How do I open an adult club/bar?

I started SL a few weeks ago and I absolutely love it. I'd like to know what steps I need to take in order to open an adult dance club?

Things like:

1. Renting and owning land
2. Constructing or prefab buildings
3. Money Server operations
4. Cost of owning/renting land
and so on......

Any advice or information would be most appreciated. Thank you!

Considering your relative inexperience , Id suggest working in the industry for a while rather than starting your own club. That way you can experience first hand the possitives and negatives involved with running a club.

That experience would benefit you more than secondhand nformation.

However if youd still like to open a club - you need to decide on why you are doing so. If its to make money you should know the vast majority, and I mean over 90% are Money Pits that cost their owners hoards of US dollars and dont turn any proffit. There are simply FAR more clubs in second life then there are club goers to fill them.

Comapred to that simple fact all of the aspects of actually Making a club is simple.

You need

1. A parcel of land - There was one busy club on 512M^2 I know of.

2. Your music set to some stream people will listen to

3. People.

Everything else is just customization.

At the moment, the best idea might be *not to*.

There's an extreme risk that the new age/identity verification rules will ruin a lot of adult businesses.

Thank you.

I started working in the industry litterally on the second day of SL. I'm a very quick learner. Anyway....... I have a great idea for a club that I think is unique that I hope would set us apart from the rest.

Can you give me an idea of the Lindens it would cost to rent the land?

I'm with Colette on this one; hang out in some clubs for a while; either work in one or just patronize a few. Chances are, they'll go belly-up within a month or two. Yes, this includes strip/adult clubs too. I know one guy who has opened and closed EIGHT clubs in six months, all on different pieces of land that he's had to buy and sell, etc. And Colette's right, too, that most are money pits; i.e. you'll barely make tier.

If you decide that this is REALLY what you want to do, before you do anything, spend a couple of weeks scouting the existing successful clubs. See what they do to become successful. Find a theme that is unique and will draw people (we are notoriously fickle club-goers..."JAC" stands for "Just Another Club" and we'll probably never go there again among my crowd.)

I would do ALL of that before I ever even started looking for land.

[Edit: Nevermind then ]

In the meantime I'd suggest reading the knowledge base, which is available on this site and from the help menu in game. There are a few good threads on the forum as well, a couple of earches will get you started. Also go to NCI, there are building classes available. And I agree with Colette. get yourself a job in an Adult Business to start, so you can get a feel for things.

Thanks Oryx,

I am a rather successful business owner in RL and I have been using RL skills in scouting SL clubs. I have ben visiting many of the top rated clubs and taking notes. I totally agree with you! I have seen TONS of clubs that are horrible looking and thus they never see me again..... and I'm sure the same goes for their customers.

So here's a question for you..... What businesses do well in SL?

To cover all the costs: land, building, marketing, advertising, staf, dancers, dj, security, .., ..., ..., and advertising, advertising, advertising, ....

When you are lucky to make it successful: minimum 1,000 US$

Please don't anyone quote me on this coz I'm probably out in left field here... but I'd say that successful SL businesses are ones where the owner actually sells products as opposed to services.

e.g. animations, pose balls, land, clothing, skins, toys, etc etc


That being said, I would still LOVE to see (and I'd pay for!) a non-adult "spa", like where i could send my avatar to get mud baths and facials and stuff... I think that would be a riot, myself. By "non-adult" I mean that sex is not on the "menu" per se.

hmmmmmm..........
gets busy building

nice idea Oryx!

Never rent (or purchase covenant land) when you can own. If you rent you add a third-party to the transaction (a landlord). If you own, any problems you might have with the adult nature of your parcel are strictly between you and Linden Lab.

With the id verification issue I'd be very very wary of opening a new adult dance club in the near future.

However the possible positive side of that for you could be that some owners put their existing clubs up for sale. I'd keep an eye on the classifieds and pop along to any clubs that are up for sale.

It really depends on what you want to do ...

If you just want a little water hole with a dance floor you could have your costs down to abour 15 dollars a month with a start up cost of about fifty dollars.

You probably wont cover tier but you wouldnt be losing much.


If you want a small but hopping place your total investment will be maybe 300 Hundred dollars USD. Your per month costs will be 50-100$. depending on what you are selling and how busy you are you might make most or all of that back.

A medium sized place will cost you about Zoha said - about $1000 USD - and your operating costs will be 100-200 USD$ You may or may not make that back. A lot depends on traffic. The larger the club the more traffic you need to pay your bills, but a lag starts making this a diminishing return.

