I go and report back.

[Solar Legion]

3 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I honestly don't know but I'll check the next time I go and report back.

Thank you!

[Talon Brown]

2 hours ago, Chris Nova said:

You don't have to be professional to take others opinions and ideas into consideration to create a better club environment. The OP gave some great pointers. My biggest gripe is all the super annoying gestures hosts do. Do you want people at your clubs to listen to that crap or the music? Because when I walk into a club and its nothing but gestures over the music, I leave. Instantly. 

Do you want people to listen to music or a talkshow? Thats another gripe I have is when the DJ consistently talks about whatever over the music. I am pretty sure no one is there to listen to a podcast, Jay.

There has to be rules. Rules for hosts and rules for DJs. These rules create a better environment for your patrons. No club has such rules which is why we all just pretty much...deal with it. As someone else mentioned, its been the same way since before 2010. I wonder why that is. So don't get aggressive when people come to the forums to complain.

I get tired of some in this forum not taking others gripes seriously and just blow them off as "attacks" and "trashing". Its why nothing has changed since before 2010. Club owners and their management are 100% the problem.

One more thing, saying "Those are my friends" is highly biased. You're part of the problem, Jay.

The problem is a lot of you seem to think the DJs working these clubs have any say in any of that nonsense.  Next time you're in a club with these issues look for the DJ application and read it.  You'll be surprised at how many rules and requirements they have for staff they're not even paying.

[Chris Corvinus]

20 minutes ago, Talon Brown said:

The problem is a lot of you seem to think the DJs working these clubs have any say in any of that nonsense.  Next time you're in a club with these issues look for the DJ application and read it.  You'll be surprised at how many rules and requirements they have for staff they're not even paying.

I know very well about DJ and host applications. I am also very much aware of the lack of enforcement for anything in those applications. I don't know why those applications even exist, honestly.

[Jaylinbridges]

3 hours ago, Chris Nova said:

One more thing, saying "Those are my friends" is highly biased. You're part of the problem, Jay.

My friends are the DJ's and Hostesses, and Event Planners, that all have to abide by the rules put down by the club owner and manager.  This works like this:  "If you don't like the rules, and since I pay the tier for this club/sim, you are welcome to find another club to work at."   That is the way many (I haven't found any that are not after working in 12 clubs over the years) owners run their club.  Nobody at our club has any say in club policies or hostess/DJ performance and behavior.  Their club - their rules,  is the norm for most clubs.  

You seem to have missed my first post - where a union for DJ's and hostesses might provide some influence with management.  I would support unions, as there are in RL for entertainers.  Management hates unions.  You put me on the wrong side.  And for the record, I do none of things the OP complains about,  I NEVER use a gesture. I talk to the patrons.  I play a huge variety of songs from a library of 500,000 songs.  And I pizz off management sometimes by not acting as their commercial reader.  But many DJ's and hosts obey the rules, because they would not be working if they did not.

Of course any kind of organized activity for SL jobs would fail immediately.  Herding cats would be much easier.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Jaylinbridges

[Katherine Heartsong]

6 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Try [Club] 511.  No DJ that I've noticed the couple times I was there but retro ish feel, jazzy. 

Their description...Sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself at this cozy little venue. With an old timey feel and smooth jazz on the stream feel free to hang out, talk, dance, or engage in some more adult type activities .

I'll swing by there (no pun intended) myself the next time I'm online. Thanks for the recommendation.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Katherine Heartsong

[Rowan Amore]

19 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

Thank you!

Sorry to report, the announcement when entering says...No beast or animal avatars.  They don't specifically say Human only but I suppose they might allow human-like avatars such as elves and whatnot.  I didn't see anything other than human avatars, either.

[Solar Legion]

15 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Sorry to report, the announcement when entering says...No beast or animal avatars.  They don't specifically say Human only but I suppose they might allow human-like avatars such as elves and whatnot.  I didn't see anything other than human avatars, either.

Blast! Ah well, thank ya for checking!

One of these days I'll get around to converting my Sidhe/Fae/Silvan type avatars to the appearance I presently use ....

[Lysistrata Szapira]

I seriously despite gesture-spam, especially the kind that contains sound.  If I'm jamming to a tune and a 30 second+ gesture blocks the sound, I'm going to be throwing daggers at the gesturbator and probably throwing a few choice insults at them too.

I despise it when clubs consider constant gestures to be "participating" and even encourage it.   I participate by actually typing my conversational input, not by tossing out the same repetitive, boring gestures that have been around the entire 13 years I've been in world.   I've never hosted, but I try my best to help hosts with keeping actual chat going when I have the energy.  

I can't always afford to tip, so I save requests for when I actually have the money, and I try to tip both the host and DJ when I do that. When I have spare lindens to blow, I will tip to make up for the times I don't. 

 

 

[Setsuki Takeda]

Yes, gesture spam will get me to TP out of anywhere in SL, and another annoyance is scripted greetings...

When the host says the *exact* same thing to *everyone* who TPs in *instantly* on landing it just shows laziness in my book and is far more spammy than personable.

I went to one to support a DJ who is a friend of a friend and I spent the first half hour blocking scripted chatbots and derendering particle effect spewing lag machines. Your corner of a homestead can't handle Ozzfest, especially not with a few dozen *heavily* scripted dancers AFKing on the tip poles.

