During the Gentlemen’s Club Expo I had the opportunity to go to several Las Vegas Strip Clubs as a customer. I love doing this, Vegas is such a big city that I can usually blend in and not be recognized as The SuperStripper. My experience as a customer, however, left much to be desired.
I went to the clubs with a male friend who had several hundred dollars of cash earmarked for lapdances. When we arrived to the establishments, we noticed two things: 1. A room full of guys who were staring at the stage with blank looks on their faces, NOT buying dances. 2. Twenty girls standing along the wall talking to each other with scowls on their faces. It reminded me of the chicken and the egg question…which one came first? The bored customer or the frustrated dancer? I’m pretty sure the guy who paid for cover charge and the overpriced drink didn’t walk into the strip club with the intention of being bored or ignored…..why is he watching the game on TV? Could it be that hardly anyone has smiled at him or welcomed him to the club? Why are his arms crossed? Maybe he feels uncomfortable and is dreading the inevitable “Wanna Dance?” that he knows is coming? Even as nice as he can possibly be with “Maybe later” or “No thank you” is met with anger and a side of mental beatdown?
After we sat down, let our eyes adjust, and ordered our first drink one of the entertainers who had been standing along the wall sauntered over to our table, leaned down in between us with her hands on the table and said, “You guys wanna dance?” We looked at each other, my friend smiled and said, “We haven’t even met you yet.” I guess the thought of having a 2 song conversation with us wasn’t nearly as attractive as standing along the wall with folded arms, because she just stomped back to her friends. In a busy club situation, “Wanna Dance” sometimes works…but it certainly wasn’t appropriate for this particular evening. We left that club with a wallet full of money because we didn’t “Wanna Dance”. We wanted an experience, and nobody knew how to get the money we brought with us!
How sad! Clients with money to spend in hand leave the club with money they wanted to spend because dancers were either too lazy or unskilled to take it? Say it isn’t so!
More importantly- whose job is it to turn things around? The customer, the club, or the entertainers? Are these poor suckers just horny ATM machines, or are they people? Do they deserve a show, or should we just hit them up for cash and be mean to them when they don’t hand it over the first time we ask with no sales skills??