If you want to compete with the Big Mover and Shaker Clubs - you need an Island. you need camp chairs. You need a big build. You need some people working for you that dont directly earn you money. You for example need someoen to hire and fire for you becuase its too much of a hastle at this scale.

Total costs for a Big scale club would be over $2000 USD and costs would be 400+ a month.

Lets say you had Escorts as your main money earner. to make 400 USD a month at a 10% Rent fee youd need to have 40 Ladies making $100 USD a month EACH from clients. This is a pretty tall order. Just trying to keep 40 ladies on staff is tough.



Bottom line is unless your plan is earth shattering - expect to lose money for a long time, no matter whether a dance club, strip club, or sex club. Its breaking even thats tricky.

Making a proffit compared to the ammount of WORK involved?- well theres a reason why 90%+ of all clubs ever made in Second Life are virtual memories now.

Agreed, as a club owner, I definitely agree that clubs are money pits unless you link them with other successful businesses.... they will NOT make you any money. I'm running a *small* club and paying on the order of around 4000L-5000L/week just to keep it running.... and that's with everyone working for tips only. Tier, music stream, contests, occasionally loading the sploder, .... and of course the continual building tweaking and upgrades....

However, that being said, if you look upon it as a hobby, not a business venture... then you are in the correct frame of mind. I can't think of many other hobbies that can combine my love of music with the ability to meet and hang out with friends and meet friendly people, plus also fulfill creative needs as well (e.g. decorating for a contest, coming up with themes, etc.). It's a LOT of work but gosh it's fun.... going on over 3 months now with my club (check out my signature).

I think small clubs are really the way to go. Sadly SL isnt really set up for them , you end up annoying the neighbors

Any main club room over 30x30 is kind of wasted space anyhow.

But a small club on a private island designed for something else can be fun. Kind of the best of both worlds.

As for you building I'd say you can either...

1. build it yourself. upside: get everything exactly the way you want. downside: you have to learn how to build and that might take a long while.

2. buy a prefab building. upside: all you have to do is buy it and you're ready. downside: not quite what you want. might be expensive.

3. hire a builder. upside: get it the way you want. downside: expensive and the usual problems with actually having to rely on someone in SL.

4. buy an existing club from someone. upside: start right away. downside: might get ripped off. might get all the bad things that the previous owner created.

I would NOT go the route of #2 - buying a prefab. People tend to like clubs that look different, or have a unique atmosphere, and prefabs generally tend not to be terribly attractive (although I'm sure there are exceptions).

A few weeks after I'd built my club in it's newest location, someone plunked a large, unattractive prefab club down *right next* to mine. And, in my travels, I have seen a handful of other clubs using the exact same prefab. I don't know why they decided to put a club directly next to mine, but I think they figured that since mine was "small," it wouldn't offer any competition. They were planning "big things" and over time I watched them put in space for a mini-mall, vendor space, etc. etc. Well last week that club suddenly disappeared, and I'm not sure it ever got off the ground - I'd really only ever seen a handful of green dots there once.

Well so there are two morals to this story... don't use a prefab, or if you do... CUSTOMIZE it, and secondly, it's much easier to start small. New, large clubs tend to fold very quickly... I've seen it a handful of times.

The idea I have for a club in my opinion (according to research) is pretty unique. Now I'm not saying it hasn't been done but I do think it would not be your typical club.

I also do not want a large club. To me.... that's a waste of space. A medium to small club is what I'm looking for and I want it to be much more then just a strip club.

I pretty much already have the land and a builder set up. Right now I'm just trying to get ideas on costs and so on.

Keep it coming and Thanks

Another tip....

Don't launch your new club in a week that LL do three unshceduled region restarts and two lots of overunning "sheduled" downtime grrrrr...

Gomez

I actually looked for something like that in SL :) Didn't find anything.

hehe Ive yet to see someone actually make "just a strip club" that was well done and busy.

Kind of sad - when everyone always makes this comparison.

Really people should say "Just a SL Strip Club" becuase theres a difference.

Most SL Strip CLubs are Strip/Dance/Brothels with either a mall or a casino , or both thrown in.

Many have ridiculous controls built in like Lap dances costing more than Escort Services, or charging per clothing item removed. Or no Mingling with the guests unless clothed. Etc.

Or they do something really stupid like mixing men and women dancers ...

Would love for someone to actually make "Just a strip club" that was faithful to that concept and it took off

First off: You need to name the place. It should be something cute and funny so people can actually mention the name in open chat in a PG sim. If it's something beyond a strip club, a fetish-club for example, that cute and funny name has to get whatever fetish, perversion, thoughtcrime, etc. across instantly. Double-bonus points if it rhymes.

