Diary Of A Club Guy Part 5
Club Promoter
Club Promoter - Their role is to make a club busy. They can do this using a variety of tactics, but the most useful one is simply to know a lot of popular people who enjoy going out. Other techniques could include hiring new staff, changing the club's layout, and creating a new branded party that attracts a good clientele. They are paid based on how many people come in the club, and the liquor sales.
Image taken at a photoshoot for MUSE in 2017 with Quinn Baskin & Stephen Hua
I finally quit my job as an assistant manager to be a club promoter. From here it was money, great parties, and amazing memories.
Just kidding.
Arrogantly, I thought that because my guest lists at Stereo were big, that would translate directly into other nightclubs if I so chose.
I was wrong.
Turns out, being a club promoter (at least a successful one) is a lot harder than people think.
Part 5 takes place between 2014 and 2020 where my main work was promoting nightclubs.
The Journey
Sounds pretty simple when you think about it. All you have to do is get people to come to the club, and you get paid.
Turns out it’s really not that easy…
When I first started at Stereo I had a couple hundred followers on Instagram and Twitter, and maybe 300 Facebook friends.
I was shy for years and that didn’t change until I joined the hospitality industry. The idea of promoting, being the person who brings everyone out to the club, was a complete left turn.
When the time came to quit working at Stereo, I had around 3000 Twitter followers and 1000 Instagram followers. I met some new people bartending and hosting, and because of good service, I was able to profit from customer retention.
Unfortunately, although that was a big improvement from before, it didn’t have as much of an impact as I expected.
The climb from there took a lot of time and money.
The first 2 clubs I promoted for were:
1 - Saturday at Stereos under a new pay structure.
2 - Boa on Fridays for “Ordinary Fridays”.
The first one felt obvious. I figured I was already working at Stereo bringing people out, so I might as well still get paid for it. This way I wouldn’t screw them over, and it would be easier to transition out.
When I decided to quit, I talked to my friend John Skene to help me get work at different clubs. He introduced me to Stephen Hua who decided to give me a shot. That shot was to promote and be a VIP host at Boa on Fridays, if that went well, I could get more opportunities.
During my first week at Boa, I realized how differently things operated outside of the corporate structure. I noticed issues everywhere with how things were running and wrote a 2000-word document about all the problems.
When Stephen saw the document, he agreed with a lot of it. That might have been the first time we realized we would work well together.
A few weeks later Stephen decided to add me to the team at Greenroom on Thursdays, where I would also be allowed to DJ.
Greenroom was incredible. Every Thursday was packed and I had countless fun nights there.
During my time at Greenroom, I met a ton of great people, all the biggest local DJs, and another promoter, Quinn Baskin, who I would end up working with more in the future.
This went on for a few months.
It was great because it allowed me to DJ, promote, learn how things worked at these venues, and meet new people in the process.
The demographic at Boa and Greenroom was completely different than Stereo. This forced me to reach outside of my network to find ways to populate these venues, and ultimately, get me paid.
That’s when I realized that my knowledge of Facebook ads would come to use.
I started to master Facebook ads which generated the majority of my bookings as I grew. Once they would come down to the club, I would get to know them, provide good service, and could once again profit off of customer retention.
Promoting was so competitive that there were almost no tricks I wouldn’t try.
I even used Tinder as a tool to promote.
Once I would get a match, I’d tell them to meet me at the club with their friends. I was able to bring 3-5 groups a week out from Tinder.
One week I got as high as 8 groups, but that was a little awkward though.
Meanwhile, at Stereo, I was still bringing people out, but I slowly realized that the environment was changing and it was no longer the same Stereo I loved when I worked there.
After a few months, I cut my ties with Stereo and launched a new Saturday night party at Reset with my friend Andrew.
Reset was cool because they had an arcade in the club and each bottle service section had a PlayStation and a TV.
Our first week at Reset was the same night as the Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight and it was packed.
However, from there, each week got a little slower.
The issue with Reset was that the venue was far too big. Unless you had 5-600 people in there, it looked empty. We were never quite able to fill it and eventually, it died down and it was time to start a new weekly party.
That was around the same time that Stephen and I decided to step away from Boa and start a new Friday night at District Stop called “Therapy”.
At District Stop, every Friday, we would bring in a DJ from out of town. Therapy was solely focused on EDM music. We had all the top local EDM DJs playing, and then a good headliner from out of town.
While Therapy was a lot of fun, it was never really that profitable. What it did do though, was spread a bit of the love for EDM through the city.
I wouldn’t say it was overly successful, but I am proud of what we accomplished for the EDM scene there.
What Therapy did do successfully was set us up perfectly for what was to come next.
While Therapy was running, I had separated ways with Reset, which meant I would have to find a new place for Saturdays as well. That’s when I was approached to help launch a Saturday night party at a new bar on the Provencher Bridge.
Scene Saturdays launched on the bridge, but it only lasted 3 weeks. The owner ended our night quickly when he realized that if there was ever a fight, someone could get through over the bridge into the river.
It was a fair concern.
From there I started to work more closely with Quinn. Together we launch Saturdays at Reign Nightclub, which was a Canadinns club (local hotel chain). This meant working as a promoter in the same corporate structure that Stereo had again.
The difference with Reign vs Stereo though was that Quinn & I had creative control. This allowed us to launch some fun events and creative marketing strategies that were a lot of fun at the time but would now be laughable.
Saturdays at Reign never really took off, unfortunately. We had some good nights, but it was inconsistent.
Around that same time in 2015, Stephen asked Quinn and me to help promote the Summer of Sound Music Festival. We invested in the festival and helped make that the best Summer of Sound to date.
