SensationMusic

We need some more girls in here!

Promoters will do anything to get more laydeez through the door!

“Too many man, too many many man." If you're not familiar with Boy Better Know’s finest hour, maybe Flight Of The Conchords' paean to imbalanced dancefloors will ring some bells: “Too many dudes with too many dicks, too close to my shit, too hard to meet chicks, I need better odds, more broads, less rods".

Two classic tunes, both with the same lament: a club where guys outnumber the girls. While these tunes both have an understandable personal angle - the guy's not going to pull if there aren't any girls - they're also in step with the accepted wisdom of promoters all over the world.

Get the girls in and success will follow.

And there are certain things that girl clubbers are supposed to like: vocals in the music, for example. The female brain, it is assumed, can't process purely instrumental music without confusion. How will they know when one track has finished and another one starting, the poor dears? How will they be able to sing along, using their hairbrush as a pretend microphone? Bollocks. Why not go the whole hog? Paint the club pink, plaster the walls with pictures of unicorns, give away free shoes and show a live feed of Jennifer Aniston being roasted over a fire? It’ll have the same effect bugger all.

Our Associate Editor's extensive clubbing background in Portsmouth throws up yet another gem: the club that used to do a “ladies only” hour at the start of the night, where women could just go and drink "Without having to “old their tummies in", as the promoter put it. I think he just liked having all the girls to himself. The next stage, though, is a little bit more depressing. Does offering free or cheap drinks to women really benefit anyone apart from prowling perverts looking for drunk targets?

 We ran a story a few years ago about a guy who made a living taking a rentacrowd of good-looking girls around high end London clubs (by which I mean West End blingfests, not Fabric). He got the idea after reading The Game. The clubs loved it - they got a crowd of attractive shills to encourage the sleazy old men who frequented them to buy more overpriced drinks. The place looked good in photos, the girls got a free night out... and everyone involved lost a little bit of their soul.

Just as the trend for topless female DJs a few years ago inevitably led to people viewing a woman who can work a set of decks as something completely removed from all human expectation, like a squid driving a car or a monkey that can speak French, not to mention lairy lads shouting at Lisa Lashes to “get your tits out”, treating female clubbers like glorified ornamentation can't be good for the atmosphere. One club in Goa used to run a ladies night with free entry and free drinks for girls all night. You walked in there and it was just full of drunk girls... everywhere. Its been closed down now due to the high rape figures. No joke.

As a service to promoters everywhere, I tried asking the most clubworthy girls I know what kind of things would put them off going to a specific club. I had hoped for something about dirty loos or alcopops; instead I got "£2 an item for the cloakroom", "If I couldn't be arsed" and "Why, are you going to be attempting to 'DJ' again?'. Vive la difference.

So stop trying so hard, promoters, stop chasing the mythical ‘vaginal dollar' and just concentrate on putting on a good night for everyone. If you build it, they will come. A good balance of the sexes is great, yes. But I've had a good time in nights that were so much of a sausage-fest they made the Jesuits look like Girls Aloud.

Can you really see Luciano or Sven dropping in some vocals “for the laydeez”? Or DC10 offering free cocktails for girls before 10? And yet Ibiza has the sexiest clubs in the world. Young, passionate, hot people having fun, dancing and sweating copiously. Not a unicorn in sight.