Nightclub events - how do they make money if your hiring it out?

[krupt]

Hey guys,

Not a new business idea but basically I was looking for some tips.

In the last months I tried to create a "product" - a magazine aimed at the university crowd of London. I wasn't getting the sponsorship that I was hoping for and had to pull out of it.

One of the parts that was to follow on from the printed magazine was for me to do regular events using the university crowd all the time.

So now here is my question -

I want to do like Events Organizing but marketed mainly at the university crowd. So think 18-24 year olds.

My question is -

When people do "Night Club" events, usually they charge an "entrance fee". Pre-book and get in for £10 or pay at the door for £15.

So that is one way they make the money - What other ways? Ok you pay for drinks when you go inside but what happens in the instance where...I am NOT the actual club but I am hiring it out for the night

Does that make sense?

Basically when organizing events, what ways can I make money to cover my "hiring" costs for equipment and venue?

I want to do some unique events such as dance contests, or even debate contests featuring teams from the university - I have some girls who are student models and will be working with me on this to "promote" so I am confident I can get people going, it's just about covering my costs.

Obviously I can think straight for entrance fee but what other ways can we make money from it?

Thanks

[jasaunders]

The largest revenue is always going to be cover fees. You can also work out a deal for a percentage of drink sales, however many bar owners are shady and you can easily measure the number of people who come through the door and you can't measure drink sales, so you don't know if you will be getting paid the right amount.

[titansgs]

The largest revenue is always going to be cover fees. You can also work out a deal for a percentage of drink sales, however many bar owners are shady and you can easily measure the number of people who come through the door and you can't measure drink sales, so you don't know if you will be getting paid the right amount.

I agree with most of this statement. In your case, you should get a percentage of bar sales since you are hiring the facility for the event. At the very least, the amount of money you should make from the percentage of bar sales should equal the amount you were charged for the facility. However, I am not exactly sure what you mean by hiring the venue.

From my personal experience, there are two good ways of going about producing an event for profit. The first would be to work out a deal with the owner of the venue to share the profits and losses. Basically, they will open up their venue for free to your event, so that you can benefit from the door costs and they can benefit from the bar sales. This will mean that you will cover all the expenses for the event and they come through with everything facility related. Overall, most owners will agree to these terms because alcohol will eventually make them more money. The second option would be to hire the entire venue for the night; the facility, staff, bar etc. I would reccommend this if the event you are planning will make more money in sales for the night than the bar usually makes. I personally have done this in the past, and it's not easy. For me, I took one of their slow nights (Thursday) and bought out the place for the night. I anticipated that they only would make 1500 in profits that night and paid that to them along with hiring all of their staff for the 4 hour event. That is how you do well in this industry, but you will be taking a lot of risk and there is a lot of uncertainty in working out a deal.

As was said above, bar owners are shady. In fact, talk to the bar manager instead of working directly with the owner. Most owners don't work directly on the floor of their bars anyway, so they really don't know what goes on. Most of the time people who own a bar do it because it will be fun and they can feel like big shots. They will just look at you as small time and try to overcharge you for everything. You must approach this event as a business plan in itself, and the bar as an investor. Figure out how many people you expect to bring in? What the potential for the bar to make in during the night? How you will make all of this happen? When will the event be? How much will it cost the bar? Also use advertising of their bar and the college promo girls as additional benefits to them. The bottomline is that the success of the event will bring value to everyone involve and you will have to showed that to them. Make it seem as though this bar will be missing out unless they jump on the event first. Go as far as saying that you will take the idea to their competitor if they don't decide to follow through soon. Give them no more than 1-2 weeks to decide to work with you or not, and move on quickly before they can do it themselves.

Remember, like a business plan, it's all about what makes you better at doing this event than anyone else and why they need you to do it for them. You have to come at them prepared and be several weeks ahead of them, so that if they decide to take your idea themselves after you leave, the next week or even day, you can still roll your event out before them at another venue.

My advice would be to go in to talk with the manager with a clear plan. You will probably have to convince them on your ability of getting a certain amount of people to attend your event, before they will even consider working with you. Don't worry about bringing in tons of people and money, think about delivering your promises. Eventually, you will make money.

[lilrhinotx]

try and get a celeb to your even, that way you can boost the cover charge. when stars come to events, it attract more people. but, you might have to pay the celeb or star to make an apperance