Is it just me, or does it seem like strip clubs have been in a long slow decline over the last 10-20 years? I dunno, it seems like I read more and more reviews of clubs that used to be awesome for high mileage, hot dancers, and low prices, and now the reviews are saying "the place ain't what it used to be". Seems like girls are charging more and more and giving less and less mileage across the board. Look at places like Phoenix, and LA, and Seattle, and NY/New Jersey, and even down south (FL, Atlanta, etc.). And now clubs seem to be mostly dancers buried in their cellphones, ignoring customers, but expecting tips just for being there. And everything is about the VIP upsell.
I mean where can you go now for hot dancers, high mileage, and reasonable prices? Phoenix is drying up, LA's great black clubs are just a memory (one exception I suppose), Seattle died long ago, and the east coast clubs see to be no different. I was totally unimpressed with Dallas and Atlanta, in spite of all the hype, and honestly I don't know what's left.
I was talking to a dancer and her hypothesis was online camming. She said she knew a lot of girls that switched to camming and were able to make enough, working hours they picked, that they quit stripping. She said she tried it but found it too "impersonal" - she liked the in person contact with her customers better.
Part of it may actually be high-mileage - the introduction of high mileage, let alone private VIP rooms for extras, will drive out certain dancers and drive in certain dancers - one should not expect a chick that fucks and sucks to provide great customer service - many clubs nowadays probably have chicks that may have been street-walkers back in the day when street-walkers were common (or at last there are many dancers that are pretty much the equivalent of escorts and are just about getting paid for sex).
90% of all cigar manufacturers existing 15 years ago are now out of business. Fine dining restaurants are going towards "casual" fine dining and mid-range chains are dying. Almost 600 hundred golf courses closed last year. All for the same reasons strip clubs are dying: economics and demographics. As America gets poorer and old white guys die off, the businesses they supported will die off as well. Go to a racetrack and you will see the same thing happening, which is why they are almost gone. New England has no live horse racing and when I was a kid there were 5 full time tracks and many fairs with live racing. Things change. Third reason? Young people are socialized towards the internet, not live interaction.
External factors have been discussed plenty of times here b/f - both custies and dancers have many more options these days when it comes to the sex industry and this is gonna affect SCs, e.g:
* camming
* free internet porn
* escort sites (no longer do one have to drive to the redlight district, one can pick girls from th comfort of one's computer/phone
* sugar-daddy websites
* etc
Yeah, but high mileage has been around in many clubs forever. Just on the west coast I know there were clubs 10-15 years ago with excellent mileage and reasonable prices. Seattle used to be known for great mileage clubs, and those got shut down. San Francisco had a few great high mileage clubs that are now either sucky chain clubs or have just died. And everyone is moaning about the downward spiral in once-great Phoenix. And the LA area used to have some insane clubs, but now it's just a few hit-or-miss clubs.
I dunno...maybe I'm just letting fond memories cloud the facts.
All good points. I never thought of some of those...
Personally, even though I'm a huge fan of the internet and technology, I think there are many ways that it has royally fucked society, and people are totally blinded to the adverse affects.
Gentrification seems like an issue - seems many once thriving SC areas were killed off by local politicians/communities that these days see SCs as eyesores - although in certain areas mileage has gotten better from what it was 20 years ago, there are many more areas where things went to hell - seems nowadays there ie an anti SCs slant in the majority of places
Most strip clubs don't offer very good value - many non hardcore SC ers feel other options provide more bang for the buck and this may apply to both providers and custies - many may see SCs as places one spends a couple hundred bucks just to be teased if not manipulated by the strippers - back in the day SCs may have been about the only game in town so they could more-easily get away with providing low ROI, but these days they have more competition
As newbies it was all new to us and we probably didn't go as often so everything was fresher, and we didn't know any betfer so we did not have high expectations and just seeing some naked good looking chicks was enough to make us feel it was awesome.
As hardcore SCers we have seen/experienced a lot anr it's thus harder to impress us and move the needle.
I can't imagine really how guys could be so into the webcam thing. Hell with all the free porn sites why would you want to pay for webcam stuff? And geez, sitting in your room jacking it compared to having a real live girl grinding your lap and stroking your dick? Hard to imagine there's even a contest.
strip clubs are becoming a niche within the sex industry. both patrons and potential dancers have more options. guys have free porn and escorts. potential dancers have cam sites and the sugar baby thing if they aren't comfortable subjecting themselves to being groped and borderline molested by strangers. only reasons to go to a strip club for most people(besides treating it like a nightclub going with their SO/buddies) is if you want physical stimulation from a live woman but don't wanna go the hooker route for w/e reason.
-->"only reasons to go to a strip club for most people is if you want physical stimulation from a live woman but don't wanna go the hooker route for w/e reason"
chess, I feel like you're minimizing that statement a bit, but your "only reason" is HUGE, IMO. The hooker route is both a big psychological step, and also a pretty huge change in the experience overall... lots and lots of people don't love that experience. I feel like, if the strip club industry was more like the FBSM business -- that is, a sex business that's built substantially on a good customer experience instead of "make sure the customer feels exploited and ripped off at every turn" -- it would be plenty healthy. I don't think you can overstate the importance of the COMBINATION of 1. actual touch, 2. being able psychologically to not feel like a john, even if you are one. But the one common story among guys who shift from SCs to AMPs, bodyrubs, and escorts, is the poor customer experience in SCs.
