Charlie Tims
Associate
Charlie Tims recently co-wrote Video Republic, a look at the social and political significance of internet videos. He is currently involved in producing a part of the TED prize in London.
at 9:47am
on Thursday, 24th March 2005
filling the coffers, but attracting a rearguard action from the competition and the seedy underworld of the night-time economy. Just for the record I should point out that you can visit the Chokolate Factory. If you get the evening flight to Arhus from Stanstead, you arrive when the party�s just beginning around midnight. Leave the club at 6, back to the airport and before you know it you�re back in Liverpool street for brunch. It made for one of the best, although environmentally reprehensible, nights of my life.
Letters from a Kaospilot No.2
Our opening night gave a small profit and our seven following nights combined has resulted not in millions but in a profits that has allowed us to upgrade some very basic things - a better sound system (though it's still rubbish), a door to one of the men�s toilets (we started out with a shower curtain) and a little less stress about going into deaths for a long time.
The first part of this diary was written a few days before the opening of our nightclub on 28th January. It's almost been a month and many things have changed since then. Alexander, Michael and I are down to working some ten hours a day now, we are beginning to check our mails again, drinking coffee with our friends and even going to the cinema.
Our club has a capacity of 600 guests at a time, and our expectations for February (which in Denmark is traditionally one of the toughest months of the year: Danes are still paying of their debts from buying Christmas presents, it is cold and wet) were around 200-300 people a day. 100 if everything went wrong. There has been a little more than 600 in average and it is amazing!
On the opening night we had visitors from New York, Madrid, London, Manchester and Copenhagen, and although there were hundreds of fantastic responses, one of the most uplifting comments came from one of the elder men that came from Manchester.
In early January when we were working our asses off on rebuilding our place, we watched the film "24 hour party people" and loved it. The idea of going from hell to heaven and back again while doing "the right thing" was something we could easily relate to.
The guy from Manchester was almost in tears when we shut the doors and told us that he had not been to such a good party since "The Factory" closed down. Although he was drunk and probably lying it gave us such a kick!
Since then we have continuously had some of the best parties that �rhus has experienced for a long time.The resonance that the idea of the club gave in our town has changed but not for the worse. It is a reality now - we exist and a lot of people love it.
Until this week our work has been focused on surviving running a club every weekend; having no relevant experience whatsoever (the first beer any of us poured was at the Chokolate Factory) it has been necessary to learn extremely fast about managing a group of 20+ staff, negotiating with Carlsberg, understanding how to optimize cash-flows and meanwhile staying true to what it is we want to do and create.
Nightclubs is a pretty dodgy area of business. There are many black money, threats, some fights, drugdealers and the constant attention from the police. What has spared us from some of these things is hard to explain, but I think it comes from the fact that we are making a business not with the main object being earning money. Money are essential for our business to stay on the market, but it is not our motive and drive. We aim at something that we consider much larger; to create something that will make �rhus a better place to party (and thereby live) and in the longer run at place where social and cultural entrepreneurs can meet and let things grow.
Alexander, Michael and I have been drinking coffee but we have not been drinking enough to be part of �rhus as we usually are. It means that we have not managed to give the Chokolate Factory a strong voice in town. But the town is hungry. We sent out a press-release today and within ten minutes the first journalist called up and the interview is on tomorrow morning. The kick is based not as much on narcissism as on the fact that our dream is shared by many others.
Within the next month or two we hope to expand the days we are open. The ambition is to buy an espresso-machine, a white-board and an airport. That combined with un-locking our door during day-hours is our attempt to create a space where people can meet, talk about ideas and make plans for projects and businesses. If / when these ideas result in a higher cash-flow people can rent a office-space somewhere in town.
First hurdle with doing this is that �rhus is a bloody cold town and that combined with no heating in our club (it does not get comfortably warm until 150 people are dancing). The next is finding time and energy to simply organise that of being open during the week - our plan is not to hire anyone but simple do shifts so that it is one of the three of us being there. When (if) the turnover gets high enough we will hire people to work there.
