Soi Twilight on a very Low Season Monday

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Re: Soi Twilight on a very Low Season Monday

Post by aussie »

If i was a bar owner /manager, whether it's a beer bar or go go i would ban my staff from using phones during working hours. I have been enticed into bars by a great looking guy only to be left sitting there while he goes off to play on his phone with his friends. A big turn off for me when i go to bars or shopping malls is seeing staff playing on Facebook or whatever instead of doing their job.

I will check out Soi Twilight next week and see what is happening there but i have noticed in Jomtien Complex this week that some bars might have enforced this rule already or maybe some of the Cambodian/Laos guys have not saved enough baht yet to buy a smartphone. It certainly improves the atmosphere in the bar and the guys are really trying hard to entertain their customers. I asked some guys i sat with for a drink about their phones and they said "no have".
fountainhall

Re: Soi Twilight on a very Low Season Monday

Post by fountainhall »

I have located the ideas for a change in the business model of Soi Twilight gogo bars which Shameless Mack posted on the gaythailand board more than six years ago (interesting how some of his predictions have come true)! He was then posting under the name Macaroni. Soon after, he ceased posting both in the chat rooms and on his blogsite. The latter was a mine of extremely useful information especially re massage. He had worked out a system for tabulating exact body types of the masseurs, their massage techniques and what they would and would not do. No one seems to know why he suddenly disappeared. He is sorely missed.

Thanks also to Christianpfc who located and sent me some if not all of this material a few years back.

Shameless Mack's Prototype for a New Soi Twilight Bar

I do think that the days of the "spectacle"-type shows are nearing an end, i.e. the idea of a big central stage, with customers sitting quietly a distance away. It's too detached. The Wow factor made up for it, but it's wearing off fast. That said, two years after they end, others will reminisce achingly about the glory days of the shows and diss whatever will have replaced them.
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I ask myself, if I were to launch a new bar, how would I do it, bearing in mind the economic trends?

Etrend 1: Boys expect to earn more as cost of living rises.

Etrend 2: Good-looking, good attitude boys may be scarcer, so trying to stock a bar with 100 boys (like Dream Boy today) would be unrealistic. Perhaps 30 - 40 boys would be max.

Etrend 3: The "arms-race" of doing ever more elaborate shows that need to be re-engineered frequently to keep them fresh costs an arm and a leg.

Etrend 4: Audience numbers will be flat until the great wave from China materialises. . .

Etrend 5: Even then, the Chinese may never be all that keen to off (reasons explained in the other thread Holiday Sunday Numbers Seem Down), but will likely be prepared to pay a small premium for small shows and nude dancing, something they don't get in their home country.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

How will I address these issues? Perhaps I would hypothetically build a bar with a layout like this:

Image

The operational model will be rather different from current, in response to each of the 5 economic trends mentioned above.

But first, I'll walk you (as customer) through the bar:

1. No women, no Thais under 20 years old, allowed.

2. No smoking inside the bar.

3. You enter and receive a number tag from the cashier (like in a sauna). All purchases made inside the bar will be charged to that number; you settle the account on departure. Perhaps a cover charge (200 baht?) can be paid on entry if the competitive environment allows it. That prepaid cover charge can be consummable, i.e. it is set off as a credit against purchases of drinks.

4. In the main salon, you will see several boys dancing in their briefs on the stage behind the bar. You are free to just sit at the bar, but you are obliged to order your first drink.

5. You may call a boy over, buy him a drink (or not) and sit with him in the sofas, and if the brief conversation works out, you off him.

6. Every hour on the hour, the captain announces "Showtime now. Anybody interested?"

7. Let's say 13 customers are interested. There are two more who are here to off a boy and aren't interested in the show; they continue to sit in the main salon, where boys continue to do their rotations on the stage -- in other words the show should not inconvenience these customers.

8. The captain opens two private rooms and splits the 13 customers into two groups, putting six in one room, seven in the other. The charge for the show is 200 or 250 baht per customer, which includes a second drink.