Oh, and when I land and see "Chat Extender joined, range *insert ridiculous number*." I'm leaving. I can see 50m, maybe, let people chat in a larger room, but repeating everything everyone says over the whole sim is bad. I've landed at a place who added a club in a skybox and I was getting their gesture spam nearly 4000m below the venue when I landed. Not only did I not go to the club, but I deleted the LM for the sim.

Though, on the other hand, SL people *are* super cheap. I don't own a club, but I do have a quarter region with pretty decent traffic and a build I'm working on (mostly done on the ground, just a few more things to add to the urgent care clinic, mostly working on to the space station now) that gets me compliments in IMs all the time. It costs $67 for just tier there without any L$ being purchased to help improve the location. An average month sees me getting about 300-500 L$ in donations, and I don't do affiliate stuff or ads because I think they degrade the whole region (in aesthetics and performance) to rez that stuff.

Anything you make in SL either needs to be something you're willing to eat all the costs on, or you need a Patreon, because people do *not* tip or donate and the quickest way to drive anyone you might actually *want* on your parcel away is to have them land in an affiliate mall at a forced landing point and need to walk through a lagfest of begging and heavily scripted vendors that manage to slow down the entire region to get to a place.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

On 1/3/2022 at 3:18 PM, Syo Emerald said:

My current problem is finding good/new clubs... the new look search isn't helping so far.

I have a feeling that you're on European time, so this might not work . . . but The Mercury Room does wonderful vintage jazz on Sunday nights, starting around 7pm or 8pm SLT. Lovely people, LOTS of open chatter (mostly interesting and intelligent), no gesture spam, no begging for tips. Just really calm and relaxing and friendly, with great music and a 30s ambience. And @Solar Legion, anthropomorphic avatars are entirely welcome. (There are animated penguins skating around on the dance floor, as well a large stuffed moose and a bear. Oh, and Bernie Sanders.)

Or, for more modern music in a variety of genres, try The Velvet. Again, lots of chatter, really friendly people, no begging for tips or gesture spam. They have stuff going on most late afternoons / evenings SL time.

[Jessica4u2]

As owner of Zue Nightlife, I agree with the complaint of the constant requests for tips. My staff usually remind guests once an hour, but of course some do forget and stretch it from time to time, but venue tips aren't really pushed. I own my sim outright and I will say, I do not do this for the money. If I did, I would have closed years ago. We are heading into our 7th year and are as strong as ever.

Our success is that we listen to our members, what they want, what they don't want and we change with the times. I build/mesh virtually everything and, to keep things from becoming stale, I am constantly updating the 10 or so venues and special sets on the sim. Our members are our family and are treated as such.

I limit scripted items throughout the sim, discourage gestures (anyone can hit a key, I want actual conversations), keep out troublemakers and if a staff member isn't making enough in tips 'organically', then it's time to reevaluate how they themselves perform. Most of all, we treat members and staff with respect.

My DJs and most hostesses have been with Zue for years, and they have massive followings. Because they devote extra to the club, I 'pay' my managers by offering free rent on another sim I own. I tell my staff and members that THEY own the club, I just maintain it. So the input they provide does not fall on deaf ears.

There's no profit in owning a club. I do it because I love people and I want to give them a fun place to spend time and meet others. Come by or check out our website  

 

[Solar Legion]

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I have a feeling that you're on European time, so this might not work . . . but The Mercury Room does wonderful vintage jazz on Sunday nights, starting around 7pm or 8pm SLT. Lovely people, LOTS of open chatter (mostly interesting and intelligent), no gesture spam, no begging for tips. Just really calm and relaxing and friendly, with great music and a 30s ambience. And @Solar Legion, anthropomorphic avatars are entirely welcome. (There are animated penguins skating around on the dance floor, as well a large stuffed moose and a bear. Oh, and Bernie Sanders.)

Or, for more modern music in a variety of genres, try The Velvet. Again, lots of chatter, really friendly people, no begging for tips or gesture spam. They have stuff going on most late afternoons / evenings SL time.

I'll have to check it out then! No dress code as far as a theme goes?

[Lewis Luminos]

Before I closed Noir, the only rules I had for my DJs (aside from playing music only within the scope of the club) were:

• No gestures
• Ask for tips only once during a set (usually half time but it could vary, if there was an influx of guests or if we were getting carried away with the music or the chat)
• Keep active in local chat.

In return, I paid them a salary as well as allowing them to keep 100% of their tips. (One of my peeves is DJ/host tipjars that take a cut for the owner. I won't tip the venue anything if they do that). I didn't hire hosts, I did that myself, so a tip for me was effectively a tip for the venue as well.

And you know, even with only one reminder per set, it didn't affect the amount of tips that we received. 

I never made a profit in all the years I ran that club but I broke even most of the time, mainly because my costs were so low. One event a week, a small parcel which I owned myself.  I only continued because (while) it was fun to me. And if I was paying out of my own pocket, it didn't matter. It cost me around L$6000 a month to run, including land tier and DJ fees.

I stopped not because of the cost but because of dwindling attendance - the restricted genre that made the club popular in the beginning was eventually it's nemesis. If no-one else was enjoying it, then it wasn't enjoyable to me any more.