Looking to become a promoter!how!

gags89

sup dudes,

im a college student with sweet f/a hours in college (good ole business degrees) and im beginining to feel the pince of the oul recession etc and i duno maybe if anyone with nightclub experience out there could help me with this?

as everyone knows students populate clubs all over dublin and generally appal anyone older cos wer loud and drunken antics...its ok il admit wer terrible! anyways, what alot of people in my college (dno who they be just randoms who i hear about) work promo for clubs like 21s, purty kitchen etc handing out fliers etc!


i was just wondering like is there a paid position within a club/bar setting for someone who essentially markets the club! marketing the club im kinda thinking about is generally creating awareness of its existance, creating its image as 'the cool place' and i am thinking via bebo,facebook,twitter,myspace profiles..my thinking for this is that pretty much every young person who would be 16- 23 have a bebo like!all of which are great free marketing tools along with other sites im sure that are out there like gumtree etc

then designing fliers and basically distributing them to your target market i.e get teams of people just handing them out on different college campus's

then um organising and basically coming up with great new ways to promote the club and themed nights etc to add a bit of variance to the clubs calendar!



so i hope im giving the jist of what this role would be but my question, is it an paid position or would it be a il put you on the guestlist typa role?? im not talking about just standing at a door for a bit giving out fliers but literally your work gets people to the clubs!



thanks for reading guys any advice is greatly appreciated!

MrLuke

Hi,

there's a few ways of going about this.

1. Identify a venue not particularly well (and there's probably a few of them about) eg. a place that doesnt attract many students and provide this service for them. You would have to sell yourself, your services, your ideas etc. to the owner, and they may be unwilling to risk taking you on for any number of reasons. You would have to make your own deal with the owner/manager, which could be fee based or based on how many people you get in. However in this day and age how many clubs dont have someone to do these services for them? Just a query as I know of countless clubs with their own bebo's/facebooks etc. You would have to provide a service they need and cannot provide internally already.

2. Find a venue you can hire and put it all together yourself, but this will require financial support, has many many risks, can be financially rewarding but can also lose you alot of money. If your going to deal with venues their immediate response will be to see how much they can get from you. They hold all the cards in that respect, and sometimes you have to know when to walk away.

There may be other routes eg. through student union connections? or do you know anyone who works in any of the clubs maybe to get some inside info on how well its doing, what their marketing strategy is, maybe to get an introduction to the manager etc. But whatever you do, research each potential club before approaching, so you know you are not wasting anyones time.

If i think of anything else i'll post it up.

Luke

gags89

thats is whopper post man, cheers for that..

ye id probably go with the option one you mentioned as i have been ''keeping tabs'' on a local club to me that defo isnt doing well at all.
its in a very good studenty area and alot of schools are nearby for the 18yr old crowd also but it just doesnt seem to do well....


ive googled the club and i cant even find it first in ''pages from ireland'' like the name is fairly unique like..
the bebo is last active 2 weeks ago and to be honest its dead like...old pictures, out of date songs as their flash and last posted comment is sumtin like a year ago!

they have no other like online profile anywhere else or a website also

i know for a fact the guards closed this place about a year and half ago due to their eh....relaxed door policy on under agers....(the station is a two min walk away)....also theres a whopper take away across the road from them that stays open..and because most people who would go there would be local enough and them being students the taxi fare wouldnt do as much damage as a fare from town would be like!...even walk-homeable!


yep i know of two lads who do the same typa thing for another club close enough to me and they get paid just a flat fee to keep up the promo work like..and i think my mate was saying (hes in their class) if they get over a certain amount through the doors they get a slice of the admission fee too!


and ive thought of a few good ideas i could have( like offers,promo nights, and other stuff too)when i was down in newzealand just there last year i managed to get a job working in the biggest nightclub in new zealand that was super student friendly, had loads of different type of nights (foam, 80s,beerfest etc etc) and it has done really well and the two lads who run it are only really a few years older than myself like! So i guess ive got some good contacts in this area too!


are you yourself involved in this area or just have experience from the yonder years?!?

cheers for the advice again man and any more advice is great too!

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Hey Gags,

The Best Way to approach the owners in this current climate is to ask for a meeting and propose to work for them on a no win no fee basis. Noone is going to hand you money if you have an unproven record in the industry.

Call into the office and request a meeting with the general manager. Then find out on average how many people on average per week he/she gets through the door. Ask if you offered to do the promotions for the club would he give you 25% - 40% of the door price for each additional number through the door. As there is no risk on their part they are likely to give it a chance.

A few things you need to know about the industry. The most important thing in a club is the DJ, you need to get a Professional DJ - they set the tone for the night and create, mold and control the atmosphere. Even if its not noticed they'll make or break the night.

If the door staff are unfriendly your gonna have a hard time getting the night off the ground. Unfortunately as a promoter you will be unable to have a say in this so check it out before you start.

The internet has very little to do with where people go. Just because you have a facebook page doesnt mean people will go to your club. Yes some pubs pay for facebook pages, usually they know very little about the internet - It works the other way around - they go to the club first then visit the websites. Face book pages are normally run by the bar staff. The only thing that matters is whether their friends are going to the club. So to get things going the best way is to have college parties at the venue and put on a really good show so they will come back. Flyers have a 2-4% return - so are effectively pointless. You need to find popular people / influencers and make sure they are going to your night and telling their friends.

Hope that helps

MrLuke

Gags,

it might also be worth asking around as to why people don't frequent the place at the moment, (crap staff, no smoking area, ignorant security etc.) this could give you a bigger picture of the business. If issues such as security staff are the problem its unlikely you will have any say.

When you do get it up and going, involve your customers, ask around for suggestions, could be useful for generating interest in the place online and offline. Maybe (for example) they would like a certain theme night etc, if you can create something that your customers feel they are 'part of' they will return over and over again. See how you can involve people and their skills in developing you night, eg; you're near an art college see if there's any good graphic designers there for your advertising material, maybe one of the students can dj (make sure they can first, get a mix first) and give them an early slot some night. All these people have friends and if you can give them somewhere they feel comfortable with they should keep returning.

But before all that make sure you can sell your services to the boss, see what you can offer, get it into a concise document so they have something to read once you have left the meeting.

Best of luck with it
Luke