9. The show thus takes place in a more intimate setting -- a room no larger than a small bedroom -- where the boys dance a mere arm's length from the seated customers.

10. The boys either dance nude or dance in a manner that strips to nude. The etiquette is NO TOUCHING unless the boys invite you to lay your hands on them briefly. Naturally, the boys are encouraged as part of their routine to invite the customers by turn to do so from time to time, in order to up the thrill quotient.

12. The show is mostly done on a small, low podium/stage that is 2 metres by 2 metres (the size of a king-sized bed, enough space to allow for acts of sodomy if that's what the show requires).

13. In each room, the show involves about 6 boys (or maybe 8 boys if the cost structure allows it). In the first half, each boy does a 5-minute dance solo, either (i) coyote-style, (ii) Manila macho-dancer bar style, or (iii) Chiangmai style. In the second half, the 6 (or boys are paired or trio'ed for their routines.

14. From the customer's perspective, he is in a really intimate setting with boys hardly more than a metre away, making frequent eye contact and with seductive smiles. He is also invited by the dancing boys to touch and caress them now and then. The show has a degree of personal attention that a bigger showspace cannot provide. Although the customer had been asked to stump up an extra 200 or 250 baht for the show (on top of the first drink), he is getting value for it.

15. The economics is that the six or seven customers in a private room will have put up 1500 or 1750 baht for the show. Involving 6 (or boys, the labour cost for each room's show will be 600 (or 800) baht with each boy getting 100 baht for an hour's work (serious dancing, not shuffling)

16. The duration of the show is about 45 - 50 minutes, comprising 9 - 11 acts. At the end, the rooms have to be vacated for cleaning in preparation for the next round of shows. If a customer wants to see a subsequent show, it's another 200 or 250 baht, though for most people, 45 - 50 minutes will have been enough!

The economics of such a bar has the following characteristics:

The typical customer will be buying two drinks: the first drink on entry and the second drink either because he wants to sit with a boy prior to an off, or because he wants to see a show. Two drinks per customer is a significant improvement on the present one-drink average in most bars. The important thing though is that the customer must feel he gets value from paying for a second drink, and that is where an intimate, hands-on show comes in.

Staffing characteristics:

The bar doesn't need a lot of boys. Assuming on average at each hour, only two rooms are opened for shows, the bar needs only 12 boys (6 boys per room), plus another 10 - 12 doing the rotation in the main salon. If there's a surge of customers and all four private rooms need to be used, the same 12 dancing boys can cover all four rooms by having each dancing team of six boys to stagger their routines between two adjacent rooms. Double the work, yes, but double the earnings.

Competitive advantage:

Because there's a show every hour on the hour, customers can come any time that is convenient for them. The bar is able to attract customers at those hours where other bars aren't doing shows. Bars with "blockbuster" type shows can't afford to put up more than one-and-a-half of them per night, so they can't have a show going on through the entire evening. This little bar can.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The business model responds to the economic trends thus:

Response to Etrend 1: Currently, gogo boys are mostly wasting time, doing little and earning nothing unless/until they get an off which is "jackpot money". In the new business model, the boys are working for pay for many of the seven or eight hours they are in the bar. For each set of dancing in a private room (each boy does an average of two 5-minute items per 45-minute set) a boy earns 100 baht. Assuming a typical boy gets to do three sets a night, he earns 300 baht. Multipled by 25 days a month, he has base earnings of 7500 baht before tips.

Response to Etrend 2: As boys become scarcer, the bar runs on fewer boys, but these boys work harder to deliver satisfying shows. Running on fewer boys also means the bar owner can get a little picky about which boys to hire, thereby keeping the "good looks" factor, boosting the rate of offs.

Response to Etrend 3: No more elaborate staging for shows and the costs associated with that.

