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Fat people are victims…of business
By Daniel | May 4, 2008
Luke Henson, the promoter of BBW club nights at Seattle’s Abundance Northwest, got the latest in a series of economic reality checks last week. 48 hours before the group’s scheduled May event, their longtime venue apparently gave him the news the group wasn’t generating enough dollars from their semi-monthly plus-size nights and they had to find a new home.
Over the group’s nearly 5 year history, Abundance has promoted club nights in just about as many different bars, restaurants and nightclubs, a situation that’s exasperated them. Over this latest setback, Luke wrote in his Yahoo group:
… but Messing around with Venue Owners that keep trying to Combine Rock Band nights With Us with 3 day Notice just isnt working out (the SHIT is getting old),they are looking for More short term $ while in the long run they loose alot of money and good people. being a BBW party group some people will walk into one of our BBW nightclubs and have fun with us while other will walk in and walk out saying why are all these fat people here,I can handle that and most of you can too but you shouldnt be forced to hear all that crap that is being said because the owner wants 125 rude people instead of 100 consistant nice people…its all a Numbers Game
Oh, no! Please tell me this isn’t another rant about how fat people are “victims” and being unfairly persecuted because of their weight!
I would neither blame the club owner nor call those who don’t choose to party with fat people as “rude”. While I wish size acceptance groups could open people’s minds and remove the stigma about fat people being undesirable and unattractive, we have to deal with reality. Particularly the reality of business and economics.
Whether it’s right or wrong, fair or unfair, most guys simply aren’t into fat chicks and don’t want to spent their Saturday night (or their money) to party with them. Traditionally it’s men who spend the most at a bar – whether for themselves or buying women drinks. And the fact is most BBW events attract more women than men.
Yes, the bar business is a numbers game. Business is business. No one opens a bar for altruism or to show their support of size acceptance. But that “numbers game” is not only the number of people who come through the door, it’s also the amount of money they spend. I don’t know if the management shared that information with Luke, but it might well be despite the number of *people* being about the same, that at the end of the night the register doesn’t ring as much.
Over the years, at some venues Abundance had a cover charge. Unfortunately, there were reports it was not uniformly enforced. Non-fat people who obviously did not come to attend the Abundance promotion were being admitted without paying a cover. Once certain Abundance members witnessed this, it brought forth a sea of complaints over why they had to pay to party while others did not. Perhaps if the group were to reinstate a cover charge (uniformly applied to everyone) and gave a percentage to the venue it would make up for any shortfall at the bar and regain the owner’s interest.
Maybe it has nothing to do with the money generated on the nights that Abundance is in the house. It might well be that the bar’s affiliation with the group is affecting their revenue even on the nights Abundance is not there. Consider that a patron may have come to the bar on an Abundance Saturday, wasn’t into partying with fat chicks and thought that was what the bar was all about every Saturday. The word spread and the club got the reputation of being a “fat chick’s” place. People who weren’t into it simply didn’t go back Saturdays, or Fridays or ever again.
The economy is tough! I can see why in these days of recession a club owner wouldn’t want to alienate potential customers by catering to one particular crowd…especially a group of people who aren’t exactly embraced by the general public. Whether that’s “right” or “wrong” isn’t the issue. Nightclubs are in business to make money and apparently it’s just not happening by being affiliated with a plus-size group.
In the early days of BBWNorthwest, before we started exclusively having events at rented halls, we also had our events at a bar. The old White Buffalo (now Joey’s) in Kirkland was the scene of our first event, and probably a handful thereafter. Our deal with the bar was to guarantee that they would ring a certain amount of revenue at the bar, or we would pay the difference from our cover charge. Luckily we always exceeded our guarantee.
Occasionally some of the bar’s regulars would show up, see that we were charging a cover for a special promotion and not come in. I remember 2 Hispanic guys who couldn’t quite understand what was going on until someone translated, “Las chicas mas grande”. We got the distinct impression from the bar’s management that they didn’t like turning regulars away. They didn’t want to say “no” to the people who made them money the other 29 days of the month.
Sometimes the regulars would go ahead and pay the cover, but stay in the back drinking, playing pool and making rude comments that they must have thought our group members couldn’t hear. We did and complained to management. They weren’t exactly sympathetic; in fact during the night the bar’s staff made a few such comments. That was the straw that broke our back and we severed our ties there, opting to hold events exclusively in private rentals halls where we had complete control over the guests.
I admit it’s more of a financial risk for us to promote events in this manner. We’re on the hook for all the expenses whether 12 or 120 people show. Even though this year our venue raised our rental cost about 40% and items like ice, cups, plates, utensils, sodas (not to mention costs like insurance, ASCAP/BMI fees, etc.) have gone up we haven’t raised our ticket price in 5 years. Although BBWNorthwest bashes aren’t primarily about the money for us, no longer can we depend on crowds of 150 people for events other than our Halloween Boo Bash. Now that our usual event numbers are closer to 100, it might soon become financially infeasible for us to do semi-monthly bashes.
The national trend with BBW events around the country has been to abandon the private hall dances and hold them at bars. That makes the events dependent on the whim of the club owner, plus subject to the comments of those bar regulars who aren’t there for the BBW event. I’ve seen what happened with the Abundance venue happen to other plus-size club promoters from Miami to Los Angeles. When you don’t control your venue, you can’t really control the destiny of your group.
The bottom line for those who want to have options for size-accepting parties? If you believe plus size people should have venues where they can feel free to be who they are, do more than pay lip service. Support us! Spread the word! Maybe dancing isn’t your thing. Come out to socialize! Don’t drink alcohol? Come have a Coke and a smile!
Choices are great, but without support they go away. Isn’t that right, Joni?
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till its gone
Topics: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
May 4th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
WEl…that does put this whole abundance thing in a different light, th ough I kinda thought it mighta been something like that.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:36 am
another fat hater
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwgHxIzULXM
October 28th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Well written article.
December 4th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I’m an advocate for size acceptance but also for the free market system. In this instance patrons at the club voted “no” with their wallets but that’s life. What’s frustrating, though, is that larger people have billions of dollars in purchasing power that businesses still don’t recognize. I make it a point not to get ripped off for things made for people my size but lots of us still do.