So I’ve been shopping around for a venue for a new event I want to run, dedicated to darker dance music (DarkStep, Industrial, Noise, Hard Trance/Dance, PsyTrance, maybe even DnB and Dubstep).
I e-mailed around and one gave me an offer. WE keep the door, but we have a 5K bar guarantee. Now, I don’t think I’ve ever worked an event that has made more than $2500, but to an extent, the only way to push something like this is to give it a shot, just a lot of money to lose.
I’m wondering how many people, in your experience, it would take to get to $5000. This could be a great opportunity, but it could also be a really terrible loss.
It’s all dependent on what the venue is like really, if they have a large amount of passing trade (ie, people who will come whatever night it is) then it may not be too bad. Do you know the club in question?
(Assuming it’s just another club I think it’s bit of a rip off)
I have no idea how many people = $5000 of booze though. We recently got Johnny Fiasco over from the states to play here in Bristol, UK. Generally the club charges us 450 UKP for hire, but we got over 200 people in and they made so much on the bar that they waived the charge.
Personally, I think it’s a bit excessive also. It’s in a nice area of New York City, though, and, well, it’s not the most expensive bar guarantee I’ve heard. I need to see it, talk to the management and find out what the pass through numbers are, but I know this place pulls at least halfway decent. I need to go and be there for a few nights and see what the attendance is like.
Well, cause I don’t think I’m the only person trying to find a gig. That’s how it works in this city, though. The bar gets all the bar with a minimum guarantee, and we get the door, pending we make that guarantee.
I don’t think we’re going to be able to do it, just cause I don’t think we’d be able to make that guarantee, and having a backup by charging more at the door in case the bar doesn’t do well will end poorly too…
That’s what we’re probably going to have to do. I was shocked they even e-mailed me back. I think between the two DJs we have, if we can bring in a good trance DJ from the area, we’d be able to pull around 150 to 200 people if we really, really, really pushed it. I think the conversation I’m going to have to have is “We really want to run it there, but we need to build a steady flow of traffic first before we can guarantee that much money” kinda thing.
Smaller venues are hard to find around here because everyone wants a bar guarantee that no one in my music scene can really promise. But with the right foot work I do think it’s possible.
$5000 minmum bar take seems like a lot for your expected max of 200 people. That’s $25/person - while some may spend more I think it’s a high average.
You don’t mention what your door price will be or advance ticket price. Have you an idea on this?
You maybe need to look at how much you would aim to pay the Djs + yourself and work on the ‘sprat to catch a mackrel principle’.
I would suggest talking to the venue manager and suggest giving you a guarantee of 3 or 4 planned nights. Set your door price from the off and suggest to the venue manager that he/she can have a %age of the door (say 30 or 40%) for the 3 or 4 planned nights plus all of the bar take.
Looking at the nights they have planned in March the door and advance tickets prices vary imensely from 5$ to $25. If you are planning on pitching yourself in the middle at say $10 and $15 then 200 people will give you somewhere between $1200 and $1800 from which you will have to weigh out Djs and promote the event - Is that enough to start?
The idea is to build the night up and this idea works on 2 levels. Form your side of things the risk is less and you can have a chance of building up the business and for the venue owner he can have a slice of the door action to go with his bar take.
After the 3 or 4 planned nights I would pre-negotiate that you will then in future take all of the door money and the owner will then have some history to base his decision on whether you are going to increase his takings over the bar based on the history the 3 or 4 initial nights have given him.
I have found in dealing with business people that the ‘sprat to catch a mackrel’ idea doesn’t work with some people as they are not willing to take a calculated gamble at all and they want it all ways, but it seems like a fair way to get a new night off the ground.
Alternatively look for a smaller venue to build the night and at a stage where you outgrow the small venue you can have some leverage with bigger venue owners having already got a captive and successful night with regular clientele.
I’m assuming that by “sprat to catch a mackrel” you mean compromise with the managers to have less overhead so we have more money to push the event and get the attendence better, or something, right?
Regardless, I was thinking of $5 for 21+ and $10 for 18+ if they’ll give us 18+, which is kind of a make or break for me. That way I can encourage the 18+'ers to buy red bulls, waters and the like and that’ll be a nice overhead. The thing with drink prices in NYC is the average bar has a $7-10 minimum for well drinks, so really, the average person buying three drinks is good in my mind, more if it’s cheaper beers, etc..
I want to see if they’ll negotiate with us for three events. Something like “Give us three months of once a month, and if we haven’t made $5,000 at the bar then we’ll drop the event” kinda thing.
I also want to see if they have any partnerships with smaller venues that we can start at with the interest of building. The big things, in my opinion, that is holding back the kind of parties I want to throw, are we can’t get 18+, and the venues are terrible. This is a beautiful venue, but it wants a lot cause, well, it’s a beautiful venue…
Hey Devil, a 5k bar min is high man. Whats the cap on the place for people? Ill be honest with you. In todays market its going to be tought get reach that number, why? Well you have a door cover in the range $5 - $10. 18+ will get bodies thru the door but no money at the bar. To make 5k you would have to pack the place with atleast 200 - 250 people that are 21+.
I would look for a dive bar instead of a club, if you want to start off on your own. Then once you have a good following you can goto that same club and have numbers to show. I believe the venue set the 5k min being that he/she wanted to turn you away.
Not to mention you can’t have drink specials with only 200-250 people.
In order to get 5k numbers at the bar, in my experience it takes 1000 people. Why? Because out of those 1000 people roughly 50-200 wont drink (this varies from week to week) and a good 200-300 people will only buy 1 drink. 200-300 people will buy 2 drink, and the remainder of the crowd are drinkers. This is assuming the average drink price is 3-5 dollars.
This, from what I’ve found in personal experience, is really the only way to GUARANTEE 5k bar numbers. I resident at the largest goth/industrial night in Portland. We average 400 bodies a night. And our bar numbers are around 2k…just to give some perspective.
Simply put, she is turning you down without actually saying no.
Hey J were not saying that you cant hit 5k min, but to have that set everytime you have the event is just madness! I’ve hit 5k in L.A. with 250 people but it was 21+ on a 3day weekend (keep in mind we close @ 2am)
Yeah, I know what you guys are saying. I am going to try and negotiate with them, or we’re gonna go somewhere else with a more reasonable deal. There are still things we can do, I think.
I have quit some of experience with this kind of stuff. Here in Denmark, you wont make 5000$ in a bar with a crowd of 200 people, thats for shure. You would need at least 300. But bear in mind - here we pay aprox double the price and drink twice as much
Also, to me it seems like very unfair terms from your point of view. I have never heard of a promoter who has a 5K bar guarantee!
i would catch up with the other promoters and asdk them how they are doing things in this partiular club. what kind of deals do they get etc. 5000$ is harsh. for 5000$ you shoudl be able to rent the club for 6 hours, doing everything by yourself… and keeping everything. what day of the night is it? usually friday is more studnets where saturday is more workers= less fun but more money
you should start easily with a samll bar just spinnign soem tunes to get some rep. then you canaim at bigger things. bars usually pay a bit (like 20-50$ per hour) thats a godd start and then you can come up with bigger ideas (maybe the abr owner will be into it as well and has connections…)