Response to Etrend 4: In an era of flat tourist numbers, such a bar will rarely look empty. That's because it is divided into small spaces, and you only open such spaces as are needed (also save on airconditioning). A small salon or private dance room with 6 customers in it looks a lot better than a bar that can seat 100, but has only six people; the atmosphere is more encouraging.

Response to Etrend 5: The bar and its boys draw revenue not by relying on high rate of offs -- in a new era of Chinese tourists this may not be realistic -- but by getting customers to pay for a second drink in order to get a satisfying show. Of course, any offs that the bar/boys get will be good too.

Operational imperatives for success:

A bar that requires boys to actually work through a seven-hour shift (rather than sit about or shuffle about as at present) requires boys with a good work ethic. This especially as every boy must be able to perform on stage, equipped with a handful of routines, executed reasonably well (i.e. with artistry, with good eye contact and seductive appeal to customers). This means training, training, training.

I also think it is imperative to address the problem of service quality after being off'd, but that's a separate issue I have written about before.
Daniel

Re: Soi Twilight on a very Low Season Monday

Post by Daniel »

fountainhall wrote: Assuming a typical boy gets to do three sets a night, he earns 300 baht.
Well-thought out plan. I think the biggest problem would be getting guys to perform naked, for the money you're suggesting. One of the guys performing in BBB told me that all the show boys are paid 1000 baht a night. They obviously do well in tips too. I think your formula would have worked 15/20 years ago, but maybe not today.
Jun

Re: Soi Twilight on a very Low Season Monday

Post by Jun »

Some nudity would spice things up, if they could get it past the authorities. Without too much expense.

As for people being willing to do it, well what people will do depends heavily on the circumstances & where people are.

For example: I don't think any of us would contemplate wearing speedos or even less in our offices or the local restaurant. Yet if we go to the beach, we're comfortable doing that & perhaps wearing even less in the sauna.
Meanwhile, the boys at a bar like Eros will quite happily strip off in the bar and sit on a customers lap. If you took a couple of their regulars down to Toy Boys, I suspect they would not be stripping off in that bar.

So if you start a new gogo bar, I think it should be possible to find employees that will strip off & for a reasonable price.
fountainhall

Re: Soi Twilight on a very Low Season Monday

Post by fountainhall »

Daniel wrote:I think the biggest problem would be getting guys to perform naked, for the money you're suggesting.
Please bear in mind that Shameless Mack came up with this proposal at least 6 years ago - and probably more. It appeared in gay thailand at that time but may well have been posted in his blog even before that. When he proposed the idea, the fees may have been acceptable whereas now they would have to be raised.
Jun wrote:So if you start a new gogo bar, I think it should be possible to find employees that will strip off & for a reasonable price.
I would like to think so, but have serious doubts that the authorities will now permit what went on decades ago in Bangkok. The nudity was not just confined to the sex part of shows. There were, for example, naked foam sections and body painting followed by nude dancing under ultra violet light. Go further back and in some bars the gogo boys would divest themselves of their underwear around 9:00 pm and would then appear naked for the next 2 - 2 1/2 hours. Even if the tea money was raised so the BIB turned a blind eye, I cannot see the vast majority of gogo dancers prepared to accept this type of display today. Eros and a couple of other bars are very much an exception and I do not believe it is due to payment. After all, at naked nights in saunas virtually every Thai covers himself with his hands. There is an inherent shyness about exposing their whole body. So different from the attitude of guys in countries like Taiwan and Japan where the saunas and hot springs are packed with guys happily walking around without any form of cover.
Oliver

Re: Soi Twilight on a very Low Season Monday

Post by Oliver »

Correct; I can think of only two bars (Blue Star in Soi Twilight -now Dreamboys- and the long departed Superboys in Patong) where go-go boys actually danced naked, as opposed to participating naked in shows. That was in about 1997 and i haven't seen it since, nor do I expect to ever again.
fountainhall

Re: Soi Twilight on a very Low Season Monday

Post by fountainhall »

