I have been thinking about successful music/club ventures, what makes them different and the new club landscape since Dragon i launched, and the man who owns it, Glibert.
How easy it is to make fun of him being some spoilt second generation son who had nothing to do. It’s what a lot of people think and the fact he’s constantly in the gossip pages doesn’t help. No denying he was able to build Dragon i because he is rich. But it wasn’t an overnight investment where he hit it by accident. The guy been throwing parties for years.
First like, just for whoever, then there was a company he was part of called Gspot who did events for companies like Dior and Hugo Boss. Gspot always had the best invitations. One was a porcelain soap dish (or something like that) you had to smash open to get to the actual invite. Another was a hard back book that opened with disco graphics and a key to the party inside. The recent Halloween one is funny too.
Then he started Pink Mao Mao once a month, and Deejayed badly to a crowd that didn’t care about music, and only wanted to be seen in the best clothes, hair, shoes and handbags money can buy (I couldn’t be bothered to make so much effort in my looks just for a night out, so I stopped). But it was starting small and building up. So many people in HK start big and fail and never do it again. We talk a lot about it, how nothing extra cool grows out of here because people don’t slog in da work, take the time to build up a reputation and following (so you know for sure it’s people will turn up), thinking they are going to take over the scene at one go with zilch experience in running an event. It generally turns out to be a disastrous, money losing venture. (I can think of far too many promoters who popped up, spent every cent they had, borrowed heavily from people around them and never to be “seen” again. Although people surface after a while, all seems to be forgiven, but they delude themselves to think it’s forgotten).
But this guy (or his collaborators) actually had experience of organizing a lot of parties and club nights which transfers into running a club of that scale and size. They had a following, they knew their market and what the customers wanted. They picked a perfect location and chucked a huge amount of money in decorating it. No matter what you think the place or the Clientele. Dragon i is grandiose and utterly exquisite.
Four meter high Chinese bird cage in the front, mixed with others of different sizes with real birds in them. The red lanterns and bright red Dragon Patterned silk covered round benches, placed so everyone can see everyone else at all times. The glass toilet stalls the size of my bathroom at home. A door person there, making sure no one pushes in the line. With the finishing touch a carved wooden screen which segregates the place and allows those outside to look into the VIP room (which is three times the size of the club) but the plebeians outside are invisible once you’re in. Models, Popstars, Hipsters every night.
Have a look yourself. The real place is more impressive than the photos. http://www.dragon-i.com.hk/
Sure, the food is “Okay(ish)” as one reviewer put it. The price astronomical even for LKF standards. The staff is so attitude driven you want to remind them that they “Only work here.” It’s true the sound system is too good for the music it blares. I even admit I make a face every time someone suggests we go, as it’s not the really a crowd I enjoy.
But I do want to say it is the most beautifully interior designed space I have seen, ever. So amazing in fact, I bring family members and visitors to see it in the day and each time their mouth drops open at the sight of it.
And that well even if the guy was rich, he still proved himself by throwing really interesting parties before hand, so how could all these people go around thinking they are going to conquer the scene first time round?
As I said, the first thing they do, they say they want to bring some massive hip hop star here, how about throwing a one off for LMF in a club first? I hear bands complain that no one goes to see them, but they don’t even have a mailing list. They never organize shows for themselves. It’s always up to someone else. I hear of club nights on the night, and never seen a flyer before hand. And then sometimes when things are really cool, it disappears one day, and when you talk to the organizer, they say they stopped because no one came. But people were coming, just slowly and in dribbles. I am sure if they kept at it, it would grow.
At times like this I always think of Magic Wednesdays in LA. The first time I went, there were 40 people, I am not kidding, in a cavernous club with a few bean bags. A few months later, it was maybe a couple hundred. Eventually they packed that place out and opened a second room. A year passed and they had to move to a larger venue. Two years later, to one even bigger. I hear it is still going. How it is now, I don’t know.
But I never went to any club night or raves without being shoved those flyers. They hired kids for a few bucks an hour to stand outside venues to promote the night. They would bring a DJs over whenever, I guess when they had money. The promoter was ingratiating, and was out all the time. I don’t think he slept. Everyone knew him, and he invited anyone he met there.
I am sure Gilbert is the same. I never met the guy, but somehow he ended up exchanging a few emails with me, telling me to go to his club nights. I went because he made it seem like he wanted me there because I seemed “cool.” It really didn’t matter if I was or not. I ended up bringing my friends and sending a few emails around. I still got his invites long after I stopped going, but I am sure by then, he’d made new “friends.” Because if he did that for me, I am sure he spent a lot of time writing to a lot of other people making them feel they too, were wanted there.
Making something successful take so much work, it’s those unseen hours, and whoring oneself, that make a world of difference.
Standing around acting above everyone, not talking to those who are supporting, not even to regulars that turn up, and not even acknowledging people who have supported else where, (“Hey, Thanks for coming? I am having another event whenever, will you come? It would be great.) is committing promoter suicide, and I see so much of that here.
And afterwards, which surprises me even more is to hear promoters complaining to whoever listens that the event “didn’t go as well as I thought.” “So many people said they would come and didn’t !” “Yeah.. it was okay..” I mean, say it to your friends. Not idiots that you see around like me. Lie and say it was the best, and you had a great time, and that whoever didn’t make it missed the time of their lives, then maybe it will create a buzz and maybe make people want to come.
I see all these people around moaning about how they weren’t the Mac Daddy for the weekend or blank me the next weekend when I know they recognize me from the other week and I wonder, how they could wonder no one came. I can think of so many DJs, band people, promoters like that here, that even if I was really into whatever they were throwing at first, after a few months, they just put me off the whole thing.
And I can bet you, if I went up to Gilbert and said, “Hey, Blah, Blah, You remember me?” He would be sure to have no idea, but he would say something like, “What’s your name again? Glad you came! Are you having a good time? We’re throwing this thing in XXX. You should come.”
And I probably be suckered into going. It’s just how it falls.
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