I do think SA presents a very viable alternative to SCs, albeit at a higher investment of your time for research, flakiness, girls who don't look like their pics or whose personalities you dislike ... but, aside from classic SD/SB, experiences that are closer to an escort, and experiences that feel closer to an OTC, are easily available. Still, the investment is high enough that, again, if rip-off-the-customer-and-make-sure-he-knows-it wasn't so ingrained in SC culture, SCs could compete well, IMO. That said, I don't think the SC business will ever change, they'll whither and die first.
"...dancers have cam sites and the sugar baby thing if they aren't comfortable subjecting themselves to being groped and borderline molested by strangers"
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LOL! great post @Chessmaster.
Strip clubs are dying out because meeting sex workers online is more efficient and cuts out the middlemen (club owners, etc..). It's the Uberization of the sex industry and it will continue.
Subra i think a lot of the "exploit the customer" business model is simple incompetence. From the management down to the strippers. Management is greedy. Many of them think higher prices=more money. This extends to staff as well. Too many dancers are lazy and expect to get paid for just being there. They rather sit and wait for a whale than work the room. Then some that would rather be robs. Nobody has taught them good customer service. A lot shit that flys in strip clubs would not fly in any other customer service business. Being a part of the "sex industry" allows them that luxury.
Also strip clubs are less reliant on return customers than other customer service businesses so maybe customer service isn't a priority. i.e. getting as many dollars as possible from everyone that walks through the door, with the expectation you won't see most of them again.
Skibum and Random might be on to something important here.
We are seeing significant changes in how people live. Add to the excellent points already made, consider "Uberization" -- within which middle men are eliminated as we become a nation of do-it-yourselfers. I have also heard it described as the "WalMart-ization of America". We want it cheap and quality/service doesn't matter.
Consider:
the financial services business with index funds and self-serve platforms.
the proliferation of home depot, et al and the explosion of HGTV (fucking hate it).
the disposable nature of all electronics today -- remember TV repairmen??
Hell, people are even eschewing doctors and self-diagnosing online or thru doctor-on-demand aps.
We can get so much more mileage and extras at lower and lower costs than a decade ago. No wonder the millennial sex workers are choosing other methods.
Phoenix is in sight decline. You can still get high mileage lappers and extras with the right dancers. But the raid on the most popular club had it's impact there.
A lot of good points on the general decline. I've seen it in the reviews as well. When I first joined this site (6 years ago), Houston was a haven for extras, as was Providence. Not anymore.
I also agree on free porn and cam sites. There are a lot of dudes who can't talk to women even in the sc environment. It's easier to do it through a computer.
It's also easier to hook up with tinder and websites such as what's my price, SA etc. I guess if you have the money these websites make sense. SC's are still a crapshoot unless you are a regular with a dancer where you know what you will get.
For me all the website stuff is too much work. I can go to an sc, immediately have attractive women in my lap, have my fun and be home in 1-5 hours depending on mood, time, money and dancers. I have different dancers who meet my needs. I have some who provide great gfe and vhm dances. Others who I can come in, go to VIP, get off and get out.
-->"We are seeing significant changes in how people live. Add to the excellent points already made, consider "Uberization" -- within which middle men are eliminated as we become a nation of do-it-yourselfers. I have also heard it described as the "WalMart-ization of America". We want it cheap and quality/service doesn't matter."
PK, I"d quibble with that a bit. What you described -- cheap and service doesn't matter -- IS the Walmart-ization. But it's absolutely the opposite with Uber -- Uber's success is of course partially built on competitive prices, but very much built on a customer experience that is 10x better than that of taxis... it is ALL ABOUT a fantastic service. At the time Uber rose, most taxis were still not taking credit cards, carried little change so you had to have the right amount of cash, and obviously, could be difficult to catch when you needed them and kept prices artificially high due to effective monopolies (due to licensing scarcity and expense) in many areas. No one ever said, "hey, I'll just take a taxi -- so convenient!". Uber is about better service through technology, IMO.
-->"Also strip clubs are less reliant on return customers than other customer service businesses so maybe customer service isn't a priority. i.e. getting as many dollars as possible from everyone that walks through the door, with the expectation you won't see most of them again."
Yep, agreed ... I'd never discount the fact that maybe SCs ARE doing the most rational thing, for them. If your business isn't substantially based on return customers anyway, you should soak everyone that walks in. I'll defer the question of whether this is a self-fulfilling prophecy :) But, the fact that customer service is so much better in the daytime, where there is a higher % of return customers, does support that.
I've found the opposite be true. I've been clubbing for almost 30 years but it wasn't until the last 3 or so that I learned that UHM was as consistently available as it is. I attributed my occasional great experiences to luck. Thank you TUSCL for opening my eyes.
@papi wrote " one should not expect a chick that fucks and sucks to provide great customer service"
I thought that was the definition of great customer service.
Free porn and cam sites are no substitute for a live ho but are better than nothing and the only thing some PLs can aspire to either b/c:
* they don't have the requisite funds to have a good time in a SC
* have a ball-buster for an S.O. and all they could do is "cheat virtually" (or simply can't carve out the requisite time due to work and family obligations)
That's kinda funny flagooner...your recent review(s) of Inner Room was just one more review I noticed which seemed to point to yet another high mileage club where people were commenting "it just ain't what it used to be" :)
There are PLs that believe "there are more extras today" but often times it's that they were not aware they were there until they got TUSCLarly schooled - although I do believe that in general extras are more readily available today with some exceptions of some old-school clubs in certain areas that seemed to be like live pornos
The strip club is quickly becoming a revolving door of:
·Patrons want more mileage/extras and they want it cheap.
·dancers want to give low mileage for big money.
·patron can watch porn or cam sites or go all the way with an escort for the same price range.
·dancers leave for other sex avenues that are either more profitable and/or less demeaning(in their mind).
