Monday, July 6, 2009

In Memoriam of Great Clubs, and a musing on club. vision (which is not the same as beer goggles)

Not much to tell of late. After nearly 2 yrs in SL, Nocturne has closed, as its owner wisely opted to focus on her studies when her college curriculum started suffering b/c of her work keeping Nocturne open. Also, Club Amor is on extended hiatus due to my SL sis Olivia's RL medical setbacks which have limited her ability to do the work necessary to keep it running.

SL *is* fun & games, but a lotta work goes into pulling that level of fun off. Clubs and the entertainment industry in SL, as in RL, require massive investments of both time and cash, and not a lot of clubs ever recoup enough to break even. Which, as I've noted before, is so rare that it's best not even made a goal. If you have the time and means to sustain it, excellent! However, it's also a good idea to know what your stop-loss point is. With both Olivia and Nedria, they were managing the financial struggle OK, but there's also the time commitment involved in planning multiple events weekly, if not nightly, staff management issues, land management stuff, all sorts of interesting things that require your time and attention.

Neds and Livvie are the 2 best club owners I've ever known, and I've known some great ones. Part of that for them means not delegating it all away and just blindly signing the checks. They created my 2 favorite clubs ever, and they did so by carefully crafting the style and identity of the places, and that requires a LOT of attention to detail and active involvement. It's easy for a club w/o a single clear vision to drift, and even easier if it gets relegated and delegated down the list. Consider another well-done club--Phat Cat's Jazzy Blue Lounge. New folks bought out the owners, and the place just nosedived after that. Used to be a regular hangout of mine, but when the place lost the original owners (whose name I don't recall), the whole vibe changed dramatically (which I DO vividly recall--I hung in there for a little bit, but it was just not the same somehow). So, as Neds said, she'd rather have Nocturne be Nocturne and go out in a blaze of glory still riding high than die a slow death as it inexorably lost the magic that made the place so special.

I fully expect both will return to the business some day. They're just too damn good to stay out of it for long. But in this instance, between Livvie's health and Neds's school, I'd say they have their priorities just about right. Still, I will be looking forward to both of 'em getting tired of retirement, hehe.