MariaB
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ORIGINAL: LadyPact
Just for fun, I thought it might be interesting for you to hear the huge difference between your past experience and Mine here.
Ok lets make a comparison but keep in mind that most clubs in the UK are done on a commercial basis.
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In Alaska, there is no permanent public club/dungeon in the entire state. Some folks, like Me, have something set up in their home. However, if you want to do a community dungeon, it goes something like this.
In London, there are two permanent clubs that come to mind. We have clubs with permanent names but those clubs typically have to move around (a bit like a travelling circus). Venue owners prefer to rent a night to nilla promoters because bar takes are bigger and generally bring in more revenue, this means you may find a venue and book that venue for the next six months but if a better offer comes along, the venue owner will pull out on you.
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First, you have to find a venue to rent. You're going to need that venue for at least a 24 hour period. Typically, you want something that will be open to you from at least noon on Saturday until noon the next day. That's a fairly difficult task just to get that far because you have to find venue owners that are going to leave you the heck alone for that time period.
London promoters also have to find a venue which can prove incredibly difficult and hugely expensive. A 500 capacity club in London for a Sat night will cost on average 3 thousand pounds (around $4800). You won't be able to get hold of it over a 24 hour period. London clubs tend to run from 9pm to 5-6am. At best you are going to get into the venue at 5pm and you are going to have to be out half an hour after closing because most London clubs re-open as a day club from 7am. You are going to have to dress the club whilst staff are cleaning it and undress it whilst staff are cleaning it.
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On the morning of your community dungeon, you start the process of gathering the things you will need to turn whatever space you've rented into a play area. (Keep in mind, I'm a bum and generally not involved in this part because we live about 100 miles away.) Some of the dungeon furniture, decorations, etc belong to the group as a whole. Other stuff, you have to run around town and 'borrow' from individual members of the community. If somebody who is attending that owns a pick-up truck is willing to be a part of this, that's how you get everything to your rented space. If not, you rent a U-Haul.
When we ran a club we had a big transit van and we always hired a second one. We owned all the dungeon gear and had it in various lock-ups around London. It was just a case of transporting from one place to the next. This though, always required extra muscle, as the furniture was heavy steel and venues were often on the 1st floor of a building. The dressings for the clubs change and can either be hired or made, stored and alternated. The clubs always have furniture of their own too and this has to be moved and stored or set out to your own specifications.
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Hopefully, you get the first load of stuff to your rented space around noon. Other volunteers meet you at the rented space and assist in the process of setting up. Dungeon furniture gets put together, decorations get put up, lights so you can have a certain kind of ambiance. This continues, more or less, until you have your finished 'play space' around 6:00 PM. Your volunteers are come and go, mostly because they have to shower and change. You have other volunteers that set up your social area, deal with food, and whatever other amenities you are going to provide. Usually, the main person doing that shopped and did all the food preparation between Friday and Saturday to have it ready by 6:00 PM.
Crews generally arrive at the venue as soon as they are allowed in and its all stations go. The lighting engineer and the sounds engineer would arrive around 7pm and the Dungeon monitors, Dungeon Mistresses, door bitches, meeters, greeters and maids would arrive an hour before opening so that we could explain the plans for the night. The DJ would usually arrive about 20 minutes before opening and the performers may turn up early or not until an hour before they were on the floor. All of our staff were paid a small amount, got drink tokens and a free pass for a friend and they were never expected to work more than 4 hours. The set up and take down crew got double passes for the club plus drinks tokens. We also had a tea, coffee and blanket area which was set up by maids, which was voluntary but we had to pay DJ's and performers their asking price which was often fairly hefty.
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Your dungeon opens at 6:00 PM and is open until around 3:00 AM. You and your first volunteers have been running full steam since early morning the prior day. Some will crash at the dungeon because you've got until noon to complete the process of doing everything in reverse. Take the dungeon furniture apart, remove decorations, clean up whatever mess you've made and restore the place to the condition it was in before you started.
Venues in the UK use their own cleaners and their own security staff which is a legal requirement.
We, of course were expected to clean up anything ominous but the club cleaners would arrive on mass dead on closing time. They also put back any of their own furniture we had moved but the race was on to get everything out of the club in record time.
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Think I don't miss the public clubs that are just open every weekend? Oh My Gosh, do I ever!
I certainly don't miss running a club. Its not just getting the club ready, monitoring the club and taking it apart that is hard work, though I always relaxed once we opened, it was the work going on behind the scene. The advertising, the phone calls, the arranging, the juggling, the chasing and the constant buying of materials.
I love big clubs but I know the sheer hard work that goes into them.
It really annoys me when club goers complain that the promoters are making a profit. When promoters run these clubs as a business, they are far more likely to survive because if you don't aim to be in profit, you can guarantee you will be in loss.
Edited to add, I stole your purple... not sure how that happened!!
< Message edited by MariaB -- 11/11/2013 11:40:05 AM >
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RE: -=Now y'all wannabes can "play like Grey"=- - 
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