But I suppose there's the other side of the strip club business, which is the bachelor party, night shift, guys who just want to oogle pretty girls and drink a beer and maybe party with their friends, and have no interest in mileage. I'm guessing that's a big part of the business? Maybe that's what clubs will focus on, and away from the dayshift, high mileage, regular-centered clubs where all of this matters.
I can't imagine there's a better job for a hot 9 or 10 chick than airdances for guys willing to give her $40 per dance to wiggle her butt and buy expensive drinks.
"The hooker route is both a big psychological step, and also a pretty huge change in the experience overall... lots and lots of people don't love that experience."
My experience with escorts is just as hit and miss as with strippers, AMPs, FBSMs, or SBs. With escorts, getting sex is guaranteed, but getting a _enjoyable_ experience was not guaranteed. Once I did find one I liked, then it became a matter of scheduling - very little opportunity to be spontaneous.
The SB route has turned out to be like that too. Lots of girls seem to complain about guys that constantly text/email and never meet, but when you put THEM on the spot, suddenly they're not available.
Camming certainly provides a solution to spontaneity. If I want to interact with a naked girl, I can find dozens on line at any time I want. There is still _some_ interacting, and I can use my money to control what she does.
SCs provide spontaneity and the possibility of 2way contact, but still not guaranteed. Still, I can stretch $100 into a steak dinner, watching a ball game or two, and 2-3 hours of attention from one or more pretty girls. And lately, when I'm in the mood for a BBBJ I can get that more reliably in a SC than anywhere else.
If all the stories about Tinder hookups are true, younger guys don't need to go to SCs to see naked girls. You just swipe right a few times and invite them over at 3am. So, clubs aren't getting a lot of new customers to replace us old guys that stop going.
Yes, since the ownership change there have been changes to IR that give me concern, but it has not yet impacted the service I have received. I have still experienced the same mileage even though the lighting has been turned up a bit, at least for now.
Some of the regulars I haven't seen in a while, but my 3 fans are still there.
@flagooner, thanks...cuz yesterday I was scanning the Florida clubs, getting a hankering to head down there and try out some of the clubs, but after scanning the reviews it seemed there weren't many places left for great VHM laps. I recall Papi mentioned a club or two near Miami a while back....
Damn...my bucket list of great clubs to visit has dwindled down to almost nothing. I hit almost 15 of them across the US this last year, and as a whole I was very disappointed. Florida was pretty much the last place on my list, but now with the Tampa clubs dwindling to nothing (damn, I remember the Tanga Lounge and a couple others years ago), if IR is also in a nose dive I'm not sure what's left. Damn.
I think Papi nailed it regarding gentrification being the culprit in some markets. When downtown was a center of urban blight, polite society turned a blind eye to strip clubs in seedy neighborhoods. Now those urban blight areas are where young professionals with kids want to live.
I do expect during the next economic slowdown there will be a new wave of hot strippers.
Assume 1,000 viable strip clubs across the US. For those clubs that meet strict new federal quality standards (lap dance quality, customer satisfaction, etc.), the government will provide a $500,000 subsidy to each club every year. Total of $500 million, which is peanuts. Subsidy can be used to pay for lap dances (so that customer outlay per dance is no more than $5), stripper clothing allowance, boob jobs, stripper training, and stripper wages.
Strippers would get big bucks (which would pull them away from camming, etc.), and customers would get great service.
w.r.t. millenials many seem to be primarily interested in making sure they have the latest smartphone w/ the best (often costly) plan - many millennials don't have very high-paying jobs and can often be in the hole with large college debt, thus IMO SCs can't count on them as good spenders.
A lot ot clubs are becoming party-clubs/nightclubs at night and while this gets custies in the door it does not mean the dancers will make $$$ from them and they often don't, lack of spending custies may perhaps be one of the main reason girls leave the biz
"....the government will provide a $500,000 subsidy to each club every year. "
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Excellent plan. In fact, since we don't want to increase the deficit, that subsidy can come from gutting Medicaid, which is already the plan in the Senate. Make America great again!!!!
Papi excellent point. I keep hearing how millenials tend to live at home with their parents until their 30's or something, don't get married, and expect everything for free (free internet, free software, free tv, etc.). And you and I have both seen clubs become night-only clubs.
I can see the point that girls nowadays tend to have higher hopes, thinking everything is easy and will be handed to them, and once they see it's difficult they bail. I can definitely see that.
But the point that stripping is becoming more socially acceptable, and more girls are trying it and there are more girls competing, which results in lower $$ per girl, doesn't seem to make sense. When I go to clubs it seems like the numbers of girls is dropping, especially the hotter ones. And there seems to be an influx of foreign girls (Russian, Cuban, Mexican, Colombian, etc.), and US girls seem to think their shit don't stink and are above it all.
"more girls are trying it and there are more girls competing, which results in lower $$ per girl, doesn't seem to make sense."
I think they meant relative to the number of (spending?) customers. Of course they would like it to be a mega sausage fest and and we want it to be our own personal adult Disney land with strippers but there's a medium in there somewhere.
Here's a theory no one talks about. Cell phone, smart phones and social media have made it more difficult for married/attached guys to sneak out to the club. I would try to sneak out way more if I didn't have to account for my whereabouts AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT. In general smart phones and social media make me paranoid that somehow my clubbing habits could be exposed. Social media also have made alibis harder to come up with. You can't tell your wife you're just hanging out with some guy friend, at the risk of your alibi posting on Facebook what he's really up to while you're trying to sneak off the club. I know I would be at the club more if modern technology hadn't made it harder to cover my ass. Fewer attached guys able to sneak out = fewer customers in general, which could be a contributor to overall decline.
