Seriously?©

I always get confused on naming conventions, you’ll have to sort your way through it.  If you’ve been frothing at the mouth just waiting for me to post another “Comparison” blog, then have no fear…. Giskard is here to help you   If this is your first time, all you need to know is that this is part 3 of a 4 part series guiding you through the entertainment side of SL.  I’ve already covered your typical DJs and the dancers you may find in the clubs in SL, but now I turn my attention to the clubs themselves.  At this point in our narrative I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I work for Hooters & Shooters as a DJ, and I’m sure that the owner, Elle Kirshner, will be happy now that I’ve plugged both the club and her (lol innuendo).  I have had a few people come to me and ask “Which DJ am I?” or tell me “I bet I know which dancer THIS one is”… so to be fair, I will neither confirm nor deny your suspicions except to tell you this:  3 of you were right, 2 were wrong, and 1 of you needs to meet me at my place tonight for some “special tutoring”.  Now on to our comparison:

The MEGA Club

There are plenty of places out there that sell pre-fab clubs… the problem with pre-fab (not to be confused with AbFab) clubs is that the are REALLY big… for the most part this is a good thing if you’re an established club with a large VIP fanbase… but you’ve got to figure that if you’re an established club with a large VIP fanbase, what the hell are you doing buying a pre-fab club?  These things are monstrous and the first rule of SL communication is that local chat is only 30m, while shouting is 60m.  The problem arises when your stage is 150m from the dance floor because you thought the damn thing looked good centered while the stage should be against the wall.  So now you’re sending IMs out to every person in your club just so that they can know the contest boards are open….God forbid that the VIPs try to talk to each other without sounding like you have 35 “Hostesses” (see my last blog) on the dance floor shouting to each other begging for attention (AND YOUR LINDENS).

The Nostalgia Club

K, here’s a little background on me… in the 80’s I was in middle school.  I walked around in parachute pants, had silver wraparound sunglasses like Doc Brown in Back to the Future 2, and always had a pair of drumsticks sticking out of my calf pocket (parachute pants had a TON of pockets… and if you ever ripped a hole anywhere in these pants you had to throw the damn things out cause you can’t sew it back together and you sure as hell weren’t going to have your mom sew a “Keep on Truckin” patch on top of the hole to repair it).  At that age, I was into Dead Milkmen, Devo, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys… and Duran Duran (don’t ask).  I knew nothing about Ozzy, Van Halen, Rolling Stones (except that Devo covered a song of theirs) and others of the era and previous.  This is a long way to go to tell you that 80’s Clubs and Classic Rock clubs are not creating their playlists to keep ME in the club, but there are TONS of people who pine for days of yore… when INXS and Cindy Lauper walked the earth hand in hand with MotorHead and Foghat.  I have since discovered and enjoyed these genre, but my first love is not to be found here.  I’m sure there is a huge fanbase of ex-bikers and aged-out Yuppies who search and populate these clubs…. personally I’m waiting for a BarberShop Quartet Club to open…

The Skybox

Just like in real life, I’m not going anywhere I can’t see exits of some sort.  The low budget club is usually going to be a 1/4 Sim or smaller Skybox floating in a minefield of porn ads.  It won’t matter to you that the landscape is littered with ads for live SLex cams and Donkey Shows… cause you’ll never see the outside of the Skybox.  It’s small… it’s cramped… and the only way in or out is through a TP.  Lucky for you that the Skybox is usually enclosed to avoid you dancing with your significant other moments before falling 700m to your death on the ground below.  I don’t have anything against Skyboxes in general.. I enjoy living in them, but I wouldnt try to run a club out of one… where would your walk-up business come from?

The Club with a Heart of Gold

And here is where the majority of SL clubs fall.  I read somewhere that 92.7% of clubs that open in SL fail in the first 3 months.  Granted, I read that on the Post-It Note© sitting on my desk beside me where I wrote it down 15 seconds earlier, but it seems like a reliable source so I’m going to run with it.  Most newbies to SL want to run a club.  I’m going to say that one more time for emphasis… Most newbies to SL want to run a club.  There you have it… that’s not only a Mission Statement, it’s also a business plan for that 92.7% of clubs.  Clearly they don’t think it through, but they figure that with enough desire, anything is possible, right?  No, not right.  The club with a heart of gold wants desperately to be popular and make money, but the owners have no idea what they are getting themselves into the majority of the time.  They may be excellent builders and make a stunning place to look at, but if they dont have experience marketting their club then it’s going to fail.  Not all club closings are because of lack of planning… sometimes it’s all about the money.  If the maintenance on your sim is higher then the income of the club, you’re pumping your own money into it.  How long that situation lasts is up to you, the owner, but I don’t see the majority of club owners going into the business to donate money to LindenLabs every month.  This isn’t to say that you close a club after only a few bad weeks…. the economy being what it is mandates that you stick it out while the circle of money comes back around in your favor.  The club with a heart of gold prolly has great people working and running it… it’s a place where you really feel like you belong.  If that’s the case, tip the hell outta them.. not all clubs in this category fail….. you might be in the 7.3% minority.

That covers some of the more common clubs and perhaps you’ll walk away with your eyes a little wider… in any event, there are enough club types out there for you to find the one you like the most.  I knew 13 seconds into it which club was going to be my favorite   Stay tuned next time for a look at YOU, the Club VIPs… same Bat Time… same Bat Channel