Oldest Club In Second Life Closing Her Doors!

QFT!!

Even live music venues - many if not most musicians require thousands of L for booking, and the venue never makes that money back. Off-topic- but I never thought it was a sustainable plan for Clubs to be the sole supporter of the Live Music Scene. These musicians that require 5 to 20K to sing for 45 minutes should get together with club owners and develop a corporate sponsorship system that could absorb many of these costs so the clubs don't have to constantly go into their pockets.
There was a time when musicians played at clubs for tips to promote their real life careers. With traffic gone and only showcase left - I do not think clubs will continue completely footing the bill for the live music scene. It is a domino effect.

I had one performer (who charges very reasonable rates) tell me that he thought the ones charging 5k and up were ruining the whole intent of "live music" in SL.

Frankly, I've been running live performances once and sometimes twice a week since January. I'm just not sure how much longer I'm willing to "support live music in SL" because their fan base doesn't do much to support the venue. I know one performer won't be invited back to my club because his fan base did not contribute one linden to the venue (and he did not encourage contributions to the venue), but tipped the performer over 5k ...on top of the 5k I paid him. I really hate being like that, but I pay $300USD a month for my sim, plus $150USD a month for my staff and events, and upwards of $100USD a month for the performers. I don't think expecting people to drop 30 cents USD in the donation bucket is a lot to ask.

Sour grapes? Maybe. Maybe I'm just tired

Some of these folks I do not mind paying for, especially if they are rl professionals. I can't do it too often, but I will happily pay the 10k booking fee for Louis Volare (and his alter egos), because he's brilliant and one of the best performers I've had the fortune to come across. Brilliant, just brilliant and pleasure to have. I will happily pay for good talent, but only on a limited scale. I consider it a private concert. I appreciate those who'll give me a break on the fee, because the club is not a loss leader for my rentals. It is my labor of love, and eats up a huge chunk of my profit.

Hi Honeybear,

I feel for your amount of outgoings, this is what me and my associate are up against, and your not guilty of "Sour Grapes" at all..... Yes tips are so low lately, as to be insulting, unfortunelty,I know a lot of fun slers, who have no intention of paying any money for anything, they feel they are entitled to anything thats going, which annoys me, I believe, that linden could introduce a fee, somewhat similar to red light, but i dont know much about RedL, but the site charges for certain activities, perhaps the free enrolment can stay, but think a joining fee too enjoy the many user creative clubs and activities. But the problem there is, where do linden put the extra money they would get, give a monthly rebate to bussiness users, pay clubs and dancers a basic , minimum amount a month, mmm, just ideas really, but think that without support, many club owners like Honeybear and myself who are slaving away, just to pay linden tiers and staff, on a tip basis, which just isnt parity or fair.....get tired and feel like jacking it in!!
I get tired too of putting many lindens and many many hours, into something im so unsure of wether its going to pay for itself.

Madhu, Im well aware the amount of money and hours I have put in SL since 2007. "In decline", I was really thinking that, this is hopefully a temporary decline, and that fortunes may change later in the year, but everything seems driven by the cost of fuel, Im behind the uk truckers protest 100%...I would faint, if i had to fork out 1800$ £900 to fill a truck up, to last perhaps a week if your lucky. Hopefully there will be another price war sometime between petrol companies, but those times seem to more and more infrequent sadly.

Although this topic has recieved some off topic answers, its all relavent in some way, and the concerns by others and their perceptions of making money out of clubs, is diverse, hence the different inputs into this forum!

Anyway have a nice day!
mike

LL don't need to start charging , the venues do, just charge $5L to buy a pass to enter during a performance, no pay, no play. Let the cheapskates sit around elsewhere if thye don't want to pony up and support their beloved idols.
If after a ripper of a concert a performer announced due to empty tip jars they were leaving SL, the very people who were Wooting and saying they rock 10 minutes before would be labelling them as capitalistic pigs.

Sorry for responding so late but my modem died and i could not get back on until today lol.
alot of what i was saying was based on trends and hear say..thats why it is just a theory i was kicking around..
my point was from how they have been cleaning up and how they look to be wanting to be more mainstream i was looking at it as they are looking to make it into a household sitting next to the internet tv radio playstation ect..
if given the opportunity in the long term to clean up and move into a bigger user base by such as a household tool becoming something that sits next to those things would they do it and could they?
it wasn't a matter of it happening this year or next or trying to satisfy this user base..it was was based on cleaning up and getting corporate support to pick up where the money is coming from now with less headache of an over used support system and then moving into a watered down version of what we know SL as now so that it could move into living rooms and seen and joined by a bigger crowd than it has now..
it wasn't that corporates would be using the main grid but their customers which would be families..
let alone if they want to attract corp's(Which is apparent ) on a bigger scale they would have to clean up..
if they had the chance to do it would they? i think they would..would they do it with a tripple X rating..they couldn't..a lot of sl is not sex related and really less than it used to be and getting smaller all the time in that area.
the whole pop list used to be nothing but sex related..
now we are hearing about allowing teens onto the main grid in the future?
i don't see them looking at anything but a bigger draw..
i know one thing..something is going on and change is coming ..it may not be the theory i put up but something big is in the works..
change doesn't have to happen over night..a lot of times it's a slow process when you are dealing with a lot of people but it still happens..it's a matter of testing people to see what they will do without and that is if there is not something bigger waiting for them on the other end..
Aren't theory's fun lol