I see a lot of "let's blame the millennials" but that doesn't make sense to me. If the argument is less people are clubbing and/or spending less money when they do shouldn't that drive mileage higher? Strippers doing more to fight over fewer available dollars?
If there's a shift in mileage at club I expect it comes from the owners buckling to outside pressure.
I think you've got fewer localities willing to look the other way and it's gotten tougher to bribe people.
Jerikson, Your comments about Seattle are spot on. The clubs that closed in 2010 were indeed high mileage clubs. Their closing really put a damper on the strip club scene for several years. Just in the past couple of years has the mileage began to return in several clubs, even the notoriously lame Deja Vu clubs, which comprise half of the 13 clubs in the Puget Sound Region
However, it's different now. As someone pointed out above, many of the clubs have installed private rooms where dances are sold by time, not by the song. What used to be high mileage dances in individual lap dance booths in a VIP room, are now steered to the private rooms, at high prices--making the other forms of internet adult entertainment all the more affordable and attractive.
I agree with the notion that strip clubs have been on the decline. However, I think it is simply a matter of the typically customer just having less disposable income post-great-recession. Fewer customer spending less money reduces the take for both the dancers and the clubs. The dancers who don't think they are making what they are worth move on to other things w/e that may be. Clubs increase prices and/or tip out creating a negative feedback loop.
I strongly disagree with the comment above about regulars. In the clubs I frequent, the casual customers have dried up and it is ALL about regulars. If you are not one of her regulars, she doesn't even bother talking to you. Lots of dancers are making prearranged appointments with their regulars. One dancer recently told me she has "a couple" of customers who come one a week and one regular who comes twice a week (at $250/room each). Even after splitting that with club, there's not much incentive to troll non-regulars at $20/dance it it jeopardizes a whale.
OT.. I sure as hell don't have $500/week disposable income to compete with that nonsense.
^^ The fact that I live far enough away that I can't visit my fav club regularly (weekly) and the fact that I couldn't afford a $250+/week anyway is killing my motivation for this hobby.
I read this whole discussion and there are two things that I don't understand. How is web camming so popular? Sure it's a live girl that you can tell what to do but that's it. Why would anyone want to sink money into that when other then your commands there is no physical interaction? For every command you have for a girl you can search the oceans and oceans worth of free porn and find a girl doing the same thing. Free!
Also, what is the appeal of an air dance? It almost sounds like camming to me, except that the girl is in front of you. But much like camming, you still can't touch and you're spending money for it. I'm sorry but I wish no one supported air dance clubs, or web camming. Free web camming? Fine. Paying for it? Fuck no.
Nobody likes air-dances (including many dancers since they can make more mula with contact) - it's a way for localities to tame down SCs - people that live in areas with air-dances have no-other choice b/c every club needs to abide by the same local ordinances
When Amazon sets up home strippers on demand at a cheap price, strip clubs might be in trouble. I doubt they will go there unless they control all other aspects of your life so the main population can't complain.
Now that is an idea, for a 100 dollars, 3 strippers come over to my house, set up a dancer pole in the living room, bring a twenty pack of beer for everyone, do laps, pole dancing, for two or 3 hours, that might beat the strip club. It would definitely beat the club if anything more than dances happened. Could be extra tips involved which would be more expensive though.
I occasionally enjoy seeing the girls for free on web cams. I don't see the point with spending money on them unless you have no other way to interact with a girl. I do understand thy are doing it for money so in a sense, they are finding that 2% of guys willing to spend money on web cam girls out of the thousand guys that don't see the value of it.
I once supported an air dance club by visiting. Most of the girls were 9's and 10's. Hottest group of dancers in one place I could remember. I preferred just to drink beer, do a few one dollar stage tips and watch other people's table air dances. They had no lap dances.
Yeah checking out free cams I understand. Sometimes they pop up while I'm looking at porn and of the girl is fine I'll stay and watch. In that time I'll hear the ch-ching and her thanking guys for spending money and think wow what a waste.
As for air dance establishments if that's the most a city will allow then I'd rather have nothing. But hey, if they're making enough money to stay in business then I guess it's worth it to someone. Just not my cup of tea.
I guess I have to remember that the same way I feel about web camming and air dances is the same way others feel about strip clubs. Why pay all that money to just be teased, they ask. When my anti strip club friends ask me that I always think 'well I LDK so it's not really a tease'. Of course I don't say that lol. But still, I guess it's just my (our) thing. Last year enroute to a strip club in Vegas a cab driver offered to take me to an AMP instead. He says 'for what you're about to spend at the strip club you can pick out a girl and actually bust a nut'. I declined, probably for the reason someone mentioned above. You're crossing a different line IMO when you hit one of those places. Nothing wrong with it at all, but I feel much less guilt at a strip club vs an AMP.
Apparently you have never been to mexico or outside the US ? Why do you think Hong kong is the 1# club on this site , american clubs are garbage compared to foreign strip clubs
There is still a market for air dance clubs, especially the upscale ones with top notch eye candy. Not for SC aficionados, but for the account managers/salesmen to take their clients while still maintaining respectability. Also for the "party" crowd looking for a fun time with friends where they may feel a bit timid or inhibited to really let loose.
They are no place for any self respecting PL to be caught patronizing though.
"Nobody likes air-dances (including many dancers since they can make more mula with contact) - it's a way for localities to tame down SCs"
Agree that it's mostly a way for cities to take strip clubs. But I do think some strippers would still prefer airdances. Mostly they default to whatever most of the other strippers are doing to compete. That or they resort to rob tactics. Maybe if they are the hottest dancer at the club they can get away with lower mileage/air dances.
