A bit away from what we normally publish here, but we did find this story hilarious: A nightclub invited students who had failed their exams to commiserate by drinking for free – but was so overwhelmed by responses that it was forced to cancel the party!
Mil Beach (in Costa Blanca, Spain), advertised on Twitter that for each subject failed – which had to be accredited by producing results slips – students would get a free drink. But literally hundreds of students announced on Twitter that they were going to attend, and according to the club boss, the party was cancelled at the last minute when they realised they were going to be “overrun with bad students getting drunk for free”.
Even the town’s mayor (and councillor for education) waded in, criticising the fact that the nightclub was effectively “rewarding” pupils for poor performance at school – and even more so given that their “reward” was in the shape of alcohol, thus (they said) encouraging young people to drink to excess.
Weird but wonderful club offers
It reminds me of an offer I once ran at a night I promoted – we used to let people in for half price on the Saturday before payday, but only if they brought a bank statement or ATM balance slip that proved they were overdrawn. It worked brilliantly, and of course they often brought friends with them who paid full price. In this case, at least this club tried to do something more inventive than the cheesy “women drink free before 10-style promotions that some clubs sink to – even if they did have to backtrack and ended up getting in trouble with the authorities as a result…
And there’s actually a serious point here, too: If you DJ at a venue regularly, it’s always worth asking the management if they can come up with some money-saving offer to help you “mobilise your troops” on Facebook Events or whatever. Quite often, such offers are available, and it’ll help you to build your name and reputation by being able to market your shows with some kind of money-saving promotion.
What’s the most inventive offer you’ve ever seen or come up with the get people in to a club or event? Please share in the comments!
• This story first ran on the Think Spain website.
Phil Morse
