WTF's up with the dance prices?

I think there is some kind of a law -- let me think -- oh yes, the law of supply and demand, that's it.

It is hard to say that a girl will make more money, net, by selling her dances for $10 instead of $20, or $30. Definitely, some girls, and in some clubs, would be better off with $10 dances. But not all. If the club/area/girl is really ritzy, $30 or even $50 might be the best price. (Hard to believe in USA that $50 would work the best unless extras were expected.) There are so many variables, it is impossible for us customers to guess what the "best" price is. But the good news is, we are free to negotiate. And I recommend it. It is actually a LEARNING OPPORTUNITY. The negotiating skills you polish with the stripper might actually help you later in negotiating with boss/wife/offspring.

Dick, the lower price might make sense for the girls but it may not for the club. In clubs where the price is high the house usually takes a cut, where if they lowered the price they wouldn't be able to. For example, I know a club where you pay $20 for the private room and another $20 for the girl, both per song. If the club did away with the room charge the girls would make a lot more but the club would make a lot less. It's a pretty popular place by the way.

FONDL: You do not get out a lot anymore.At my favorite club the house does not get a cut unless you go for the champagne room ($250/hr). The published rate is $20/dance. I can and do get 2 for $20 from a dozen or so day shift dancers but that is because I am a regular and they appreciate my repeat business. The biggest complaint I read on the reviews is the over priced dances. $30 and even as high as $50. These ROB's are the out of towners that are just there for the kill. Make a quick buck and move on. They could care less about getting regulars or any repeat business. On my last visit to the club, StripShopper and I spent a lot of time with one of my top favorites. She totally agreed that she can make more money buy selling more dances at a lower price. She spent about 5 hours with me. She made about $200 off me and the house made a little from the drinks that I bought her and they were not special dancer drink prices. The same as a customer pays. She never pressured me for dances. In fact I always had to ask her.I am pretty sure that she is going to have dinner with me on my next visit, two weeks from now.

arbeeguy,

Someone that grasps Economics 101. Excellent!

Yes...points well taken. I occassionally go to the world famous Mons and this is one of the few clubs I still get dances at. The girls always start at 30per and I usually drop that successfully to 20. Supply and demand is what should determine prices. I recently stopped in at a club that is rigid about a 30 dollar dance price. Kind of steep to me, but hey if you can get it great. But, the girls are always sitting around in there. There are usually other factors too, but for most guys a 30 dollar dance price is too much.

$30 for a dance. Let's see...

A song, at the most 3 minutes. So that is $10 a minute, or about $600 an hour. Not bad pay, if one can get it. Sort of makes a VIP visit a bargain!

$600/Hr. Sounds great. Except the reality is, it's $10/minute for three minutes. That huge "pay rate" is what a lot of dancer's keep telling themselves and any reporter willing to listen.

Shadowcat, I think you missed my point. I know lots of clubs where you can get a great LD for $20 or less and if I wanted an LD that's where i'd go. The point I was trying to make was to answer the question of why more expensive clubs don't lower their prices. The answer sometimes is that the club makes money from the higher prices because they take a cut, even though it probably hurts the girls. I stopped going to my last regular club because of their high prices.

And I agree that girls rarely make anywhere near $600 an hour - mostly they sit around hoping someone will buy an occasional dance. And the higher the price the fewer they sell.

FONDL: I understood your point. I was just adding that even in clubs with good prices there are getting to be more and more ROBs. Shekitout just posted on the club discussion warning about a bad experience he recently had with an out of towner.

Everyting should be negotiable between you and the dancer. The clubs want their cut and thjey will get it somehow, either by drink prices, dance price add-ons room charges etc. But the business between you and the dancer is your business. I try to give a reasonhably consistent amount to each regular-type dancer each time I visit them based on how long I spend with her and what she delivers. Yes, songs are part of the variable, but not always. What's important in the long run, is for the dancer to understand how you fitr into her business picture. Regardless of wheether you tip big or modest. Be consistent so she can depend on you and she will take care of you just as you are taking care of her with your consistency. In other words, try to set your own price/budget within the wiggle room you have.

