It's in a mall, now

I'm re-visiting my long list of clubs and hangouts, adding notes about their current status. Of course a good number of them are getting the label "DEFUNCT", but about as many are getting the label

"It's in a mall, now"

I'm in Toby's Juke Joint now. I used to like this place. Now it, too, is in a mall. And there are ten other people here with me and no conversation. None.

The auto-greeter here hasn't yet recognized that I've spoken, or that I've run in circles around everyone, or that I've stood in front of the owner and jumped up and down.

But they do occasionally say hello to each other, or thank each other, or say how awesome the tunes are.

And, of course, they're all dancing.

This is what I find everywhere. This is SL.

Depressing. Creepy.

Ah, there we go. Someone just told me to click on the dance ball

Out of genuine curiosity, because, well, I don't go to the clubs. Are there just too many of them in SL? Do they not offer enough to their clientele? Or are they simple too bland for most users?

Is the "put it in a mall" thing a new thing, an attempt to get people shopping while they dance?

Seems like clubs are a very common addition to SL, yet none of them ever seem to last very long, so I was wondering.

I'm beginning to believe that Anya waits outside a place until happy hour is over.

Maybe it was a bot that just says it every so often.

Yea. And some clubs are running a tad more advanced alicebots that try to converse but if you listen long enough it becomes quite comedic in nature.

Basically one in 5 avatars is a bot and another 1 in 5 is stealing. SL is such a party place these days rofl. After all (according to the last statistics analysis I read) only 200,000 people are carrying SL's economy. It isn't growing either.

Does anyone here actually go to clubs? Which ones?

It is likely that any club that actually gets people in still have their "prime hours". I know that Hotlanta Blues gets very busy in the SL evening hours and I am pretty sure that Junkyard Blues still gets a big evening crowd.

As for the mall stuff, that is what most clubs need to help offset the actual cost of running the mall -- though some will at least put the mall a little ways away from the club.

/waves to Mari

I don't do the "club scene" per se as most of my dancing is at the Avilion Ballroom or one of the larger jazz clubs, but when I first began SL I worked in a really nice vintage 1940's club. It was very popular - the build looked like an airplane hanger during WWII (because the "Officer's Club had been bombed out - there was an entire back store to the club with amazing builds to match) and people really enjoyed dressing in vintage attire. It had no lucky chairs, sploders, contests, no live DJ's (the owner had a wonderful set of music for each night) etc. and just one small shop with vintage attire when people asked, "Where do I get those kind of clothes."

I also knew a man who has owned several jazz-style clubs over the years.

What I have been told by club owners is that it really has to be a labor of love and either supported financially by the owner/s (as the club I referenced above was) or really work hard to get funding in other ways (which is where I think the mall idea comes in...the club may own the mall and get rent from the merchants). Most clubs I have gone to recently, the tp lands me at a place where I have to walk through a maze of shops to get to the club.

Club owners or former owners will likely be along to answer this question better but basically there is a LOT of expense and man-power needed to run a successful club and yes there are a LOT of clubs on the grid.

Back to the club I worked at...the only reason it closed when it did was due to personal issues and two years later people are still saying how much they miss it. As far as I know, the group is still in existence (although can't be joined). I finally dropped it when I needed group space.

I enjoy ballroom dancing, soft or vintage jazz (The Rat Pack type) and oldies so when I choose to go dancing my venues are:

*Avilion Ballroom
*Camelot Gardens
*Runaround Sue's
*Smooth (Jazz)
*Sweethearts
*Frank's Place
*Bogart's
*Phat Cats

Did that place have a large plane hanging inside or something like that?I remember a club like that..
i loved themes like those

Not new, but when a place that used to exist on its own does this it looks like the owner has thrown in the towel. A club that used to exist to feed the owner's ego, or just entertain him and his friends, can also go this route. When it's no longer fun because people aren't coming anymore, I can see an owner thinking that it should now at least pay for itself.



Some of them do last a long time, even without an obvious source of revenue. Why does 7th Element still exist? Do they not have to pay tier? Is it run by Lindens? Or is it someone with 200-300 dollars per month to feed their ego? How long can that last if people don't go there? Yet, they persist. Which brings me back to...is it run by Lindens? How is it that it gets blogged as a place without traffic cheating...

http://www.slentre.com/second-life-traffic-report-sisters-are-doing-it-for-themeselves-in-september/

...and blogged again as a place without traffic cheating...

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/09/augusts-top-traffic-sites-in-sl.html

...and defended by a forum regular as a place without bots...

/327/74/335859/9.html

...and yet so obviously doesn't have any humans present?

I think clubs turning into creepy social vacuums has pretty much killed the idea of going to a club for conversation.

There's one I forgot about. I'm almost afraid to go there for fear of jinxing it

Most of the other places you mentioned are okay for private conversation if you go with someone, but not so good for open chat. I'm hoping to find some open chat.

Hotlanta Blues and Junkyard Blues in the evening hours (maybe other times of the day, but not sure about that).

/me waves back

Total aside to the thread, but I would love to see some clubs like that in Bay City.

In my opinion a lot of clubs have became so obsessed with volume of traffic that they have forgotten about the quality traffic..

Things evolved from camping with real people to camping with bots to bots being put into boxes then pulled to from the boxes and bots taking the place of people in the clubs and stores and who knows where else..

It's a lot of monkey see monkey do how do i make money in sl so i can quit my day job..
If a club has high traffic chances are someone who wants to start a club is gonna study as to why..Then they go out and two more copy off that one and so on and so on and so on..