At the moment we are probably the most interesting new thing in �rhus, and until the value of being new and shiny start to disappear we are pretty sure that an audience will show up. The next phase can happen within a week or two months, but that will be our second test. Do people want to come back a second time or will that be the end of things?
filling the coffers, but attracting a rearguard action from the competition and the seedy underworld of the night-time economy. Just for the record I should point out that you can visit the Chokolate Factory. If you get the evening flight to Arhus from Stanstead, you arrive when the party�s just beginning around midnight. Leave the club at 6, back to the airport and before you know it you�re back in Liverpool street for brunch. It made for one of the best, although environmentally reprehensible, nights of my life.
Letters from a Kaospilot No.2
Our opening night gave a small profit and our seven following nights combined has resulted not in millions but in a profits that has allowed us to upgrade some very basic things - a better sound system (though it's still rubbish), a door to one of the men�s toilets (we started out with a shower curtain) and a little less stress about going into deaths for a long time.
The first part of this diary was written a few days before the opening of our nightclub on 28th January. It's almost been a month and many things have changed since then. Alexander, Michael and I are down to working some ten hours a day now, we are beginning to check our mails again, drinking coffee with our friends and even going to the cinema.
Our club has a capacity of 600 guests at a time, and our expectations for February (which in Denmark is traditionally one of the toughest months of the year: Danes are still paying of their debts from buying Christmas presents, it is cold and wet) were around 200-300 people a day. 100 if everything went wrong. There has been a little more than 600 in average and it is amazing!
On the opening night we had visitors from New York, Madrid, London, Manchester and Copenhagen, and although there were hundreds of fantastic responses, one of the most uplifting comments came from one of the elder men that came from Manchester.
In early January when we were working our asses off on rebuilding our place, we watched the film "24 hour party people" and loved it. The idea of going from hell to heaven and back again while doing "the right thing" was something we could easily relate to.
The guy from Manchester was almost in tears when we shut the doors and told us that he had not been to such a good party since "The Factory" closed down. Although he was drunk and probably lying it gave us such a kick!
Since then we have continuously had some of the best parties that �rhus has experienced for a long time.The resonance that the idea of the club gave in our town has changed but not for the worse. It is a reality now - we exist and a lot of people love it.
Until this week our work has been focused on surviving running a club every weekend; having no relevant experience whatsoever (the first beer any of us poured was at the Chokolate Factory) it has been necessary to learn extremely fast about managing a group of 20+ staff, negotiating with Carlsberg, understanding how to optimize cash-flows and meanwhile staying true to what it is we want to do and create.
Nightclubs is a pretty dodgy area of business. There are many black money, threats, some fights, drugdealers and the constant attention from the police. What has spared us from some of these things is hard to explain, but I think it comes from the fact that we are making a business not with the main object being earning money. Money are essential for our business to stay on the market, but it is not our motive and drive. We aim at something that we consider much larger; to create something that will make �rhus a better place to party (and thereby live) and in the longer run at place where social and cultural entrepreneurs can meet and let things grow.
Alexander, Michael and I have been drinking coffee but we have not been drinking enough to be part of �rhus as we usually are. It means that we have not managed to give the Chokolate Factory a strong voice in town. But the town is hungry. We sent out a press-release today and within ten minutes the first journalist called up and the interview is on tomorrow morning. The kick is based not as much on narcissism as on the fact that our dream is shared by many others.
Within the next month or two we hope to expand the days we are open. The ambition is to buy an espresso-machine, a white-board and an airport. That combined with un-locking our door during day-hours is our attempt to create a space where people can meet, talk about ideas and make plans for projects and businesses. If / when these ideas result in a higher cash-flow people can rent a office-space somewhere in town.
First hurdle with doing this is that �rhus is a bloody cold town and that combined with no heating in our club (it does not get comfortably warm until 150 people are dancing). The next is finding time and energy to simply organise that of being open during the week - our plan is not to hire anyone but simple do shifts so that it is one of the three of us being there. When (if) the turnover gets high enough we will hire people to work there.
At the moment we are probably the most interesting new thing in �rhus, and until the value of being new and shiny start to disappear we are pretty sure that an audience will show up. The next phase can happen within a week or two months, but that will be our second test. Do people want to come back a second time or will that be the end of things?
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