Summer of Sound went on to become a staple for the city and something many people look forward to. Although my involvement with it slowed down after 2016, Quinn’s involvement grew and he eventually became one of the owners.
Meanwhile, at Reign, we were slowing down, and Therapy was also coming to an end.
Stephen and I were looking for a new venue to do a Friday night party. That’s when we started talking to Jack who had just opened a new venue, 441 Main.
I had been in talks with Jack about becoming a partner at 441 Main. I was ready to move from promoter into ownership and wanted to open a new club with Jack. Instead, he suggested I become a partner at 441 Main.
Stephen and I came to a promotions agreement and around the same time, I became a partner at 441 Main. That was when we gave birth to our new Friday night party, Muse.
Stephen and I worked on the branding for Muse for around 3 months. Muse was our baby and in my humble opinion, the greatest brand for a weekly party the city had ever seen and has seen to this day.
Muse was a combination of anything exciting you could have in a club. We had artists doing live art, fashion shows, live musicians, DJs, naked sushi, dancers, models who you could paint, and the list goes on.
It was sexy, fun, and classy all at the same time.
A couple of months into Muse is when I decided to leave Reign so I could promote and host at 441 Main on Saturdays as well. It made more sense because I would be able to be at my own club all weekend, instead of promoting someone else’s venue.
Now that I was at 441 Fridays and Saturdays, hosting and promoting, I felt right at home.
I got to meet everyone coming out to the city’s hottest club and met them as an owner, promoter and VIP host. The majority of my best memories in my nightlife career happened in that room.
Muse went on for over 3 years. We took breaks in the summer however because a lot of our demographic would go to their cabins on the weekends.
During those summers I tried a couple of things to try to populate the club but never had much success. We never had a patio at 441 Main and unfortunately, that’s what you need to be busy during summers in Winnipeg.
Now that I was committed to 441 Main on weekends, Stephen and I decided to start promoting more weekday parties as well.
Greenroom Thursdays were done and we need something to replace that spot.
Our friend was promoting Wednesday nights at Rudy’s. It was busy, but he felt it could be busier. That’s when we joined him there and helped give it an extra push to be absolutely insane.
Wednesdays are Rudy’s were so busy that we decided we needed to do a second Wednesday night elsewhere.
The following summer a new venue opened up called La Roca. Our friend would remain at Rudy’s while we went to La Roca to start a new night.
I was so committed to this new Wednesday night that I moved in across the street from La Roca. Every Wednesday I hosted a pre-game and after-party for anyone who wanted to come out.
Slowly, La Roca became popular and the Wednesday nights were a hit.
For 3 summers, Stephen and I packed La Roca. Those summers were a tequila-filled, drunken blur, but incredibly fun, and lucrative.
In 2019, a friend and I decided to buy Teos on Corydon. Teos was a restaurant/lounge which turned into a club at night.
This gave me a whole new set of promoting commitments. We later rebranded Teos into Chaise Corydon, and I attempted to launch a few weekly parties there.
Parties at Chaise were very difficult in the winter, but because of the great patio there, summers were packed.
I remained as a promoter and owner at 441 Main on weekends and Chaise Corydon right up until covid hit and we were shut down.
Throughout those years I continuously promoted numerous concerts, long weekend events, and other weekday parties.
Some of those parties included:
Made Thursday at 111 Princess
Mondays at District Stop
Mondays at Upstairs in the Village
Numerous parties at The Met
Thursdays at Rudys
Thursdays at OV
Christmas day at Teos
Party on Provencher
After the covid lockdowns eased up, I never really went back to promoting full-time. Having my weekends off showed me how much I was missing out on over the years, and although I tried to go back to it, I just didn’t have it in me anymore.
In part 6, I will talk about my experiences in ownership.
Picture taken with The Chainsmokers in 2016 at Summer Of Sound.
Memorable Experiences
Wednesdays at La Roca were so much fun, but it led to many noise complaints in my apartment across the street. $3 tequila shots make for a dangerous night.
Muse at 441 as I said is the greatest party brand that the city has ever seen. It was awesome to see people’s faces as they walked in to see models being painted, or naked sushi.
Standing at the top of the stands at Summer Of Sound 2015 watching close to 7000 people party was a great feeling, and was truly memorable.
Every night that one of the venues was empty and I sat there looking at my phone wondering why only 15 people showed up… I’ll never forget those nights.
The best parties were the ones where multiple of us promoters teamed up. It guaranteed success and was always fun.
All the fake people who were only nice to me in an attempt to skip the line. I’ll never forget who those people are.
At one point, Stephen and I were promoting 8 parties a week. That was too much but worth the shot.
Takeaways
Promoting a club is not as easy as it sounds. While it can be lucrative, most people fail at it. I had over 50 different promoters work under me, and only 20% lasted more than 1 month. Only 3 of them continued afterwards.
Club promoters get a bad rep for being sleazy, sleeping around, being cheaters, etc. Having seen what I have seen in nightclubs, I can tell you that the promoters I worked most closely with are far better people, and more honest people than those of other professions. The promoters who aren’t good people, well, they get exposed easily.
Club promoting is a lot of fun, and pretty lucrative, but it is not a good long-term business and is quite awful for you physically, and mentally.
There are good people everywhere. Promoting was a great way to meet them.
Conclusion
I’m extremely grateful for the experiences I had as a club promoter. The number of parties I threw was ridiculous so I likely forgot to list some of them. What matters most is the business experience I learnt, the memories I gained, and the people I met.
Club promoting is both lucrative and fun, but the amount of alcohol you drink while doing it, and the poor sleep quality you get in return, is simply not worth it in my opinion.
If you were to put the same effort and time into any other business, you’d likely be able to make more money and be in far better health. That’s why I will never go back into that business as a primary focus.
Thanks for reading!
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