At my favorite club, the dancers are private contractors who pay a tip out at the end of each shift, regardless of how much they make in a shift. If a dancer can sell more dances at a lower price per dance (i.e. 3 for $50 vs. 1 dance for $30) rather than sitting around making $0 because it is slow, the smart ones opt for the "volume discount". This is how Wal-Mart operates. Now, I agree that if a club gets a cut of every dance, this won't work.

My neighbor was mowing his lawn yesterday. He accidentally cut off his cats tail. He grabbed up the cat and tail and ran to Walmart. Why? Because Walmart is the biggest retailer in the country. OK bash me. I deserved it.

Whenever this issue comes up, posters have the misconception that dancers have an inexhaustible capacity for performing lapdances. Most dancers don't see it that way. Lapdances are, to put it mildly, unappealing work that they would prefer not to do except that they need the money. They're fine with sitting around making $0 half the time if the alternative is to do twice as many dances for the same pay.

I agree that a lot of places price dances so absurdly high that nobody benefits. However, it's a mistake to think that they could simply apply the same volume economics that Walmart uses to price tube socks.

I could agree with you Chandler if we are talking about a place that is full of customers who are buying dances. However in the club that I frequent the most, usually during afternoon hours, the number of customers has been sparse, and all the dancers complain about not making money. Some dancers will approach and offer dances at $30-40 per dance, and I'll counter offer with 2 for 30 or 2 for 40 (depending on how hot the dancer is). Most will agree to this and some don't. I'm just saying that the ones who don't are missing an opportunity to make money. Thus, it really depends on the club, time of day etc.

Got to agree with Ironcat here. A club is a very different place on Tuesday afternoon when all the girls are sitting by themselves then on Saturday night when guys are lined up with fists full of money waiting their turn for an LD. Which is why I always preferred Tuesday afternoon.

I don't really get around to different clubs that much, but the Mons Venus in Tampa is one of the only clubs I have been too where the price initially quoted for ONE dance is more than $20. It's generally $35-$40, but I have never paid that. I don't even have to negotiate. The dancers always offer $20 per dance if you get multiple dances.

I would hate to see dance prices go up from $20. It just seems like the perfect price for a dance. ATMs generally spit out 20's. You or the dancer don't have to fuss around with making change or deciding whether you want to give her the extra $10 as a tip. But on the other hand, I started going to my favorite club 20 years ago. Dances were $20 then and they are still $20. Seems like inflation should have had some effect....though I am not complaining.

Ironcat, I thought I made it clear I wasn't defending absurdly high dance prices. I was pointing out that the fatal flaw in so-called economic formulas I always see posted for determining an optimal dance price is that they entirely omit one essential economic variable: dancers' disinclination to do dances.

That is an excellent point, Chandler, and I'm glad you brought it up. Sometimes taking it easy is better than earning a measly $5, $10, or $20---depending on the income expectations of the dancer.

I definitely think that many times dances give wear and tear to the dancers. Not all dancers, but some actually prefer a more rested work day----physically and or emotionally. OTOH, a *few* dancers seem like they could do dances non-stop at low prices even if the customer is nasty and even if the pace of dance is hectic.

Chandler,

I fully understand your point. Despite all my many of years of clubbing, this remains a huge mystery to me. Why do girls - who choose to make stripping a career - then seem not interested in doing dances? I see so many girls "table sitting" or just spending a lot of time in the dressing room. I don't get it. Seems they could be making money. I've heard all their reasons - they are tired of hearing "no", etc..., but I still don't get it.

My ATF is mercenary in her apporach to dances. She is one of the top earners in the club. She refuses to lap-sit or table-sit unless she is sure of making money. But she even admits she doesn't like doing dances. I suppose it could be physically demanding, but most of these girls are young and are in good physical condition, so I doubt if that is the real reason. I asked one dancer at the Hip Hugger - home of the $10 dance - if she wanted a break after 5 or 6 straight dances and she said she wasn't tired. In fact, she had one customer that had 30 dances with her without taking a break. She said she was a little tired, but still OK.

