Photo by Marek Richter
Luckily for us, Brighton has enough clubs and bars to give yourself serious liver problems for life. Well, maybe not so lucky for the liver, but great for your social life. You’d think in a financial crisis our venues would be doing all they can in these digital days to get in new business. From what we have seen online, this really isn’t the case.
With the days of print publicity a thing of the past, promoters and clubs can focus their marketing attentions online, pumping the savings back into what’s important – offering a greater experience for the punters.
Running a profile on a social networking, be it Facebook, Bebo or Twitter, etc… is free, and these days is an invaluable marketing resource. The problem is if promoters and club owners leave these avenues to run stagnant they are in some way shooting themselves in the foot. It doesn’t exactly grab your attention. You would think during a time when money is tight, more work would be put in to getting these free systems up and working positively.
The problem even sometimes stretches to the venues’ own websites. The Ocean Rooms, for example, rarely updates its own website. This is a clear example of complete incompetence on a marketing level. You have a website, a direct representation of what you do – you should be showing off your events and reeling people in, not sitting back and waiting. Clubs need to fight for business and not take such a lackadaisical approach and expect people to stroll through the door.
The internet is full of event directories and none of these are kept current by the majority of Brighton clubs. Take Ents24 or electronic music magazine Resident Advisor, to name just a few. These are sites with masses of hits – if kept up to date they could make a real difference to a venue’s financial books
The Concorde is a great example of a venue which is proactively marketing itself. The website is always current and various profiles are up to date. Audio has a good presence on sites such as Facebook, yet has in the past struggled with updates on its own website. On the other hand it seems the Ocean Rooms is trying to not market itself as a main player at all. What is the thought process here? “If you book them, they will come” doesn’t cut it.
Brighton’s inhabitants are picky, and the competition between venues is tight. If venues cannot be bothered to keep listing resources up to date, then they are casting aside a large amount of potential paying customers.
Venues! Use the internet for your own benefit; implement some Search Engine Optimization tactics, monitor and respond to the results. Of course, many other factors come in to play when running a club but to overlook things that are free can’t be wise.
Remember, it’s not 1994 anymore! Keeping your online presence current is not hard to do: Google your club or events, this is exactly what potential new customers would do.
on Mar 25th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Good points but maybe some venues have thrown the towel in and given up completely.
The days of going to see acts/djs/producers regardless of venue they’re appearing in has now almost come to an end in Brighton.
Brightonians especially on the more commercially focussed dance scene follow clubs these days, you can witness this with what’s happened at The Ocean Rooms, great bookings, poor numbers in recent times.
Example being, Jeff Mills was meant to play at The Honey Club at Brighton City Festival 08 but the venue changed at the last moment and the interest sort of lost momentum.
Brighton has far too many clubs all after the same peace of a diminishing market.
Survival of the financially fittest rules apply now unfortunately.
Look beyond tried and tested venues and it’s a far healthier picture in Brighton, resturants, certain bars and cafes are beginning to bring promoters in over the last 12 months plus the music isn’t so dependant on being a commercially viable option as the overheads are that much lower.
This lends itself to quality above quantity now.
Good times ahead for music but maybe not for the bigger dance venues anymore :(
on Mar 26th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Some interesting points Anon, sadly I have to say I agree with you. So many good promoters have given up recently due to the fact that their nights just don’t bring in the cash. Hopefully we will see a new type of music scene evolve including lesser known venues. I think much of this websites attention may be put into these areas over the coming months.
It’s a shame when clubs like the honey club are always going to be busy – 1st stop for commercial shit dance.
on Mar 26th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I think the after party scene is also taking a bit of a whack at the moment. Websites such as Don’t Stay In fuelled all this a year or so back, now not even a sniff.
Just goes to show the transient nature of the entertainment industry in Brighton I suppose.