Getting Through Slow Season in the Strip Club

I used to say “There’s no such thing as slow season” and then COVID hit and slow it was for me! 

When I posted about this on social media, a ton of dancers pointed out that COVID was actually a high-earning season for them...which is kind of the point of this post.

While there are always highs and lows, barring major acts of God or the Economy, in this industry there are always opportunities to make $$$ and find opportunity. 

That said, it's not always easy to know where to start, especially if you're not used to dealing with the ebbs and flows of the club.

If you're having trouble getting a grasp on managing slow season, here are some places you can begin:

Get good intel:

One of the first things I want to know about a market is when the ups and downs are, and I want to know it from dancers who hustle hard, work often, and can sell anyone.  Why? Bc we know two people in the same room can have drastically different perspectives.  If the dancer who’s there once a week and sits at the bar all night tells me it’s slow season, but the dancer who shows up early, stays late, and works the room tells me it’s not slow, I’m only listening to one of those takes.

Keep good intel:

Track your income! Your experience >>> everyone else’s.  Maybe you can work a slow room, and your numbers go UP when it gets less busy.  Maybe in the busy months 10X the number of dancers show up and you’re making a fraction of what you were before.  Maybe you’ve got some of that sweet sweet seasonal depression in the winter, and you’d better account for that when you’re raking it up in the summer so you can pay your bills ahead of time and lay up under your sheets when the blues hit! Your records will help you way more than anyone else’s opinion.

Decide what you’re aiming for:

if I’m in a seasonal market, I have a few options: save up drastically lower my expenses and run off into the woods, put my time into digital work and pre-film content I can post now to hold me over and during the busy season to supplement my $, raise my expenses and go travel dancing (high risk, high reward), or keep on keeping on and accept I’ll have to put in more hours and more effort to net the same results, or even take a loss. It’s not gonna necessarily play out how you expect every time, but having a sense of which way you’re leaning hopefully makes a stressful thing less so.

Slow seasons are never ideal, and I don’t want to make it sound like it’s as easy as packing up and taking off - that’s not a reality for most of us.  But I do think it helps to think in terms of what you can do instead of falling into the trap of believing that just because the club is less busy, there are no avenues to grow yourself, your money, or your talents. 

Is your city seasonal?

How do you get through slow season?