I've actually thought about doing this, but have been told repeatedly that it just won't work. I'm halfway tempted to just try it one day when I have a huge headliner.

People will grumble a bit to start, but if everyone started doing it I bet the tightarses who really like the music would produce the cash somehow.
Once we can get people to link the credit card and use it once they will put money inworld. At the moment the whole social scene is telling them, no you don't have to contribute to the game, it's all free like social welfare handouts, then again maybe that's the way many of them probably live in RL too. You know the ones, 2 couples sharing a 2 bedroom apartment who can't afford to pay rent on time, but can buy an Xbox and Playstation to play all day, new computers, wizzbang cell phones, highspeed internet and still fill their bin with takeaway cartons & beer bottles each week.

I would give it a try Honey. I mean think about it,where in the real world can you go to a concert for free?(Well I know they are out there,but it is not the norm...)

haha i found it X!

OK- cheating twice helped

You just didn't give me enough time, dear.



I appreciate your assumption of my power.

I'm not a big live music enthusiast nor club goer so I'm not the average consumer of these venues. Having said that, I personally would MUCH prefer paying a set fee than being constantly spammed to tip the host/hostess (of which there generally seems to be several), the DJ, the venue, the artist (if live). I am so totally at a loss as to how much to tip each one, as well as not having a lot of lindens/cash atm.

Well, hopefully you're looking at two separate items.

During my concert events, I usually work them, and lightly push for venue donations, rather than tips. If I do have a host, I don't want them pushing for tips - I'd rather tip them directly. All club games are turned off, and if I remember, I turn off my autogreeter, so as not to distract the performer.

During regular club events, it's perfectly acceptable to say "I've enjoyed the club and the staff", and if you can, throw 5L or 10L to the DJ and hosts on duty. If you can't, you can't, but at least give the words of appreciation - they frequently mean far more than the money.

I've seen clubs where 5 people were logged into tip jars and only one or two were obviously working - I personally give my tip money to the ones who show the most involvement in the event.

Tips are voluntary, but just like going to a restaurant, I tip based upon the value of the services provided. If I get crappy service, the tip is going to be low (if any). But if the service is exemplary, I give the best tip I can afford.

On the topic of The Edge. I haven't been to the main grid version since early 2007, and would only go to the Beta version because it was always empty and was a good place to not lag while goofing off during update wednesdays. I was kind of suprised that is was closing though, I thought is was being run by LL now or something.

The only club I miss is Arsheba from it's heyday. It used to be a blast to show up with a group of friends and having the feeling like you were going into a real club. Now it's kind of sad, just a bunch of strippers begging for money the minute you walk in the door. Seems like that is how most of the clubs are going now.

I quit going to Badgirls because I just got so annoyed with the sound-gesture spam everytime someone walked into the club, you had 10 staff members playing "welcome to badgirls" like everyone hasn't heard is 200,000 times already.

I have some stores in free-sex clubs now, I actually find them to be the most socialable places these days. People hanging out and having fun, either having sex or watching or just chatting about nothing particularly sexy.

As for SL being in decline, if there was a decline I think it leveled out a few months ago. My sales between November and February dropped about 40% but since then things have leveled off and are starting to swing back up a little, about 5% increase each of the last 2 months. Whatever drop there was I would be hesitant to put solely at LL's feet, there is after all a recession going on in RL that looks to have peaked this spring, keeping a lot of money out of SL. Maybe a small percentage is due to LL from the server outages, but really the total outtage time per week hasn't gone up that much. Used to be we lost 4-8 hours guaranteed on wednesdays and then would have the recovery from whatever update disaster they introduced happen on friday. Now we just have the expected friday outtages. And from going on 2 years of sales data, Fridays and Saturdays are suprisingly low sales days anyway. My big days are Sunday and Monday.

It's sad when anyone feels the need to pull out, especially if they are forced to by RL financial considerations. It would be nice if everyone who wanted to make a $L fortune in SL and put out the effort did turn a nice profit and we able to keep themselves afloat. I might not have liked The Edge, but they didn't stay around for 3.5 years because everyone disliked them.