Starting a club night

Lots of flyering and posters. You need to be out and about at every event that is even vaguely related sticking bills in peoples hands. Maybe pay someone to put posters up.

Book DJs and live acts that have a following and/or lots of friends.

Make sure the people from the local listings mags get to know about the night and get free entry.

Keep doing it. Hopefully you can find a sympathetic venue but it can take several months or more to build up a good crowd for a new night. You need a venue manager that will stick with you.

Offer yourself as a guest on relevant local radio shows - they are usually hungry for content.

Sounds good though.

Definitely research the postering side of things - it is a very feudal business, and by postering yourself you can accidentally get yourself in trouble.

We narrowly talked ourselves out of a kicking when we did it ourselves.

Know your crowd and market as directly to them as you can. The internet makes it so easy these days.

Don't do street postering unless you are bringing in Moby.

Don't be afraid to lose money on your first night.

Sick Boy said:

Don't be afraid to lose money on your first night.

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or the few after that. I've run a few such nights, and the venue is crucial - somewhere that's not going to appear desolate if your early crowds are a little.. erm.. selective.. but has room if it suddenly does well. Checking out the competition is crucial, and trying to pick good dates (my club goes from fucking rammed to a bit quiet on what seems like a totally arbitrary basis, but some voodoo involving paydays, bank holidays, other events etc and you suddenly see a pattern).

The comments about the venue manager are crucial too - you need someone who believes in the idea enough to take a risk and stick with it. Sometimes places that are struggling work brilliantly well, and are really glad of the extra trade so will bend over backwards to help.

Work out if you even need to charge - can you arrange a deal based on bar take with the venue? my first club i got paid 200 quid by the venue to put it on, which covered expenses and DJs and i probably took home 30quid and was more than happy. if you do need to charge, keep it low - better to lose money and build a crowd till the door take goes up than overcharge at the off..



get a gimmick - i've done everything from giving away free CDs and badges to cake, kazoos and a birthday pinata (perhaps not appropriate for a dance night but find something that fits)..

I'd recommend using the internet as much as possible, it's cheap and just as good a way to get peoples attention as handing them a piece of paper when they're drunk. Get people to blog about your night, hit the msg boards, upload trailers/ads on youtube, post mixes from the dj's, comment spam on Myspace. Emphasize what your night's about and what makes it special.

If it's a regular thing perseverance is important, keep going if you loose a bit of money, get some regulars, the word will spread.

Also no matter how much people post on internet message boards about how wicked your night looks, or say they are going to make the trip from city x at the other end of the country (although wicked when they do) you are going to need to attract people local to where the night is to be the mainstay of the crowd week in week out.

Interweb is good for promotion but don't rely on reaction on the web to a night to guage how busy its going to get...talk is cheap/doesn't require persuading your mates to come out/"its raining" etc etc.

As an aside, do people think flyers are actually useful or worth the money these days? Or is it better to do myspace/forums and then the odd A4 poster at bus stops? I hardly pay attention to the bits of paper people thrust into my hand as I leave a club at 3am...

Logos said:

As an aside, do people think flyers are actually useful or worth the money these days? Or is it better to do myspace/forums and then the odd A4 poster at bus stops? I hardly pay attention to the bits of paper people thrust into my hand as I leave a club at 3am...

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Outside London flyers are absolutely essential. 100%. Definitely the best way of getting word out still if you use them properly. Smack every vaguely related night to pieces, stack em up on record shops, get posters out to the people that put em up on street sites, get flyers put in as many packs as possible.. I'm sure people still pay more attention to physical promotion than stuff on the internet, and if you're out flyering your night, you'll be able to tell people what it's about at the same time. Talking to people is the way forward

Not sure if its the same there as here, but Ive found that at the beginning, you have to be very liberal with the guest list. Clubbers are habit creatures around here, especially on weekday nights, so building a new one takes time and incentives.

Perhaps a liquor/beer company promotion? Ask the the club for a special. Around here, our favorite is $2 Pabst. mmmmm, Pabst.

i used to do a night in LA... minimal techno, left field house, etc. just a lot of flyers around town. but with printing costs and the house taking part of door, on a good night me and my partner would walk away with $150 each, and on a bad night we'd lose about that much. but it got better and better, had a little devoted following...

not sure how it works in UK but my experience is just classy flyers. and try to get friends in the media to hype it up - radio, newspapers, etc.

There's a lot of really good advice here. All i'll say is, WORK HARD. Put in the time even when you don't want to. If you have a little cru to help you out, your enthusiasm will be infectious. Only give jobs to people you know will do them well, otherwise do it yourself. Be prepared to lose money, be prepared to be looking at an empty club.

More specifically on your night, i'm sure there's a ton of local DJs who would have been big in the area playing this kind of stuff in the 90s that a lot of older heads would recognise. It might not hurt to book one of them to if you're doing all the good stuff from the last 20 years. It would increase numbers, but you have to be careful not to turn into just an old school house night or whatever. Be prepared for it to be busy too - you might strike gold early if you push it properly. Have your months lineup booked and posters up & flyers done ready to give to people as they leave. Have two chicks on the door taking email addresses for mailouts in the future.

UFO over easy said:

I'm sure people still pay more attention to physical promotion than stuff on the internet, and if you're out flyering your night, you'll be able to tell people what it's about at the same time. Talking to people is the way forward

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Absolutely. Look them in the eye when you give them a flyer, tell them what it is. Quickly. Then on to the next person. Get them all, each one is a potential couple of quid less of a loss. I actually enjoy this bit!

dubversion said:

(my club goes from fucking rammed to a bit quiet on what seems like a totally arbitrary basis, but some voodoo involving paydays, bank holidays, other events etc and you suddenly see a pattern).

