**UPDATED 3** Recent examples of a collapsing club scene:

[Guest pod]

Black on black works just fine. 95 percent of people can't see beyond the Canon logo anyway.

[Guest armand1210]

WTF ?! I’m in the middle of my winter hibernation and wake up to this thread ?! Before I go back to sleep until the arrival of spring (otherwise known as the WMC), I leave you with these nuggets:

1) Some of youz need to get a passport and travel. Dance music is a global force that will be here long after us old folks have stopped carrying the torch.

2) Radio airplay dictates what music format is popular in any given market. I defy anyone to prove otherwise.

3) Dade is right; clubs are a business whose only concern is ringing up sales at the bar. You all should be ecstatic that ANY form of electronic music is even played in a bar/club.

4) Like anything, this business is cyclical. I’ve been in Miami 15 years and trust me it has been this bad before. Guess what? It always gets better too. Simple case of the market correcting itself.

5) Both commercial AND underground scenes can co-exist. In fact they are both necessary for any scene to grow & prosper. Hip hop is the template for this.

6) The snobbery needs to stop. All genres generate some amazing music as well as an incredible amount of crap. Get over it and expand your musical horizons. I love Italian food but I wouldn’t want to eat it every friggin’ day. I don’t understand why everything in this scene has to be either / or instead of and / also.

Anywho, nice reading such a lively debate. As usual the true path lies somewhere in the middle, I’m just happy to hear music evolve & change. This music I love has been giving me joy & goosebumps for well over a decade. How many things can you say that about?

[Guest pod]

What about Italians, they eat Italian food every day?

;D

[Guest Untouchablepurple]

I go out probably every night to several different parties a week

you can catch me on a monday night early at delano-oxygen-bed then tues from grove-rokbar-mokai-snatch-prive wed- mansion thur-prive friday-mansion afterhours- local celebrity sat-prive afterhours @ space sunday pearl-mansion-prive

What im trying to say is that i go to different places every night and i know you can tell that i mention mansion and prive alot because thats where i work like most of you know.. but in reailty when people ask me "how do u go out every night?" is a simple answer every night is different .. one night they can be playing just plain rock and a lil bit of house(rokbar) or they can be playing spanish rock with hip-hop or old school, 80's mix with R&B at most of the clubs that i mention cus each night is a different party/theme and it really makes it all different for me and it never gets boring ..cus every other night i might see a different face or i might listen to a fav song that the only time i can listen to that track is because the dj is the only one with it cus thats what he specializes in !!

And im 22 yrs old and yet till this day i havent had one drink or done any drugs and to be honest with you I think that one of the reasons why I dont do it is the fact that every night is so different from the night before that just keeps me in a happy place and just knowing that i can dance the night away or just have a good time being sober with my friends i dont think i have to drink like everyone else to have fun..

So NO the scene is not dead at all .. from house to hiphop parties that i visit on a regular basis they all seem to be very much alive ... take it from someone that goes out for a living and is sober at the same time

[Guest pod]

Well said, Purple. I can attest to this, he graciously donates his drink passes to fuel my camera's power cells every week. It runs on alcohol. Yeah that's it. It's the camera.

People have asked me a similar question. While I don't go out as much as some, I go out far more than others. For the past ten years, like I said, I've been out in some capacity or another almost every weekend, excepting holidays and sickness. I've gone from clubgoer->club reviewer->light tech->shooter, occasionally manning the board from time to time up until this day to stay current. Some nights are better than others.

What's really kept me going to this day that, despite the musical trends changing, sometimes to my liking and sometimes not, is there's always something new going on. Be it a club opening, renovating, changing themes, and so forth. That and the fortunate ability I have to document it all. I'm single, no kids, and a total bastard, so I'm really not suited for anything else but clubland.

[Guest swank]

Purp..I respect you bro...cuz it's not easy being out there all of the time, especially sober.

I have a very close friend that I hang out with who doesn't drink ,smoke or do drugs and is in the industry....it takes a lot of energy to always be telling people no thanks...so I applaud you determination and the standards that you have set for yourself. You might have a chance in this biz if you so choose because you won't be bogged down by the distractions....except for maybe the 'punani' ;D

[Guest Untouchablepurple]

I agree with you..

Dan marino was born to throw footballs and I was born to throw parties..

Also people ask me.. so then do you sleep.. Im like yea, a couple of hours here and then.. when clubland becomes part of your daily life for several years .. you body gets used to it ..ive become a self-alarmed clock .. my body automatically wakes up after 5-6 hrs from the time i close my eyes lets say i come home at 6 ill be up and running at 12 and go to my meetings and do the stuff everyday in the office im not going to lie, every single night i get the tiring feeling of just knocking out but nothing works better than a nap...15-30 and it recharges my whole body for the rest of the night , and i know alot of people can say the same thing.

As far as other people taking pills,coffe,redbulls etc is really simple to keep your body awake ...my solution is stay active ..If im not roaming around the beach, Im either playing basketball or doing something entertaining before i have to get ready to go out .. not to mention that my cell phone rings like crazy to keep me talking or doing something..

Yes I love what I do .. i have no college degree or do i have a day job .. but im very good at what I do and make really good money at it .. and alot of people in this business are hoping alot of good things from me and just yerday my boss send me an email and im quoting him "you have the discipline to grow beyond your current capibilities in this business."

Ive been single for almost 5 yrs and im loving it ..it gets lonely at times but i love what i do so much that it just makes it all worth it.. Some might say ..so your doing this the rest of your life? I'm like Yes, yes Iam

Theres always going to be new clubs opening up,fashion/trend changes, new techniques and alot other things that will keep me/everyone going..

