The Wandering Monkey

This has been a roller coaster week.
For the past seven days preceeding Wednesday, I had been preparing for our re-vamped social night at Jazz Seeker. That's the very nice bar which asked us back after the owner figured out she wasnt making any money after we left. I talked with the manager and a former manager who still hangs out and helps the place. Since we had leverage this time, I wanted to see if we could turn out some sort of profit on the night. People weren't buying enough to make the managers happy, so I took this into account and came up with a plan.

We'd make some posters, flyers, and advertise ourselves. The bar would charge a small cover. We would get half of that, and they would get the other half. With this plan, we proceeded. I found a small computer shop and made friends with the owner. I spent two full business days there designing, printing, and cutting the flyers and poster and tickets. This also cost us a bit of money. Armed with these things, we went into the bar. I gave the tickets to the bar folks and we had a very good night. It was great fun, and the bar served food to me and a friend of mine.

Then, when I was just about to leave, I told the manager I wanted to settle accounts. We went to the bar and collected 21 sold tickets. I know we had about 30 folks and the waitresses hadn't caught everyone coming in, but I was not upset. It was the first time at this and we didn't need perfection. Then I asked for my half of the receipts and the manager just looked at me blankly. His English is quite poor, but I translated through his friend who had helped us in the first place. He was apparently under the impression that we were doing this for our health. I was simultaneously frustrated, enraged, and dumbfounded.

There I was was after midnight sitting at a table with three Chinese in their bar. Good folks by every instinct I have had. And they were claiming such a deal never existed. Were they trying to cheat me? It is very common in Chinese business deals to try to sneak something at the end of it. I didn't think so; I think they just misunderstood the deal. But how could they come to that impression? Why would we agree to go through the trouble and expense to make the materials if we were not going to get anything at all for it?

It's not like it was a lot of money by US standards, but it really messed up my business plans. I had done a very careful analysis on the types of visitors we have and what they buy when at the bar. I spent the money and time working on it because I thought I was creating a small but acceptable income stream for my Wednesday nights. But now I found not only was I out of my expenses, I was out of income as well.

I tried to be businesslike about it. I explained my situation. We needed at least a way to recoup our expenses. But the manager would not budge. He said that our presence at the bar was still not completely accepted by all patrons or by the owner, and that this was not a good time to ask for more. Were they playing me? Were they just ignorant of our position? Or was this just an honest mistake?

Every response and encouragement from their side did nothing to make me feel better about the situation. They suggested that perhaps if this event grew popular, we could increase the cover later and our group could get the added amount. But I had very carefully measured how much our people would be willing to pay for cover charge. We were at the highest level which would not cause people to turn away. But most imporantly, people have a psychological expectation. Once they are paying 35rmb to enter, they are just not going to want to pay more unless they are getting more. Why would they? So we can't just increase our rates.

The thing is, we had another bar in mind when Jazz Seeker called us. That bar would have been willing to split the cover charge with us or do a profit sharing deal. They had nothing going on at all on Wednesdays. They were closed then, so we would have had the club to ourselves exclusively. I had set that other deal aside to accept this one, which now was turning out to be an income loss.

We go over a few more suggestions, and I find they are not budging at all. They are speaking of possibilities several months in the future. But we cannot wait that long. Nor would we want to if we have other choices available to us. Again, I asked to speak to the owner in a meeting, and again they said this was a bad idea. I fought very hard against the instinct to slam my hand on the table, take my printed materials, and storm out.

I'm still pissed every time I think of it. But from a business point of view, we can't move yet. We need a social night, and it takes about one month of lead time to properly change from one location to the next. Financially, we cannot remain where we are, though. We have only so many nights in a week, and if we are working Wednesday for no income at all they we would have to charge more for classes and other such things. Plus, many people don't take classes and this is the only chance to gain any income from people who just come to the social night.

So I learned a few things from this one.

On the good news side, the was this English teaching school which called us. They were offering to hire us to run a dancing class at their school as a student activity. Originally their offer was paltry; they just wanted to pay us an English teacher wage for the hours we spent there. But then we have come up with an arrangement which should be suitable. We will send just one teacher to them in the class. The teacher will get a high enough wage to make it worthwhile for them. From out point of view, this income stream is limited. We get our minimum wage to keep living out here. But we also get exposure to a good number of new people. So my plan now is to go ahead with this project. We will only teach the basic class session. This will give them at least a month of training. After that, if anyone wants to participate they can join our class at our studio, where we have a much greater income potential.

Last night I went to a social mixer. I met several people, one of which was from MTV Asia. I am going to see if anything can come from that. Also, I ran into a guy who's friend has just released a jazz record. He wants to aggressively promote it, and he's suggesting we dance at the release parties. I'm all for that.

And last, after having so much trouble with our venues and their bands, I have come to the conclusion that the only way we'll get what we want is to make our own. We are going to find an empty venue (or warehouse, for that matter) and rent it out. We're also going to put together our own band and teach them to play swing music. Yesterday I met with the person who we are considering to be that band's leader.

If we put these two things together, I think we will really be on track. Bars have always been bad places for swing dancers. They just don't drink enough. You can't have a martini then go to an aerobics class (though believe me, some people do). So eventually the bars get tired and kick us out. Also, all bars have their own personal agenda. None of it is compatible with swing. And their bands are never right. There are a lot of qualified jazz bands out here, but swing music is not the same. About half of jazz music is danceable. We need all dancable music.

Anyhow, this is my little scheme. Hey, it looks like I'm going to be some sort of an event promoter.

Peace,
-J