The Club Take Half

[natyempress]

Hi ladies,

I've been working in a club in maryland on and off for about 6 months. Its a really good location being close to the convention center, so we get a lot of tourist and business men. I generally make between 150-250 a night. I can make a little more every now and then, but it is not consistent. There are some extra's girls there, but most of the top girls are not, and they make at least 500-600 a night, I looked at the sheets. Thursday night, i only made about 140 dollars, and i felt terrible, i wanted to cry. I felt liek i worked so hard for the little bit of money.

We dont pay a house fee, but the club basically takes half of what we make:

all ladies drinks are 20$= we get 8$ and 2 goes to the bar
1 song lap dance for 30 $ we keep 15 , 1 $ goes to bar
3 song lap dance 60$ we keep 24$ and 6 goes the bar
5 song lap dance 100$ we keep 40$ and 20 goes to the bar
we have 45 min champagne , but no private room its 200$ we keep 80
90 min 400$ we keep 160

We are supposed to encourage the guys to give us tips for our dances, the guys have to buy the dances up front and we get a token to go back.

[Kylea2]

Ugh! So on say the ladies drinks, the house is collecting $10? You said they are $20, you get $8, & $2 goes to the bar... so where's the other $10 going?

Seriously, you might be better off working at a club that has a medium priced house fee than this place.

[_Avery_]

For 5 songs you only get $40?! I'd be so mad especially since at MOST clubs you get $40 for only 2 songs and a lot of the time you get tipped on top of that. Double the work for half the pay? That sucks, I'm sorry.

[miamia4me]

Yeah you are getting ripped off.

[natyempress]

Thnx for reply ladies,

I posted this in 2 locations and most of the ladies told me to get the hell out of the club, its a rip off, problem is that most of the clubs In baltimore are like this. The only other ones i think that are not, are scores and hustler. Which I think are pretty hard to get into, but im going to try. Since I'm relatively new at dancing, i didn't realize that i was being ripped off. Thnx again ladies. I'm thinking about either getting into private parties or just they guys, once they get back there, just pay me for extra time, and take the risk gettig caught. The pro's are that I can come in whenever I like no set schedule, and they dont hvae a cap on black girls, its really mixed.

[papillonluvr]

It can be very hard to make money in a club like that. I worked at a Deja Vu club where they ended up taking about 33% of what you made, and then tip out on top of that. You really have to be a good hustler to walk out with a decent profit. Do you think that possibly other girls are charging more for there dances, or are they really selling more dances?

Either way, for a club to rip you off that much (for 5 songs you keep $40?! 3 songs you keep $24?!) I would find a different club. And you also might do better at a different club even if the prices are similar.

[hello-kitty]

in Los Angeles almost all the clubs require you to pay 50% of what you make

[Melonie]

In Manhattan it would be a different story. You would get to keep the vast majority of the amount customers spend on lap dances. But you would also be expected to pay a $150-$250 nightly 'house fee' to the club PLUS mandatory tipouts. The obvious effect of this high house fee low / no percentage arrangement is that top earning dancers make out well (i.e. $600+ in sales less $200 house fee = $400 net ) while mediocre dancers make out terrible (i.e. $250- in sales less $200 house fee = not enough earnings to cover other mandatory tipouts ! ).

Also, keep in mind that beginning on next January 1st, the new national health care law will require the club to start keeping track of all of those $8 per lap dance / $80 champagne room payouts when dancers 'cash in' their tokens ... and the club will also be required to report the year's total payouts to each dancer to the IRS via form 1099. This will be the case for all businesses that take in customer money at the 'cash register' and pay out 'sales commissions' to workers. However, in cases where the customer's money goes directly into the dancer's hand instead of the club's 'cash register', it will wtill be up to the dancer to do the reporting as is presently the case !

[Harleigh HellKat]

I worked at a place like that. The had VIPs 2 for 25 or 5 for 50 but you only keep 40. That's less that 10 bucks a song. Math says that's extremely cheap, especially for VIPs!!

[Kellydancer]

I too worked at a club like that. For every $20 dance we got something like $8 and a $200 hour VIP champagne room (this was in the mid 90's) I got something like $50. I didn't stay there long. This club btw had a bunch of uglies to boot and now I knew why.

[spartaca]

I've said it before and i'll say it again - don't work at places that are not worth your whilse due to high fees & tip-outs. You could probably get a day job and not have to put up with drunk aasholes pawing you for the same money you make shelling out 50%+ of your stripper money.

Get yourself a different club or a different job, hon.

[Autumn Lily]

At my club it was $150 for a 1 hour VIP and the dancer doesn't see a single penny of that money. They're taken off the rotation for a whole hour, sat in VIP with a customer, and expected to sell dances and drinks to make money off of VIP.

Champagne room was even worse. 2 hours and the dancer only got 40% of the sale. The cheapest bottle of champagne would ensure the girl only got $45 for TWO HOURS.

These prices and rules were set by the owner of the club. Needless to say, management actually discouraged dancers against VIP sales.

[alexa111]

This sounds like my old club. If I could've scraped together 150 to 200 a night there, I would've gladly stayed and paid the high fees.....But of course if there's clubs with better money in your area, then no reason to stay and pay that much!

[Sinn]

May I suggest either finding another club OR raise your dance price so that you can make extra money? Perhaps tell him that its 100$ plus a 20 tip to the dancer so that you can recover some of your losses?

In one club i worked at we had vip's for 25/ea, so sometimes I would upsell and tell the customer that I was doing a 5 for 100$ special. I was so surprised at how many of them went for it. The cost of each VIP to me as 5$. So, I considered the 5th song as my total payout of the whole VIP set. I got to keep the other 4 songs worth! It made my night so much fun in finding the ones who would take the deal. Trying to go around and sell just one dance no longer became worth it since there were so few customers sometimes..

[natyempress]

Thnx for all the responses,

I've decided to go look for other clubs in the area, I just feel like im working way to hard to have that much money taken from me. I've been hustling my ass off, and it seems like i can't make more than 250 bucks a night. Saturday night, If a guy about 1 song, i would try to sell him another song, and just told me him to give me the cash instead. Im going to do this until I get hired at another club.

Its also a high contact club, with no private VIP's. If i'm going to be a stripper , i need to work at a club worth my time. I think i've been kind of loyal here, because this was the first place i started and they let me work whenever i wanted. It just that there are so few good places in baltimore to work at, and i don't have a car.

[Stripper Hacks]

I'm sorry why do you work there again?

That is robbery.

[natyempress]

I know, this is my first club and i really didn't do research, before i started dancing, most clubs in baltimore have a similar price range. I've been looking for other clubs, auditioned at one, they gave me the run around, told me they call me back if something opended up, i know what that means..grrr. My options are pretty limited here in baltimore. Not to be stuck on myself, but i think im hot, have a nice body and a cute face, so i don't understand why i didnt get it hired.

[hunniebbabie37]

really, I've been working in Baltimore for 2 years almost now, and let me tell you, the clubs where you sell drinks, get chips, ect....don't make as good of money. Go to a gentalmens club, scores, hustler, the ritz, you will make more.

[natyempress]

thanks

[M3wlove]

that sucks! i've worked in 2 clubs that took more than a third of your vip room money! in one, you got to keep 200 out of 600...for a "really private room" you kept 300....out of 1600. we had to try and sell drinks with no profit to us. i quit!