[Guest]

i cant believe this thread is still going on.

[Guest swank]

How much longer ??? ;D

[Guest ramon]

Forward how? What's forward?

something isn't the norm .. something that person percieves to be outside of the box and his own ideas. the government in canada makes things like mutek possible. its a platform for people to showcase music that you may not here anywhere else in north america. experiments like narodniki have also been premiered there.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/338090

[Guest pod]

My goal is to have it as the longest thread with coherent conversations going on...i.e. not "What are you listening to (who cares?) or "Say something about the person above you (Hoser!)"

;D

[Guest swank]

I would have made it a point to train my staff in the art of "upsell" and I would have put a few waitresses on the floor to sell booze to the people standing around and posing instead of waiting for them to come to the bar. There are also ways to make a venue more freindly to everyone and not just the drones who buy bottles, afterall isn't part of the business plan to try and turn potential customers into actual customers.

hey Bruce you were watching the apprentice last night

Actually I hadn't seen the show when I posted this but saw it the next night. I had to laugh when that goof "Martin" failed at the carwash..then your comment clicked.

And what's up with Ms. "flat ass" Trump anyway...all like... I went to Wharton School of Business" shut the f*%k up.....your dad is Donald Trump. You could of gone to Europe for 5 years and came back to the same results.

[Guest ramon]

Well, that's South America, etc.

Let Miami be it's own planet. If techno doesn't catch on here, well that that's the way the cookie crumbles.

sure.

[Guest shrek_inc]

My goal is to have it as the longest thread with coherent conversations going on...i.e. not "What are you listening to (who cares?) or "Say something about the person above you (Hoser!)"

;D

jajajaajajaajaj ;D+1

[Guest pod]

Good for Circo Loco. If you want them to set up something in Miami, I'm sure you know as well as I do who to lean on. Whether it will work or not, I don't know. In the meantime, we do run a travel agency now and can book tickets, hotels, cars, and such in each of those cities for you.

http://www.wanttravel.com/

[Guest LiquidX]

TO Ramon.. my friends in Chile went to those Villalobos parties and the Loveparade Night party .. techno... they love it down there!

[Bling]

i still dont know how u do it without alcohol purple. i applaud u

im trying to cut down myself

[Guest spinderella7713]

this thread is officially un-interesting.

[Bling]

lets take it up a notch...

reggaton is the future......

[Guest Editor]

Clubs in Miami have always had the same problem that the airlines are having now. Airline managers use the phrase "running out of tube," which means that their airplanes (the "tubes") are full of passengers, but the fares are so low and costs are so high they can't make any money.

The reason? Too many airlines competing for too few passengers.

The solution? Either get more passengers (which you can't do because "full" is "full") or decrease the number of airlines so that those remaining can raise fares enough to cover their costs.

Does the same solution apply to clubs --i.e. less of them? Probably not going to happen, because, just like owning an airline, owning a club in Miami is a glamorous gig and people with lots of $$$ are always ready to invest.

On top of all that, the main problem clubs face is the non-newness factor. People get bored easily and are always looking for the next "new" thing.

From the outside looking in, I'd say that running a successful club year after year in a place like Miami requires the highest level of business expertise.

[Guest pod]

I've argued this for awhile now. People shit themselves each time a new venue opens, hoping that this is the venue from On High that they're waiting for. "Oh one of the owners used to work for Ministry of Ultra!" or some such speculation.

Frankly, yes, there's too many venues and not enough people to go around to fill those venues.

I'd say South Florida (yes, denizens of the sandbar, there's a whole big world out there of actual humans....) can at most support 4 megaclubs (2000+ capacity), and not a whole lot below that, let's say less than 300 venues scattered throughout the region. This includes holes-in-the-wall too. From Palm Beach to Homestead.

[Guest coach]

The solution? Either get more passengers (which you can't do because "full" is "full") or decrease the number of airlines so that those remaining can raise fares enough to cover their costs.

Good commentary, but you forgot the other solution, lower costs. This is one that a few people have been harping on regarding DJ fees. But, I'll be honest and say a LOT of clubs, probably all of them, spend way too much money on sound, light, and decor. I mean, if people are primarily there just to party, there is no reason to use the most expensive bleeding edge technology in their systems. *Good* sound, lighting, and decor is important, *extreme* is probably too much.

[Guest pod]

Umm, ok?

You should always have the best sound and lighting. If you aren't, don't even bother opening up a club.

"Good" sound = JBL and shit. You have a headache in 3 hours.

The best of the best, you'll stay all night and not feel any sort of sonic fatigue. Not for nothing, but you should always be prepared to lay out a significant amount of cash for sound.

Lighting. I don't care what they say, you need some sort of lighting beyond what's emanating from the cash registers. Don't go buck wild in small venues. In small venues, the humble LED is your best friend.

[Guest coach]

I really think you are overestimating your customers, Pod. Maybe not *all* your customers, but the vast majority of them. Like I said, you need *good* sound and lighting, but nightclubs did fine years ago when we had much poorer equipment than we do now. We are talking about ways to make clubs more viable. One way is to find a balance between quality and cost. Take Nocturnal as an example of that. Millions spent, top of the line gear, yet they are not bringing in huge crowds every night.

[Guest pod]

Cost does not always equal quality. I know of several reputable brands that will provide excellent quality. Of course, the installer matters too. Simply buying the top-shelf equipment isn't good enough.

Still though, be prepared to lay out a good amount of cash on your technical backend.

Call me picky, but one of the reasons I don't traffic a lot of the smaller venues here in town is mediocre to piss-poor sound and lighting.

They should have a major in club design and management at UM.