Audio By Carbonatix
It’s never been easy to keep a Deep Ellum crowd occupied. There’s always a better band or cheaper drinks somewhere else. Sure, you can get people to come in, but it’s getting harder to keep them there. And because each club has a separate cover charge, clubgoers are less willing to spend money on alcohol. Drink sales are where the real money is, at least for the clubs. They charge a nominal fee to get in–usually around $3 to $5–but bands usually split the take from the door, so the club is left with just bar receipts to get by (now you know why they charge $3.50 for a beer). When people hop from club to club, the owners lose at least a few drink sales. It doesn’t sound like much, but if hundreds of people do it, it adds up.
The solution to this problem is eliminating the cover charge and letting people move around freely. The $5 that would have been spent on admission now goes directly to the bar and indirectly into the owner’s pocket. Which brings us to Deep Ellum’s First Friday, a new experiment by five Deep Ellum clubs. The experiment goes something like this: clubgoers purchase a wristband at any participating club–Trees, Club Dada, Galaxy Club, Curtain Club, and Club Clearview–for $5, which grants them admission to all five venues for the rest of the night. It gives them a chance to see 18 bands for the price of a few, and it gives the clubs a chance to rack up some extra bar sales in return. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.
The most surprising thing about the First Friday experiment is that it took the clubs this long to figure it out. It’s basically the same setup as the annual North Texas Music Festival: low cover, wristbands, a slew of bands. You’d have thought that the crowds the festival attracted would have lit at least one light bulb above a club owner’s head. It’s astounding that it has taken this long to put two (low cover) and two (more bar sales) together. Oh well, it doesn’t really matter. Their gain is our gain.
–Zac Crain
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Deep Ellum’s First Friday happens on August 7. Wristbands are available at Club Dada, Club Clearview, Curtain Club, Galaxy Club, and Trees. Bands performing that night include Doosu, Mazinga Zeta, Lift to Experience, the Autumns, TOOMuch TV, El Gato, Floor 13, Fred Scott, Jibe, Transonic, Lure, and many more.