@RandomMember: I've been going to strip clubs and having sex with strippers since the the late 70s. I haven't detected much difference in either the availability or in the quality. While there have been slight ups and downs, those appear to me to be mostly about specific locations, and not because strip clubs in general are in decline.
@Nemesisk7 you're right, I haven't been to any strip clubs outside of the US. I don't even have a passport yet. But I'm confused why you're telling me that American strip clubs are garbage compared to foreign ones? I never brought up any such comparison. As for Hong Kong being the #1 strip club on the site, well no duh. I've obviously never been there but from descriptions alone it pretty much has something for everyone, unless you're not into Latinas. You can get VHM in the club if that's as far as you want to take it. Or you can just go fuck. Pretty much everyone leaves getting what they wanted.
I agree with a lot of this thread, especially the parts about internet-socialization, about cam-girls, about increasing puritanical regulations and enforcement, about millennials, about wives being able to track errant husbands via social media and smartphones, etc. Skibum609's post seems right on it.
But I don't understand ... and Jester214 seems to ask the same question ...
... then why are prices going UPwards?
If demand is dwindling (old single white guys dying off) but supply is perpetually renewable (hot young girls who want a quick buck) then why are prices going up? If social restrictions against this activity are reducing (it's hardly illegal any more; it's all over the internet; it's approvable, just kind of weird) then the RISK to reward ratio improves, thus creating yet another reason for prices to start dropping. Every way I look at it, I think prices ought to be dropping.
Lap dance prices are rising, dammit.
Here's one factor people have hinted at but not yet mentioned explicitly -- cash economy. We don't spend paper-money any more. Maybe if strip-clubs figured out how to enable funny-money better, so that you didn't feel cheated by the transaction, then the millennials might get involved more and start driving the lapper economy in the monger-friendly direction? Sort of like how Uber cut out so much of the taxi-cab market, ultimately to the (aggregate) riders' benefit?
I don't know. I just don't understand why prices keep going UP. It just seems opposite all my Econ 101 training. Supply, demand, risk, reward, risk aversion, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, grey markets, jurisdictional competition, social restrictiveness, put it all in the hopper, prices should be going DOWN. Shouldn't they?
I'm going to have to agree with little georgie-microbrain here. Strip clubs aren't in decline. It's just that TUSCL posters here are getting older and more nostalgic.
Who said prices are going up - for the most part LD prices have remained relatively flat for 20 years with some exceptions and extras prices are not that much different
Is it possible the range of lap dance prices has gone up. How many clubs or strippers were charging $40 for a lap dance 20 years ago? Likewise how many were charging $10 back then? I don't know because I wasn't in the strip clubs then. But if the average price was $20 it's probably $20 or $25 on average now. just more clubs and as a direct result, more clubs pricing at one extreme($5 or $10) or the other($40 or $50).
"I'm going to have to agree with little georgie-microbrain here. "
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Well, occasionally @NanoDong has enough brain cells to say something coherent and intelligent. Just IMHO, strip clubs are not the best place to find P4P with beautiful, responsible, reliable, young college girls. Easier and more efficient online. Maybe that's a different topic.
Clubs charging $30+ for dances AFAIK are the exception and not the norm these days and probably relegated to cerain areas (e.g. San Jose area b/c of all the tech $$$, NOLA b/c it's a tourist-trap, etc)
Flagooner/Papi,
As to why prices are going up, IMO it's not necessarily that the club prices are increasing, but I think that the EXPECTATIONS from the dancers are increasing. What used to be super high mileage $10 or $20 dances are now only obtainable if you go to the VIP and pay $200. It seems like dancers are becoming much more mercenary in recent years, and so many reviews complain about the VIP upsell. IMO, the younger folks seem to have this attitude of entitlement, that they should get $$ rained down on them for sitting on their asses texting their girlfriends.
And what seems missing for the most part is what I think is the #1 most important aspect of a good SC:
INTENT.
Do the girls intend to make customers feel good, or is their only intent to get as much as possible for the least amount of effort? I get so fucking tired of dancers sitting on their asses with their noses buried in their phones.
Since the 90's I've been going to clubs, and I *NEVER* had to go to the VIP to get some great action. But now it seems like in most clubs it's VIP or nothing if you want any sort of action. Of course there are exceptions, but they are dwindling.
@papi "Who said prices are going up - for the most part LD prices have remained relatively flat for 20 years with some exceptions and extras prices are not that much different"
Next month will be my 30th anniversary of going to strip clubs, mostly in the Atlanta area. In Atlanta, table dances have been $10 almost that entire time.
In the 90s boom years, a few high end clubs tried going to $20 but that didn't last long because there were so many clubs that still charged $10. In the first dot.bomb bust, some clubs tried dropping to $5 or running lots of 2for1 specials, but it didn't help much.
Can't comment on ITC extras prices, cause the clubs I went to back then didn't have VIP rooms like we know them today (I can't remember when clubs started adding them, and I know my favorite was one of the last to add). I do remember that $80-$150 could get you good 2way action with a HJ (low end) or BJ (high end) finish in the dozen or so lingerie shops. 1hr with an escort was $175. I remember all the angst on BigDoggie and TER when the Mendoza line was permanently crossed (i.e. standard rate for escort went above 200).
My CF FBSM place is 175, but upgrades there are overpriced. A quick look on Eros Atlanta shows $225 to $300 as the current range for an escort. $150 seems to be the low end for BJ (sometimes even FS) at Follies, with several reports of dancers there starting to ask for more, and some PLs being able to negotiate less.