I can only remember it being common every night in the original Twilight Bar and Apollo Bar in Soi 4 back in the early 1980s. Not sure when Apollo died but I think it continued in Twilight until the two ladyboy mamasans gave up and the bar changed to Hotmale.
Oliver

Re: Soi Twilight on a very Low Season Monday

Post by Oliver »

Dear Fountainhall..... you go back a long way! And I thought my twenty plus years made me an old-timer! Yes, the bars were full of fun- naughty fun- back then and today's are stultifying dull, particularly those aiming at the Asian market. I have been trying to think exactly when it was that go-go dancers became go-go standers; my best guess is about 2003 but I suspect others may recall more accurately. I only choose that year because my future boyfriend was actually dancing in Dreamboys (the Pattaya one) when I saw him for the first time. Very cute he was , too. And no, he's been asked but will not dance for me now.
fountainhall

Re: Soi Twilight on a very Low Season Monday

Post by fountainhall »

I fear I do, Oliver - although I would not have missed those early days for anything. Last week's trip to the Soi almost exactly marked the 38th anniversary of my first short Bangkok visit. It was fascinating to watch the gay scene grow from a few bars, through the start of the small saunas - Volt off Asoke was the first I visited, then the 10-storey Obelisks, another in a small Soi off Ploenchit between what is now the Holiday Inn and Central Chidlom, and then Babylon and Heaven - the disco boom etc.

Strangely I don't have early memories of massage spas. The first I visited - I think - was Albury days after it opened in 1997 or 8. I was visiting friends who lived on Soi 15 around the corner and we all thought it worth a try. It sooon became my regular and Noom my favourite massage boy. I had earlier had a few massages from a lovely guy who worked at the original Babylon (all the staff seemed lovely there!!), but Albury was my first spa experience.

In my view the real start of the slippery downhill slide were the Social Order Campaigns in 2001. I'm sure others will correct me if I have the info wrong, but it seems around then that the wonderful Barbiery moved to the Soi opposite Nature Boys before dying a quick death and Twilight changed totally and became Hotmale.

It's perhaps unfair to target Thaksin as the culprit as it was his highly moral and religious Interior Minister who promoted them (politicians and morality really did mix with this guy)! And the constant pressure he exercised brought him a lot of popularity locally, although increasingly not with many gay tourists.

As the New York Times wrote in a 2-part article "'Social Order' Takes the Life Out of Night Life". Even Kurt Wachtveitl, the esteemed GM of the Oriental Hotel, chimed in against the nightlife restrictions.

Would it have remained the same if those Campaigns had never been introduced? Probably not, but that's crystal ball time!
fountainhall

Re: Soi Twilight on a very Low Season Monday

Post by fountainhall »

Back to Shameless Mac's Prototype. I like the idea of bars which are smaller, perhaps more targeted and with different sections. I suspect there will definitely be a market for those with a couple of small show rooms perhaps only with nudity and more intimate dancing. Even with a "no touch policy unless tips are given", I can see a couple of dozen customers prepared to pay extra for 45 minutes or so in the presence of some cute guys - if the guys go along with the idea. As others have pointed out, despite the Thai convention of shyness, perhaps money would indeed talk. On Saturday I happened to visit a straight massage spa on Sribumphen having seen a cute guy outside for quite some weeks. Newish to Bangkok and not gay, he was very reluctant to remove all his clothes. Once the tip I offered reached a certain level, all resistance disappeared!!

I'm not sure if the authorities main complaint is that the gogo bars exist or that they have sex shows - or are basically outlets for prostitution. Many girlie bars get away with the sex show model and are also places of prostitution. Gay saunas get away with naked nights seemingly without a problem. Despite my earlier comments, I think there is a market for this type of bar. Provided nothing untoward goes on in the more private rooms, might the BIB turn a blind eye? Might it draw back some of the disappearing farang market? Would it have an appeal for the Asian tourist?
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