Melbourne is a cosmopolitan city with entertainment that caters to a variety of people. There are bars, nightclubs and strip clubs everywhere. One thing that people often point out about these different types of adult entertainment venues is that the price of alcohol differs a great deal. Strip clubs are notorious for having very high priced liquor. Alcohol at a strip club might be twice more expensive than what one would pay at a typical bar, club or restaurant.
Strip clubs make their money in 3 ways: They charging the strippers a house fee for the privilege of working there, they get a percentage of the private room performance fees but most of all, they make their money from alcohol sales.
Most clubs charge an entrance fee but it is often less than what most people would expect. Most clubs don’t make much from the cover charge but mostly from what happens once you get into the club. This means that they will hope to get you to spend on lap dances, on VIP rooms but more importantly on the amount of alcohol you consume.
Quality costs a lot and so when you visit some of the swankier gentlemen’s clubs, you will find that their alcohol is incredibly expensive. What a lot of people don’t understand is that running a strip club in Melbourne is expensive. The real estate alone takes a chunk of what a club makes. Then there is the insurance, the heating and cooling systems, maintaining the interior as swanky as possible, promoting the business and a whole lot of other expenses. It has become even harder with the recent COVID Pandemic. The cost of running a 70,000 square foot adult entertainment venue can cost millions, so to break-even a club has to sell more than a million dollars’ worth of alcohol. That is a lot of money and a lot of alcohol.
To make some kind of profit, a Melbourne gentlemen’s club will aim to receive a minimum of $120 from every person who comes into the club, this excludes the money that gets spent on dances because that usually goes to the performers. So that means that the club has to sell at least $120 worth of liquor. That might sound like a lot of drinks for one person which is why most alcohol is a little pricier.
It’s a good thing that clubs can make some money from private room performances. It’s also a good thing that they can make some money for charging house fees but most importantly, it’s a great thing when big spenders and celebrities with money to burn can drop a couple of grand for Champagne or VIP room experiences, otherwise relying on the sale of alcohol alone would make it impossible to keep the doors of these clubs open. Not everyone who comes to a strip clubs comes because they want a lap dance. Some people just come for the atmosphere, the feeling of fun without judgment. There are people who enjoy the relaxed, hedonistic pleasures that strip clubs offer.