I guess my point is, just like any job, if you don't enjoy the work, then get out of the profession.

David, if all strippers who don't enjoy doing lapdances got out of stripping, who would you get lapdances from? It's not a question of enjoying their work - it's one of overcoming their repulsion enough to suck it up (pardon the expression) and get through it in order to make money. As for the "huge mystery" of why many girls can't summon the nonstop enthusiasm for that - or what they could possibly dislike if not the physical demands - that's a question for a different thread (and not a new one). What's relevant here is that their disinclination is a fact which has to be taken into account in dance prices.

I think Chandler makes a good point. I also think the economic reasoning breaks down if you don't take into account that the interests of the dancer and the club are often very different.

One other flaw here is David's premise that "Why do girls - who choose to make stripping a career ..." IME, very few girls ever consciously choose to make stripping a career. Their objective is usually to make enough cash for their current needs. They tend to have a very short-term focus, which means that they're main interest is paying thier current bills and having something left over for fun, not in maximizing their income. And they're not interested in working very hard. I've only ever met a few dancers who were willing to work hard at maximizing their income, it's pretty rare. Most dancers wouldn't have the faintest idea how to go about it even if they wanted to.

Honestly, I bet the majority of people in the USA don't "consciously choose" to make anything a career. They aren't working at McDonald's or Wal-Mart, or even the drop-forge-ladle factory, because they like the long-term prospects for promotion, the benefits, and the opportunity to make a positive contribution to our society. What makes strippers any different in kind? They aren't. By degree, they are: they do things that are even LESS enjoyable (to most peole) and as reward for taking on this undesirable work, they gain a bit more income and freedom to make their own schedules. Stripping is in that strange middle-land where the job's performers are self-selected on the basis of their "willingness" to do the unpleasant work -- like garbage collectors or sewer cleaners, who are certainly less trained and educated than journalists or publishing employees but who generally make significantly more money just for undergoing the strenuous and stinky work-outs that are required for their jobs.

It's the "stinkiness" quotient -- where ability doesn't come into play as much as willingness to abase oneself.

Another point is setting a "bad" example. In the book business, I would get people to try and get me to discount my price or they'd take their business elsewhere. Even if that one transaction made economic sense and often it didn't-----zero dollars would be better than $10 dollars-----the problem is word of mouth. All I needed was every customer to start haggling with me. :( (When I first took over the business that was a huge problem and the prices were dirt cheap to begin with! :( )

Sometimes I'd just give away a book FREE because it avoided the haggling problem and showed--hopefully--to the potential customer that FREE was a better deal for me than the price he was offering. Every once in awhile I'd have a customer ask for free based on what I did for someone else. My response would vary depending on the details; like how hard are you willing to work for FREE? Are you willing to come in before 8 AM? Are you willing to give me a bunch of new books? Are you willing to not come back?

To me, often the dancers' decisions even though it doesn't maximize income make a lot of sense. A HOT 9 was fooling around at Angels yesterday. She came and chatted me up for just a little bit---and she is very nice. Then she hung with some dancer buds and then with some customer buds. She didn't make much in all the hours that I was there . . . but, if you watched her you would see that she was a happy person. I could have bought some dances, but it would have been lose/lose ---REALLY. She doesn't want to provide GFEs and that is what I want to buy. Her decision not to push for a dance (she is nice and HOT so I would feel obligated to buy 1 or 2) benefited us both.

Maximizing income often seems irrational to me! :)

Old saw: Would a dancer be happier earning $5 a dance from customer X or $10 a dance for customer X (customer X is identical for either price, btw). The answer is it depends. Sometimes $5 a dance would make the dancer much happier. Even if the dancer really really thinks the customer is the greatest $10 a dance might make the dancer much happier. If stripclubs have taught me anything, then it is that the one-size-fits-all rule is total filth.

CORRECTS TYPO

Old saw: Would a dancer be happier earning $5 a dance from customer X or $10 a dance from customer X

FONDL hit the nail on the head - when you go to a club and the tip out policy of that club make all the difference in the world. If you read any of my reviews you will notice that I too enjoy the afternoon shift.