How do you go about becoming a feature dancer?Do you charge for travel-Gas/flight? Deposit? How much do they pay for booking? Or per hour? Just extremely curious
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How do you go about becoming a feature dancer?Do you charge for travel-Gas/flight? Deposit? How much do they pay for booking? Or per hour? Just extremely curious
Do you want to book yourself or get an agent to book you? Also do you have magazine, website, or film credits.
Do porn, have a niche (i.e. world's tallest stripper or something), or have serious stage chops and win a featuring contest (Miss exotic world or the like).
If you want to be a feature without doing porn, expect to spend at least $20k on costumes and a ton of time honing a performance skill- fire, silks, contortion, etc.
You'll also either need an agent, as Optimist mentioned, or be seriously good at self-promotion.
Featuring doesn't pay anything like it used to either. Unless you're excellent at developing a fanbase, once you look at all the time and money required to feature from travel, props, and constantly upgrading your skills and costumes to get re-booked places, the vast majority of girls are better off just working as a "normal" stripper. I have met more than one feature who appears to be living a glamorous lifestyle, but lives gig to gig.
I've talked to my manager a little bit about what happens when they bring in features. He said they usually pay them 1,000 per set and they usually do two so they make 2 grand from the club, plus tips and if they decide to sell dances or merchandise. Big name features like popular porn stars (Alexis Texas, Bonnie Rotten, etc) they give more. I'm not completely positive, but I think he said Alexis Texas gets 5 grand. I'm not sure how much the dancer gets out of that and how much her agent gets. They don't pay for their traveling expenses, but they will pick them up from the airport or hotel and take them back. I'm pretty sure they give them free food and drinks as well. From a club perspective it's not always profitable, especially if it's some no name porn actress with no fans.
For the features I can't imagine it's always profitable for them either. My favorite feature was Lacey Rain and she had extremely elaborate costumes that were certainly over a grand a piece and she had one stage set where no one tipped her at all. She brought her own photographer and had an assistant as well so she had a lot of expenses to work that night.
Does your manager hire features? If so ask him how the process works and tell him you're interested in this, if not you can find the website for some feature agencies and contact them and ask what it takes and how it works. I try to avoid working feature nights. The few I've worked were mostly big named porn stars who usually do pretty well because they have a large fanbase but I know they had to put a lot of work into getting to the point where their name alone can carry them in the club. Asa Akira especially had stage sets with no less than 500 dollars in tips every time and a line of guys waiting for lapdances. It sucked for the dancers because a lot of the customers weren't there for the house girls (I did poorly until her sets were done and then it picked up for me) but she had to have made a killing on top of what the club already gave her.
I've never worked a night that had any of the showgirls, pole girls, or competition winners (besides once) but what PrettyPuppet said above doesn't surprise me considering the fact that a lot of the best pole dancers and stage performers I've worked with get ignored onstage unless it's the right kind of crowd so I can image a feature who's claim to fame is being really good onstage and having amazing outfits wouldn't get nearly as much as they deserve. I've heard the crowd sucks just as badly on those nights too. I do wish talent and effort was appreciated in strip clubs but it's often not.
The only time I've worked with a showgirl feature was an AMAZING dancer. She did handstand walks, and a lot of other amazing floor acrobatics. She had pretty good stage sets because the club this was happened to be in her home city and some of her friends and fan base showed up there but sadly, as talented as she was, I doubt she would have had the same reaction everywhere else she's gone.
I'm not trying to discourage you into trying to be a feature. If this is what you really want to do it's always worth a try, you never know, you might have some real success, I'm just trying to prepare you for the fact that it won't be easy, which I'm sure you know. It's going to take hard work, a LOT of money, and getting your name out there.