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It's like witchcraft or something. And the justification in hindsight when you have a shitty night! Oh my god. It's fear of that that motivates me to leave the gaff at 2.30 in the morning to go and flyer outside some crappy club with maybe 50 potential punters, or go into town after work and put up posters everywhere.


Lastly, some Rudyard Kipling:

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two Impostors just the same; Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it."




OH OH OH!! I nearly forgot my absolute Top Tip for promoters - double-sided sticky tape on your posters. Essential.

A good day to all

my name is rico and i'm a representative of IChiOne
most happy i found this board, very much interesting topics to read here

many good advices given concerning starting a clubnight

for us it's
strong motivation, passion, enthousiastic perseverance, strong believe, an original concept, the will to invest loads / earn 'nothing' and finding continuinity
these aspects are essential when ya builed an event

if ya want to earn money prolly better to find a nice job as there to many stupid commercial parties outhere already

Hiya Rico!

Don Rosco said:

Have your months lineup booked and posters up & flyers done ready to give to people as they leave.

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This one's really important: ideally you want to know who's playing 2 months in advance if you want to get listed anywhere. It's worth getting as many listings as you can, in local press and beyond. In my experience you need to send details off at least a month in advance even to get in weekly press. To get in monthly press it needs to be two months.

I found that if you get your listings off early, with for example 2 months' worth of nights booked, you're much more likely to get some press. In London it's a matter of contacting press association, who do the listings centrally for all the papers and mags. This may also be the case up where you are, even if it's only for local press. With the listings people it's very much a case of 'get it right first time or your email will go straight into the junk'.

Don Rosco said:

Hiya Rico!

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how's you doin mate?

Hi chaps

Sorry I'm going to have to buck the trend here by saying that if you aim to loose money you will loose money. If you aim to make a profit then you might cover your costs and make a profit. Yes, promoting is fuckin' hard but no you don't have to loose money. No offence to anyone here but promoters loose money because they don't think about making a profit.

First things first, forget about paying Djs .... they will eat up your takings quicker than you care to breath. Be firm and don't be wimpy ... unknown Djs will be more than happy to play for free and at no cost to you. Make sure they know the deal before they play though as you don't want hassle in the venue. Remember chiefly its your efforts that make a night happen and no one elses, so yes you deserve a reward for it, as minimal as that may be. As long as you're the perfect host and nice to those who play that'll mean more than a pint of beer and £10.

Also forget name Djs as they add sod all to a night and guaranteed the cost you pay them will never be recouped on the door let alone you make a profit off them. Even if you manage to negotiate price down what they charge is usually completely ridiculous. Take it from me adding name Djs to your night is a vanity thing .... you will loose money on them. However once you've built up a following and established a good profit buffer then you could consider 'names' but only if it benefits your existing operation. If it adds nothing then don't do it as you don't need the financial hassle. Remember fundamentally names will not cover the cost you pay them.

Logos mentioned earlier about printing flyers. I'm of the opinion that printing flyers is a waste of money if you're running a tiny event with no names. The people who come to no name events are your friends and the friends of Djs. Also if you're smart and choose the right venue you can get a nice portion of their regulars into your night.

Logos is also right that people who say the night looks wicked on the internet etc and will come blah blah are often full of hot air. It makes you feel good for 5 mins but they've probably said the same thing to several other promoters.

Logos also rightly says that the local crowds will be the mainstain of your night and I agree with that. The only people who'll usually be prepared to travel to your night are the Djs and their friends.

If you do print flyers then do just 500-1000 black & white at the local printers. You should be able to do that for no more than £30. Now you can experiment flyering at other similar nights.

Talking to folks at other similar nights is key. But just handing them your flyer and then talking to them for 20 secs is inpersonal and will guaranteed fuck them off especially if you're running a no name event that they have no interest in. Remember no one likes another person's agenda stuffed in their face so be extremely subtle. Chat to them for 5-10 mins and take interest in them and establish real rapport by which time you'll hopefully have mentioned your night. But ask them to come like you'd really want them to be there and not just 'cause they'd be another head through the door. You can still spam the whole venue but make a proper connection with someone they'll be more likely to come to your night.

As many have said it takes time to build a night. People often have zero motivation for going to your night above others, let alone returning, so you need to give them good reason. Being a friendly host is key. The kinda of promoter who just talks to his own friends and doesn't make newcomers feel welcome will loose them very quickly. People will often return to a night if they felt special, very welcomed and not just because they enjoyed the music. Make them feel like no one gave a fuck about them and they think 'sod going back there'.

I could add a lot more but for the moment that'll do. Please excuse my shit punctuation. Good thread by the way.

good post

though we have made the choice to invite headliners from the start
we have seen the extra budget as investments

it worked out for us but it is a rocky road

witchy tip

A really good tip for remembering people's names is, when introduced, shake their hand whilst saying their name over in your head three times and looking in their eyes. For some reason the tactile contact, name-saying and eye contact makes their face stick to their name in your memory banks, and you'd be surprised how many people will come back to a place because of a personal touch like that.

As a host it makes you feel good to remember people - the look of surprise in a person's face when you say their name after having met them once is priceless - and as a frequenter it means people feel like they are wanted.