My favorite club only recently replaced their 20yr old menus, but all the prices are still the same, so food prices haven't gone up. Drinks seem like they're a dollar or two more expensive than "years ago", but I don't drink that much so it's not something I track closely.
So, prices seem mostly the same, with ITC extras probably tracking along with the gradual rise in escort prices and appropriate adjustments (poor facilities vs. immediate gratification).
Ooops, sorry, I forgot. Libertarians and Randroids are incapable of acknowledging the economic boom b/c it is happening under a very non-Libertarian/Randroid government. And people are supposed to be collectively punished for supporting those forms of government with ECONOMIC COLLAPSE. So, yeah, they think the economy is collapsing when it's actually booming.
I think it's early phase in the economic boom. In the stock market, OTOH, all the skepticism has gone away. These days when I talk about the market not being overvalued and say it is undervalued, it's not longer a radical position. So I think there could be a correction at literally any time.
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Just one more way the hype of internet technology being perfect and awesome ignores how it makes people totally self-involved. And other things...
Part of it may actually be high-mileage - the introduction of high mileage, let alone private VIP rooms for extras, will drive out certain dancers and drive in certain dancers - one should not expect a chick that fucks and sucks to provide great customer service - many clubs nowadays probably have chicks that may have been street-walkers back in the day when street-walkers were common (or at last there are many dancers that are pretty much the equivalent of escorts and are just about getting paid for sex).
* camming
* free internet porn
* escort sites (no longer do one have to drive to the redlight district, one can pick girls from th comfort of one's computer/phone
* sugar-daddy websites
* etc
I dunno...maybe I'm just letting fond memories cloud the facts.
Personally, even though I'm a huge fan of the internet and technology, I think there are many ways that it has royally fucked society, and people are totally blinded to the adverse affects.
Wanna know what's next? Retail. Nobody is going to go into physical stores anymore.
It's all internet now. People holed up at their computers all day and night.
As newbies it was all new to us and we probably didn't go as often so everything was fresher, and we didn't know any betfer so we did not have high expectations and just seeing some naked good looking chicks was enough to make us feel it was awesome.
As hardcore SCers we have seen/experienced a lot anr it's thus harder to impress us and move the needle.
chess, I feel like you're minimizing that statement a bit, but your "only reason" is HUGE, IMO. The hooker route is both a big psychological step, and also a pretty huge change in the experience overall... lots and lots of people don't love that experience. I feel like, if the strip club industry was more like the FBSM business -- that is, a sex business that's built substantially on a good customer experience instead of "make sure the customer feels exploited and ripped off at every turn" -- it would be plenty healthy. I don't think you can overstate the importance of the COMBINATION of 1. actual touch, 2. being able psychologically to not feel like a john, even if you are one. But the one common story among guys who shift from SCs to AMPs, bodyrubs, and escorts, is the poor customer experience in SCs.
I do think SA presents a very viable alternative to SCs, albeit at a higher investment of your time for research, flakiness, girls who don't look like their pics or whose personalities you dislike ... but, aside from classic SD/SB, experiences that are closer to an escort, and experiences that feel closer to an OTC, are easily available. Still, the investment is high enough that, again, if rip-off-the-customer-and-make-sure-he-knows-it wasn't so ingrained in SC culture, SCs could compete well, IMO. That said, I don't think the SC business will ever change, they'll whither and die first.
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LOL! great post @Chessmaster.
We are seeing significant changes in how people live. Add to the excellent points already made, consider "Uberization" -- within which middle men are eliminated as we become a nation of do-it-yourselfers. I have also heard it described as the "WalMart-ization of America". We want it cheap and quality/service doesn't matter.
Consider:
the financial services business with index funds and self-serve platforms.
the proliferation of home depot, et al and the explosion of HGTV (fucking hate it).
the disposable nature of all electronics today -- remember TV repairmen??
Hell, people are even eschewing doctors and self-diagnosing online or thru doctor-on-demand aps.
We can get so much more mileage and extras at lower and lower costs than a decade ago. No wonder the millennial sex workers are choosing other methods.
A lot of good points on the general decline. I've seen it in the reviews as well. When I first joined this site (6 years ago), Houston was a haven for extras, as was Providence. Not anymore.
I also agree on free porn and cam sites. There are a lot of dudes who can't talk to women even in the sc environment. It's easier to do it through a computer.
It's also easier to hook up with tinder and websites such as what's my price, SA etc. I guess if you have the money these websites make sense. SC's are still a crapshoot unless you are a regular with a dancer where you know what you will get.
For me all the website stuff is too much work. I can go to an sc, immediately have attractive women in my lap, have my fun and be home in 1-5 hours depending on mood, time, money and dancers. I have different dancers who meet my needs. I have some who provide great gfe and vhm dances. Others who I can come in, go to VIP, get off and get out.
PK, I"d quibble with that a bit. What you described -- cheap and service doesn't matter -- IS the Walmart-ization. But it's absolutely the opposite with Uber -- Uber's success is of course partially built on competitive prices, but very much built on a customer experience that is 10x better than that of taxis... it is ALL ABOUT a fantastic service. At the time Uber rose, most taxis were still not taking credit cards, carried little change so you had to have the right amount of cash, and obviously, could be difficult to catch when you needed them and kept prices artificially high due to effective monopolies (due to licensing scarcity and expense) in many areas. No one ever said, "hey, I'll just take a taxi -- so convenient!". Uber is about better service through technology, IMO.
