Looking for a recession-proof market sector? That joint near the tracks with all the neon might be a good pace to start. This particularly pernicious economic climate is chipping away at the entertainment-related areas of business that putatively do well in recessions: film box office results are flat, video game sales are down slightly and music sales — fuhgedaboudit.
But the porn industry keeps on chugging, hitting the $12 billion mark in 2007 and even attracting capital from what’s left of Wall Street through venture capital funds like AdultVest.com, which asserts it has signed up over 4,700 investors as it builds to its goal of a $110 million war chest to finance new ventures.
Seedy to Spectacular
Within that industry is the gentleman’s club sector, which has definitely not been singing the same old thong-and-dance. A total of about 3,000 “G-clubs” in the U.S. account for $2 billion in revenues, according to AVN.com, which tracks the industry. Over the past 15 years, the adult club scene has reinvented itself from seedy to spectacular, with sophisticated staging and lighting playing a huge role in this profitable transformation.
“Clubs in general have been very strong in the last four years or so, but adult clubs in particular are doing very well,” says Karl Kieslich, president of Sound Stage Systems, a systems integrator in North Haven, Conn. He says that G-clubs now account for larger percentage of both number of projects and revenue from installations and sales.
LEDs, Moving Lights and Video
LED and video are key lighting elements, Kieslich says. “You’ll see way more LED than anything else in those clubs now; incandescent and fluorescent are pretty much gone.” Moving-head lights remain a popular effect, but in his experience the trend in club design has been away from the large main stage to one or two much smaller ones that are used to introduce the performers, who then use the main seating-level floor as their performance space.
That change in the staging has changed the lighting, says Kieslich. At some clubs “it’s moved away from focusing most of the lighting on the stage and keeping the rest of the room relatively dark by comparison. Now, the entire room needs washes and a level of focused energy that we can get from LEDs and fiber-optics lighting.”
The increased palette of LED hues has also helped in G-club lighting design, and its diminishing capital cost combined with its lower power consumption is encouraging club owners to use more lighting. It’s also leading the clubs to extend the lighting designs into the parking lots and also to direct patrons towards the retail outlets many clubs are now sprouting. “They want the club experience to start even before you go in,” he says.
Video Cross-Promotion
Video installations have proliferated in G-clubs in recent years, in part driven by cross-promotion of product for sale in the adjacent store but also as a way to promote content increasingly being made by the larger chains, such as Spearmint Rhino, which now produces its own films and uses the trailers for them to promote live appearances at the clubs by the stars of the film. Club video installations are intended not to act as a focus but rather as a subliminal cue to generate sales of DVDs and other products.
G-clubs have become very technology-aware; AVN’s site posted articles following the HD DVD/Blu-ray format war (the adult film industry bet heavily on HD DVD for its lower manufacturing costs). This carries over into lighting and staging. Tim Hannum, managing partner at Diavolo Systems in Houston, says that as the price of components continues to decline, more G-club owners are looking into video walls and other ways to integrate video into lighting.
“Digital signage is growing by leaps and bounds. I’m seeing more of them using screens around the rooms to show animated wallpaper, or to overlay their brand on top of whatever program they’re running,” he explains. Hannum says plasma screens are the display of choice, both because of their picture quality but also for their endurance.
A 24/7 Environment
“That’s the balance you’re trying to strike with this type of client,” he says. “There is a lot of technology going in so you want to use cost-effective products like LEDs; on the other hand, most of these clubs are running 24/7, so it has to be reliable, robust stuff. If something’s going to break down, it’s going to break down in a topless bar. It’s the ultimate proving ground.”
Lighting manufacturers have noticed the trend. David Chesal, leisure and entertainment segment director at Robe Lighting in Ft. Lauderdale, says that the sophistication level of lighting at staging in adult clubs has increased enormously in recent years. But he notes that LEDs aren’t the sole way clubs are manifesting that. “Patrons want to see beams,” he says — the kinds of dramatic effects that he says high-intensity discharge lighting systems provide. Moving heads had fad status in G-clubs some years ago, he believes, but the kind of constant use that this type of environment requires leads to maintenance issues. “What you want — and what we’re seeing in this market — is a good balance of types of light systems, of moving heads and scanners and color changers,” he says, adding that static color washes are still quite common and keep the focus on the performers.
What everyone agrees on is that gentlemen’s clubs appear to be riding out the recession better than some other forms of entertainment. It’s enough to keep lighting and staging companies jockeying for “pole” position in the market.
