The last few days have brought a number of different things to light in the Seattle Nightlife scene, it’s been a real insight into the psyche of these children calling themselves promoters. Below is my take on the whole situation.
I think it’s really important to realize that most of Seattle’s promotion companies share the same demographic and oddly enough that demographic is relatively older in comparison to some other cities. It just so happened that our nightlife scene was flourishing between 2000 & 2007, and, it just so happens that most of the socialites from that time period have continued to involve themselves in Seattle Nightlife. The influx of new party people has been evident, but, it pales in comparison to the number of new patrons we were seeing years ago.
What does this mean ? Well, it means that your current crop of socialites have had their fill of mass texts, mass invites, mass messages and the general harassment that goes along with it all (if that wasn’t already evident with the death of MySpace). I’m not criticizing anyone’s practices, I’m just telling you how I feel. I’m sure you’ve seen a few status updates from me talking about the 20 mass texts, 100+ invites & 100+ messages I receive every week in regard to events. Believe it or not, I also talk to people and try to get their feedback on current practices. I ask them why they deny event invites, I ask them why they don’t go out as much, or, why they don’t go to certain places. The answers, more often than not, have to do with the heavy amount of promotional material they receive for events in general. So, here is a small list of behaviors that i’ve seen, i’d like some feedback from both sides of the fence on this one so please, feel free to comment.
1. Fighting over “friends” - You would be surprised how often promoters working on the same event fight for claim to a particular event attendee (ie. “I invited her” “No I invited her”) More often than not this results in 2 or 3 people bombarding the same person with “You’re on my list, or, make sure you talk to me and get on my list”, as if one persons list is better than the others. My take on it, how about no cover, so we don’t have to worry about lists, and how about using that competitive spirit to bring everyone TOGETHER instead of fighting for who gets who. Don’t you think people are stressed out enough with the economy and such, do you really think they want to have to worry about pissing someone off because they didn’t get on the right f*cking list ?
2. Facebook Invites/Messages - Okay, this ones tricky, here is my take on it. If you have a special event coming up, post an event invite. I don’t mind getting invites for once a month events, or events that feature special talent. However, once you send that event, don’t send me 4 or 5 updates a day on how your ticket sales are going, or, how close you are to being sold out. You have to remember that invites and messages are invasive, they aren’t like ads, ads don’t clutter up your inbox or your event invite page, ads don’t force you to act on them. You would be surprised how many people like to have their Facebook home pages looking pristine (meaning all messages, invites and suggestions handled), the current promotional practices make that nearly impossible. Lastly, if you do weekly events, change the date on your event the day of so you can re-use the same one, don’t send out a new one every week, we get it already.
3. Mass text messaging - Put bluntly, if you care about me then take the time to write a message that I know you didn’t send to 30 other people at the same time. I’m guilty of this, on a number of different levels, i’ll send out a mass text if we decide to do something last minute, just due to sheer time constraints, but, that probably happens once every 2 months. You’ll be surprised how much of a difference the extra 30 seconds per text makes in terms of response.
4. General Harassment - If you see someone’s birthday coming up (or if you have an event coming up), you should hit them up, see what they are doing. If they have plans already and you think you can better take care of them, offer what you have in a simple and cordial manner. What I see too often is “f*ck that place, f*ck those dudes, they’re a bunch of d bag’s, our party will be better”, or, “wtf, why aren’t you going out, you’re lame”. Newsflash people, you’re dealing with grown adults, and you should be a grown adult yourself, so act like it. If you really give a sh*t about the person you’re inviting then you’ll be happy for them whether they are at your club, at someone else’s club or at home on the couch watching movies, just as long as they are happy.
In closing, I know promoters are going to have some questions. So help me out here. When you don’t get invites/texts/messages do you question whether or not the event is going on or whether or not the promoter is still there ? This is something I personally battle with in regard to the TPD mass text as i’m sure some of the promoters sending invites and messages do as well.
Looking forward to everyone’s feedback on this, i’m not perfect, i have been or am currently guilty of a lot of this stuff, it’s feedback from socialites that’s going to help us all refine our processes. We want to make going out fun and relaxing again, not a situation that makes you feel like you’re letting someone down if you don’t come see them.