Yep, agreed ... I'd never discount the fact that maybe SCs ARE doing the most rational thing, for them. If your business isn't substantially based on return customers anyway, you should soak everyone that walks in. I'll defer the question of whether this is a self-fulfilling prophecy :) But, the fact that customer service is so much better in the daytime, where there is a higher % of return customers, does support that.
@papi wrote " one should not expect a chick that fucks and sucks to provide great customer service"
I thought that was the definition of great customer service.
* they don't have the requisite funds to have a good time in a SC
* have a ball-buster for an S.O. and all they could do is "cheat virtually" (or simply can't carve out the requisite time due to work and family obligations)
There are PLs that believe "there are more extras today" but often times it's that they were not aware they were there until they got TUSCLarly schooled - although I do believe that in general extras are more readily available today with some exceptions of some old-school clubs in certain areas that seemed to be like live pornos
·Patrons want more mileage/extras and they want it cheap.
·dancers want to give low mileage for big money.
·patron can watch porn or cam sites or go all the way with an escort for the same price range.
·dancers leave for other sex avenues that are either more profitable and/or less demeaning(in their mind).
Cycle continues.
I can't imagine there's a better job for a hot 9 or 10 chick than airdances for guys willing to give her $40 per dance to wiggle her butt and buy expensive drinks.
My experience with escorts is just as hit and miss as with strippers, AMPs, FBSMs, or SBs. With escorts, getting sex is guaranteed, but getting a _enjoyable_ experience was not guaranteed. Once I did find one I liked, then it became a matter of scheduling - very little opportunity to be spontaneous.
The SB route has turned out to be like that too. Lots of girls seem to complain about guys that constantly text/email and never meet, but when you put THEM on the spot, suddenly they're not available.
Camming certainly provides a solution to spontaneity. If I want to interact with a naked girl, I can find dozens on line at any time I want. There is still _some_ interacting, and I can use my money to control what she does.
SCs provide spontaneity and the possibility of 2way contact, but still not guaranteed. Still, I can stretch $100 into a steak dinner, watching a ball game or two, and 2-3 hours of attention from one or more pretty girls. And lately, when I'm in the mood for a BBBJ I can get that more reliably in a SC than anywhere else.
If all the stories about Tinder hookups are true, younger guys don't need to go to SCs to see naked girls. You just swipe right a few times and invite them over at 3am. So, clubs aren't getting a lot of new customers to replace us old guys that stop going.
Yes, since the ownership change there have been changes to IR that give me concern, but it has not yet impacted the service I have received. I have still experienced the same mileage even though the lighting has been turned up a bit, at least for now.
Some of the regulars I haven't seen in a while, but my 3 fans are still there.
I'm planning to drive out to IR on 7/3 for day shift. If the mileage significantly declines, so will my trips.
I do expect during the next economic slowdown there will be a new wave of hot strippers.
Make American Strip Clubs Great Again
Assume 1,000 viable strip clubs across the US. For those clubs that meet strict new federal quality standards (lap dance quality, customer satisfaction, etc.), the government will provide a $500,000 subsidy to each club every year. Total of $500 million, which is peanuts. Subsidy can be used to pay for lap dances (so that customer outlay per dance is no more than $5), stripper clothing allowance, boob jobs, stripper training, and stripper wages.
Strippers would get big bucks (which would pull them away from camming, etc.), and customers would get great service.
Now you're talkin'.....
A lot ot clubs are becoming party-clubs/nightclubs at night and while this gets custies in the door it does not mean the dancers will make $$$ from them and they often don't, lack of spending custies may perhaps be one of the main reason girls leave the biz
https://www.stripperweb.com/forum/showth…
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Excellent plan. In fact, since we don't want to increase the deficit, that subsidy can come from gutting Medicaid, which is already the plan in the Senate. Make America great again!!!!
I can see the point that girls nowadays tend to have higher hopes, thinking everything is easy and will be handed to them, and once they see it's difficult they bail. I can definitely see that.
But the point that stripping is becoming more socially acceptable, and more girls are trying it and there are more girls competing, which results in lower $$ per girl, doesn't seem to make sense. When I go to clubs it seems like the numbers of girls is dropping, especially the hotter ones. And there seems to be an influx of foreign girls (Russian, Cuban, Mexican, Colombian, etc.), and US girls seem to think their shit don't stink and are above it all.
I think they meant relative to the number of (spending?) customers. Of course they would like it to be a mega sausage fest and and we want it to be our own personal adult Disney land with strippers but there's a medium in there somewhere.
If there's a shift in mileage at club I expect it comes from the owners buckling to outside pressure.
I think you've got fewer localities willing to look the other way and it's gotten tougher to bribe people.
However, it's different now. As someone pointed out above, many of the clubs have installed private rooms where dances are sold by time, not by the song. What used to be high mileage dances in individual lap dance booths in a VIP room, are now steered to the private rooms, at high prices--making the other forms of internet adult entertainment all the more affordable and attractive.
I strongly disagree with the comment above about regulars. In the clubs I frequent, the casual customers have dried up and it is ALL about regulars. If you are not one of her regulars, she doesn't even bother talking to you. Lots of dancers are making prearranged appointments with their regulars. One dancer recently told me she has "a couple" of customers who come one a week and one regular who comes twice a week (at $250/room each). Even after splitting that with club, there's not much incentive to troll non-regulars at $20/dance it it jeopardizes a whale.
OT.. I sure as hell don't have $500/week disposable income to compete with that nonsense.
Also, what is the appeal of an air dance? It almost sounds like camming to me, except that the girl is in front of you. But much like camming, you still can't touch and you're spending money for it. I'm sorry but I wish no one supported air dance clubs, or web camming. Free web camming? Fine. Paying for it? Fuck no.
