Nightclub Ettiquette

1) Any career, fulltime employee of nightclubs or producer of nightclubs is given free entry to other nightclubs, even if they are not on the best terms with that club. It is very shameful for a producer to charge another fulltime producer for entry- unless they choose to pay in order to show support. This only applies to FULLTIME producers or employees. Just doing a monthly is not good enough to merit free entry everywhere, nor is being a part time DJ.



2) It is a well known fact in the industry that patrons do not visit the same venue twice in one week. Therefore, producers do NOT use the same venue as another producer- they find their own. Parasiting off of another producer by stealing their venue is the most dishonerable thing that a producer can do to another producer- it literally takes food of the table. It goes without saying that the offending producer will become persona non grata for doing such a thing. Knowledgable and experienced managers and owners never allow such a thing- they carefully nurture any production they have invested time and money in by considering the theme of each new production and how it will affect their current productions. A lot of times, new producers try their hand at doing an event and they naturally think "oh, my friend has such a great venue for doing their events, and look, there's even a day free right before their event! Won't that be nice if I have my event on that day?" No, it is the opposite of nice. Instead of being happy, that friend will be truly upset and have to have "a talk" with the person who decided to do this. Hopefully, the friendship will survive it. Producing is a field that requires intense study and a fulltime commitment to do it right. Trying to have a 9-5 and do it part time almost never works, and also messes things up for those with a greater commitment to the field. It's far better to contact a fulltime producer for a onetime event and work in under their umbrella than inadvertently hurting someone's event and earning a bad reputation to fulltime producers in the process.



3) This is something I've been over before, but I'll say it again. If you work with a producer at their event, you can't turn around and work with another producer on the same day without hurting the event you were just working at. If the producer you worked with was willing to take you on and give you publicity to build your name and reputation, working against them after they've done this is considered "biting the hand that feeds", being a turncoat, betrayer, etc. You will definately be persona non grata if you do this intentionally. If it was unintentional such as is the case with a new performer or producer, you may get to have a "talk" with a producer and get a second chance. Not all producers do this, however- in the beginning of my career, a club I really liked stopped hiring me and I never knew why until later- I had been producing an event on the same night as one of their nights that was too close to the theme of their event. They gave me my name and reputation, and then I turned around and used it to hurt them and take food off of their table. If only they had talked to me about the situation, I would gladly have understood and switched my day or theme, but I wasn't given that chance. It's a producer's perogative if they want to try this. I generally do give one chance to new producers or performers who have never been clued into this fact of promoting. It's something that every performer on Earth has to take into consideration, it is the business aspect of show business. What if huge acts like Lady GaGa went up against Brittney Spears on the same day? Millions would be lost from each performer and thousands of fans would be dissapointed. It goes without saying that if you want to get ANYWHERE in the field of performing, you will need to learn to observe basic courtesy.



Smart performers see that there are only 3 or 4 main investors in the Goth/Industrial scene of NYC and stick with the investor who best represents their chosen genre and the needs of their artistic project or image. That means supporting them in the face of other events, being loyal, etc. If you can't figure out why basic loyalty and goodwill toward the people who make your genre possible is necessary for the survival of your genre, you should take some time to seriously think about it. Hurting the people who make your genre possible is like striking out against the hand that is pulling you up out of a pit.



In the past, these rules were commonly known and agreed upon. However, with a new generation of producers coming in, certain disohonerable oldtime producers have figured out a particularly sleezy way to exploit the new people and use them as a way to hurt nightclub rivals. They encourage the newbies to break the rules so that the other producer they are in competition with will be the one to have to have "the talk" with them about what they are doing, and consequently get the "blame", potentially hurting their relationship. Don't be used like that. The one who really suffers is the newbie- the jerk who encouraged them to break the rules isn't going to hire them, and if they choose to get upset about getting "a talk", they won't get hired by the other producer either. It's really one way of making sure new talent has a hard time and ultimately won't succeed, so don't be victimized. You'll hear all kinds of things like "they can't tell you what to do", "don't be intimidated", and all sorts of other garbage. This has nothing do do with "intimidation", "telling anyone what to do", etc- it is just business reality. If you weren't told by us, you would quickly have been told by another producer, especially the douche who encouraged you to break the rules if you were trying to do it to one of HIS events and/or venues.