Anyone can go out and get venders for free and slap them around a club or make a mall and center the club in it..

i think we really have a lot less club owners and more mall owners just throwing a club up with bots in it as another way to get more search options and draw people to the venders..

someone did take me ballroom dancing lastnight and i have to say it was a lot of fun..
Very relaxing to..All i saw were pictures of a bunch of blues and jazz artists in there..it was a nice change..
In fact after the person i was with had left i had gotten an IM from the owner...

It ended up being someone from the forums.. Crighton Johin who owns The Savoy hehehehe It was a very good time

Small world

I hang out at Club Seal.

Is that Club Baby Seal?

Anya, surely you, of all people, recognize what's happening. When clubs no longer attract actual residents, they can still be useful for hiding trafficbots. They may be alicebots to enhance the cover story of making the "club" more welcoming to guests. By this point, the owner doesn't care much whether any guests even show up, let alone feel welcome.

Most clubs exist to create traffic. These just avoid the inconvenience of actual club-goers.

I'm sorry to hear about Toby's . . . I used to like that place.

Junkyard Blues used to be good too; there was a kind of simplicity to the outdoor setting. It didn't (doesn't?) have a lot of bells and whistles, but that just made it nicer.

I find that a lot of clubs are fairly cliquey: they have their "regulars," and such chat as there is can be difficult to break into. But it's true, too, that clubs seem to me to be quieter than they used to be. Not necessarily less busy -- just quieter. Bots? Or maybe just more of a focus on IMs?

I do go to clubs a fair amount -- The Vault, Berlin 1920, The Savoy at Virtual Harlem, The Kasbah -- but I rarely go unescorted, so to be honest I don't mind if the place is quiet, or the public chatter low key or nonexistent, because I'm not really going to meet new people (and certainly not to be picked up).

The mall thing is, for me, a drag because the places I go to I choose for the ambience. And malls are likely to kill that dead pretty quickly. I could name (but won't) a still-popular club/trivia place that I've been to a few times that is surrounded by a giant mall that is soooooooo ugly . . . it's like dancing in the middle of a Walmart. Or maybe that's being unfair to Walmart . . .

Thanks to everyone who has mentioned specific places.

Here's another observation...

Two years ago when I first observed automated chat it seemed to be a lot more sophisticated than it is now. It wasn't in a logical order and it wasn't interesting and if you actually tried to follow it it didn't make sense, but there was some effort to exchange what looked like individual conversational phrases.

These days it's just nonsense and gesture spam. It appears that the chat bot I first encountered was either written by that venue owner and not shared, or maybe the market for chat bots has been overcome with mediocrity and the "good" one disappeared in obscurity.

If I had more time maybe I'd try to collect chat bots so I can observe the nature of each and see if I can recognize them in action, but I also don't want to support them by purchasing them. I haven't even looked very hard to see what's available, but it wasn't hard to find one that claimed the ability to chat at clubs. I'm assuming there are several.

Indeed, the parcel that has Toby's covers pretty much the whole sim, including the mall. It's just very unfortunate that this happened to Toby's.

To attract even a few people in, unless you already have a cliquey , loyal clientele, you have to have a jillion money contests, pay a hostess, and a DJ, beg tips for them all evening.
I agree most clubs are boring, if you walk into one new to it, most people stop talking and all go into IM. Your left to feel like an outsider, and i have yet to see a host or hostess thats been trained to get everyone talking, or make new people feel welcomed much past a hello, and you are lucky if they manage to get your name right.

Most clubs are in malls now, to bring in traffic for the mall, that's usually the only justification you can possibly manage for the money you will have to throw at avatars to get them in.

We have an empty club at our mall, we have open free to anyone that would like to make a go of it, so far 3 have come and gone. We are seriously thinking to furnish it nicely ourselves and leave it open to any DJ that would like to work for tips if times are slow for them. Not sure if this would work either, i have yet to meet a DJ that didn't expect pay for an evening of work, but i can understand that too.

So if your wondering where have all the good clubs gone, it just hasn't been the same since the Lindens stopped awards for the top ten most popular spots in SL, some several years back. Entertainment other than some live shows, its just not what it used to be.

I have worked the club scene as a dancer for well over a year now. I've worked in some really good clubs, and I've worked in a few -- well, not-so-good clubs. Lately, there's been a disturbing trend among clubs that I believe is partly responsible for driving owners to turn away from trying to attract live human clientèle. More and more, we're getting "guests" who show up, make absolutely no attempt to interact with anyone except perhaps to say "hi" when we welcome them. They basically just land, click the contest board, and basically ignore our attempts to include them in our conversation. Or, sometimes, I have seen a DJ completely fill a club with his or her followers who endlessly spam chat lavishing love and praise for the DJ while completely ignoring the rest of the staff (in one extreme case, I scanned tip jars. The dancers, myself included, had around 50 Lindens. The hostess, 25 Lindens. The DJ, 4500 Lindens. Umm... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?).

I realize that, in a few cases, these antisocial guests are just alts or bots sent in to game the contest board; but in most cases, the "guests" who land, click, and park don't win the contest. In a few cases, some of these guys even lapse into their AFK slump, only to be "woken up" a bit later.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, while there are a number of clubs out there that are very unwelcoming, it does take two to tango. It's very hard to keep a club socially-engaging when the guests refuse to participate.

Yes?

You might be seeing is a DJ providing his own bots. The love-the-DJ chatter and the "thank you for the tip!" talking tip jar is supposed to be suggestive for the few real humans who might not otherwise know they're supposed to tip the DJ, and the crowd is supposed to convince the club that this DJ is worth the money.