Now that is an idea, for a 100 dollars, 3 strippers come over to my house, set up a dancer pole in the living room, bring a twenty pack of beer for everyone, do laps, pole dancing, for two or 3 hours, that might beat the strip club. It would definitely beat the club if anything more than dances happened. Could be extra tips involved which would be more expensive though.
As for air dance establishments if that's the most a city will allow then I'd rather have nothing. But hey, if they're making enough money to stay in business then I guess it's worth it to someone. Just not my cup of tea.
I guess I have to remember that the same way I feel about web camming and air dances is the same way others feel about strip clubs. Why pay all that money to just be teased, they ask. When my anti strip club friends ask me that I always think 'well I LDK so it's not really a tease'. Of course I don't say that lol. But still, I guess it's just my (our) thing. Last year enroute to a strip club in Vegas a cab driver offered to take me to an AMP instead. He says 'for what you're about to spend at the strip club you can pick out a girl and actually bust a nut'. I declined, probably for the reason someone mentioned above. You're crossing a different line IMO when you hit one of those places. Nothing wrong with it at all, but I feel much less guilt at a strip club vs an AMP.
They are no place for any self respecting PL to be caught patronizing though.
Agree that it's mostly a way for cities to take strip clubs. But I do think some strippers would still prefer airdances. Mostly they default to whatever most of the other strippers are doing to compete. That or they resort to rob tactics. Maybe if they are the hottest dancer at the club they can get away with lower mileage/air dances.
But I don't understand ... and Jester214 seems to ask the same question ...
... then why are prices going UPwards?
If demand is dwindling (old single white guys dying off) but supply is perpetually renewable (hot young girls who want a quick buck) then why are prices going up? If social restrictions against this activity are reducing (it's hardly illegal any more; it's all over the internet; it's approvable, just kind of weird) then the RISK to reward ratio improves, thus creating yet another reason for prices to start dropping. Every way I look at it, I think prices ought to be dropping.
Lap dance prices are rising, dammit.
Here's one factor people have hinted at but not yet mentioned explicitly -- cash economy. We don't spend paper-money any more. Maybe if strip-clubs figured out how to enable funny-money better, so that you didn't feel cheated by the transaction, then the millennials might get involved more and start driving the lapper economy in the monger-friendly direction? Sort of like how Uber cut out so much of the taxi-cab market, ultimately to the (aggregate) riders' benefit?
I don't know. I just don't understand why prices keep going UP. It just seems opposite all my Econ 101 training. Supply, demand, risk, reward, risk aversion, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, grey markets, jurisdictional competition, social restrictiveness, put it all in the hopper, prices should be going DOWN. Shouldn't they?
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Well, occasionally @NanoDong has enough brain cells to say something coherent and intelligent. Just IMHO, strip clubs are not the best place to find P4P with beautiful, responsible, reliable, young college girls. Easier and more efficient online. Maybe that's a different topic.
As to why prices are going up, IMO it's not necessarily that the club prices are increasing, but I think that the EXPECTATIONS from the dancers are increasing. What used to be super high mileage $10 or $20 dances are now only obtainable if you go to the VIP and pay $200. It seems like dancers are becoming much more mercenary in recent years, and so many reviews complain about the VIP upsell. IMO, the younger folks seem to have this attitude of entitlement, that they should get $$ rained down on them for sitting on their asses texting their girlfriends.
And what seems missing for the most part is what I think is the #1 most important aspect of a good SC:
INTENT.
Do the girls intend to make customers feel good, or is their only intent to get as much as possible for the least amount of effort? I get so fucking tired of dancers sitting on their asses with their noses buried in their phones.
Since the 90's I've been going to clubs, and I *NEVER* had to go to the VIP to get some great action. But now it seems like in most clubs it's VIP or nothing if you want any sort of action. Of course there are exceptions, but they are dwindling.
Next month will be my 30th anniversary of going to strip clubs, mostly in the Atlanta area. In Atlanta, table dances have been $10 almost that entire time.
In the 90s boom years, a few high end clubs tried going to $20 but that didn't last long because there were so many clubs that still charged $10. In the first dot.bomb bust, some clubs tried dropping to $5 or running lots of 2for1 specials, but it didn't help much.
Can't comment on ITC extras prices, cause the clubs I went to back then didn't have VIP rooms like we know them today (I can't remember when clubs started adding them, and I know my favorite was one of the last to add). I do remember that $80-$150 could get you good 2way action with a HJ (low end) or BJ (high end) finish in the dozen or so lingerie shops. 1hr with an escort was $175. I remember all the angst on BigDoggie and TER when the Mendoza line was permanently crossed (i.e. standard rate for escort went above 200).
My CF FBSM place is 175, but upgrades there are overpriced. A quick look on Eros Atlanta shows $225 to $300 as the current range for an escort. $150 seems to be the low end for BJ (sometimes even FS) at Follies, with several reports of dancers there starting to ask for more, and some PLs being able to negotiate less.
My favorite club only recently replaced their 20yr old menus, but all the prices are still the same, so food prices haven't gone up. Drinks seem like they're a dollar or two more expensive than "years ago", but I don't drink that much so it's not something I track closely.
So, prices seem mostly the same, with ITC extras probably tracking along with the gradual rise in escort prices and appropriate adjustments (poor facilities vs. immediate gratification).
As others have mentioned, I haven’t seen much of it.
I don't expect the 5 for 100 VIP change anytime soon. But for the girls it's more about the total cash than the time dancing.
There seems to finally be upward pressure on wages, and that's often a sign We are late in the cycle.