The name of your place is going to spell out (heh) all sorts of elements in your theme.

WHAT a fascinating thread! Wish I'd seen it a year ago.
Shayna, dear, you've seen all the suggestions about actually working in a club before seeking to own one. Well, I agree completely, and here's a case study why.

I started off as an Escort at B's, rose to be Lead Escort, then Manager Recruitment and Training after the previous manager was sacked after pleading exhaustion and being too tired to find a replacement. This was a club, now defunct and renamed, that was successful in its time; until most of its managers, including myself, left to start somewhere less demanding. Moral: Staff training matters in a club; you can't do it all yourself, and so managers and staff whom you treat well, matter even more.

We started a new club and, while it was building, started a temporary location that would continue training up staff for the new place. The temporary place became so successsful that when the time came to open the new club, the manager of the 'temporary place' didn't want to move on to the new place, and was bankrolled by a sponsor in way that enabled her to stay put. The resulting fracas was bitter and horrible, and led to changes in the Linden rules for group definition, ownership and management.

The 'temporary place' became a leading SL club and is still up there among the leaders; I left the _new_ place after a disagreement over management style; the new place folded a month or so later.

The reason for the success of the former and the failure of the latter is that the former was a) prepared to lose up to quarter of a million Linden paid out in camp chairs to build up traffic b) developed an attractive shopping complex that any visitor to the club could not _possibly_ avoid walking through on the way to the club c) has the most talented owner that it has ever been my privilege to meet (and, originally, train as an Escort btw). That woman could start and run a successful business in RL never mind SL: something else for you to bear in mind. Could you?

The reason the latter failed was that it didn't do a) and sunk too much capital in b) before there were merchants to rent out all the shops, while trying to do it all on a whole island. Moral of that bit: run your club on as small a piece of land as you can; combine it with a shopping mall that you populate gradually.

I bought my own island and set up a club. I wasn't prepared to be a draconian owner and allowed the girls to work elsewhere if they wished. I trained them very well indeed (my training cards have trained over 300 escorts and dancers SL-wide by now, I should think, as my trainees became trainers themselves and moved on) but, otherwise, broke several of the rules I've suggested above.

I got wise. NEVER give up an island once you have one is of course a cardinal rule, not if you got it at the old pre-November2006 price. But then the problem becomes: my God! How to make a whole island pay? Well, it took me 5 months of subsidising it from RL, and last month, I finally broke even.

How? By renting apartments, yummy Neko tree-houses on an island that's fast becoming a visitor hot-spot cos I cared about its beauty and have a couple of very talented tenants who help me landscape and develop it in a non-trivial way as a themed, mediaeval sim.

Now get this.
Revenue from the dancers and escorts (called Slatterns and Wenches): about 8% of tier on the whole island. Revenue from donations (including a growing 'here for the day to admire the place' sector) about 19% of tier. Revenue from rental of apartments and cottages, all in a mediaeval style: 85% of tier. Expenses about 10% of tier. Net profit; 2% of tier. Tier of US$195 on a pre-Nov 2006 island is, at the last exchange rate,
L$55965. So after 2 years in SL, 16 months in the club business, and 5 months running a club I am making, er...... L$1119.... a month. Just one tenant leaving without a replacement and I'm in debt again. Am I inefficient? No, but I refuse to be a land-baron and con people into 'buying' identical prefabricated clone properties that they are, in fact, simply renting. I care for the people who work for me and share my SL life with me.

There is one secret when you rent out property on an island, to do with revenue - prim allowance ratios, that I haven't quite got right yet so I won't tell you... work it out for yourself *smile*. (Hint: an island has only 15,000 prims max. It soon goes.)

I love every minute and have met some lovely people, who chose to live on my island and make it a place of beauty. They are a fount of suggestions, support, and plain joy, and one of them has just been written up in the SL media. It's such fun!

Just as well its so enjoyable... cos, well... don't give up your RL day job dear.
But good luck!
Christi

The short answer is: the businesses that were intended for fun, not profit.



I've got what some might consider a rather successful business both in RL and SL. I'm certainly not wealthy by any means, but I can pay a Californa mortgage and ensure my kids have a higher education, if that's some kind of measure.

That said... while starting an SL business is far, far easier, top end financial rewards are far, far harder to attain.

If I were to factor in my online time for what it's worth in RL, I would have been better off opening a deli or something mundane like that in first life.

So unless it's thrillingly fun for you, don't waste your time on the grid, unless that time is rewarding in and of itself.

Which for you it may be, and I've noticed those with skills and enthusiasm bring that everywhere they go. Just as those with apathy and negativity seem to tote those along also, for whatever reason.

Good luck!