Nana Plaza Girls Who Don't Barfine. How Much "Mileage" in the Club?
[QUOTE=EihTooms;2681562]Nana Plaza bars at this time are hiring a lot of agency girls to stand around to look good or sit for drinks but do not barfine. Ask first if barfining a girl is your goal rather than buying several 200 baht lady drinks just to chat. There are also a lot of "LD and chat only" girls who don't barfine sitting at those portable cart bars lined up on Soi 7 outside the closed regular bars. These venues are testing the waters on what will be the "new normal" going forward.[/QUOTE]As usual, Mr. Tooms posts useful information about the current Bangkok scene. Kudos for his hard work to keep the rest of us up to date.
FOLLOW UP QUESTION: How much "mileage" can we expect from the "drinks only" girls in the Nana Plaza bars? Are they just going to sit there and look cute? Or are they inclined to let their hands wander? For that matter, how do they react if the guy lets HIS hands wander? I ask because the Nana Plaza bars that formerly operated as go-gos feature indoor seating in a large space that has plenty of dark corners. Seems to me a girl could persuade a guy to keep buying drinks for both of them by getting a little physical -- much like the way things are done in Pattaya on Soi Six (in the handful of closed front bars) and in the so-called "gentlemen's clubs" that specialize in daytime raunch for the sex-pats. Just my opinion, but I'd be willing to buy several 200-baht lady drinks in exchange for some hands-on fun. I think that's value for money. But if she's just going to sit there, that feels like a ripoff or a hustle to me.
I concur that if the club owners and the girls had their way the look-drink-barfine business model would give way to the look-drink model. The use of pretty girls who hustle drinks by suggesting that more is available is a time-honored scam that operates worldwide. In my opinion, even pre-virus Soi Cowboy was dominated by that nonsense (thanks to "the Arab's" string of crooked clubs). I'd hate to see Nana Plaza go the same way.
The 2 Tier Barfine System I Liked And Would Welcome Again
[QUOTE=AxelHeyst;2681915]I think most of us would hate to see the classic Thai Go Go model die. I, for one, will stop traveling to Thailand if this occurred. But I think we are still a long way from that. The sky is not falling, yet.
Pattaya was where Agency Go Go's began. The original model was to pay more to get better looking girls into the Go Go, to draw more customers in, and sell more drinks. Along with this new strategy came the 2 tier barfine; xx before midnight and x after midnight. The result was pretty good although some punters hated it. Regardless what the naysayers thought, Agency Go Go's became some of the hottest bars on Walking Street, Pattaya and they made money. Well managed regular Pattaya Go Go's did well too. So customers had the best of both worlds and could go where they wanted, where they saw the most value...[/QUOTE]In some Nana Plaza go-go bars pre-Covid they had a 2 Tier Barfine system where certain girls were deemed "special" and the barfine for them was 1,200 baht or so while the barfine for the other girls was more like 700 baht. And it wasn't so obvious that "special" girls were younger, better looking, baby-free or anything in particular. For sure, some of the best lookers in those bars were on the "Special Girl" list. But there could easily be girls who looked as good or better still on the lowly 700 baht barfine list.
I liked it because it was a built-in Incentive Program for the girls to be better and generate no complaints or issues in whatever way necessary in order to qualify for "Special Girl" status, be brought over to the better customers, be more likely to close a deal and be barfined on the strength of their "special" status and all that.
The girls on the bar's higher barfine "Special Girl" list wanted to stay on it and the girls not on it wanted to get on it.
Therefore, I had no hesitation to question why the girl sitting next to me and lobbying to be barfined was so "special" as to justify a higher barfine. I would simply ask the girl, "Does that mean we can boom boom without a condom"?
I can only say my success rate in getting a big smile and an unambiguous upfront Yes reply from some of the best lookers in those bars was sky high. Like more than 80%. Interestingly, the fee the girl was willing to accept was no different than for the regular girls; 2,000 - 2,500 baht for ST. Only the barfine was set higher. The extra 500 baht for the quality and improvement in the service level all agreed to upfront before paying the barfine was always well worth it to me.
I would welcome a return of that particular 2 Tier Barfine system anytime.
No Incentive for "Agency Girls" to do More than Look Good and Hustle Drinks
[QUOTE=EihTooms;2681939]The girls I know who work for a "Modeling Agency" remain in their somewhat upscale street clothes and mostly work the outdoor bar areas on the ground floor /but/ will sometimes bring a reluctant customer into the bar to see the go-go dancing, if any, and have a seat. I have never seen that type of girl in a more secluded area of the bar providing any type of more casual sex service. An agency girl does not really work for the bar, of course. She works for an agency and will get a fee for the night regardless if customers show up, sit, drink or anything. And she will get a commission for LDs.[/QUOTE]The key point I took away from Mr. Tooms (very helpful) explanation is that the "agency girls" are paid an appearance fee just for showing up. Seems to me the amount of that fee is critical. If it's too low attractive girls won't hire on with the agency. If it's too high, however, the girls will have no incentive to hustle lady drinks and the bar owners won't see the value in hiring them. (I suppose their mere presence might attract customers, but there's more profit in lady drinks than the guy drinks.).
We see the agency girls at the bars, so we know their appearance fee at those places is high enough to get them to show up. The question then becomes: Do they have an incentive to earn more, and if so in what way? Bar management, of course, wants the girls to entice guys into stopping. At a minimum, those guys will buy drinks for themselves, plus management hopes the agency girls will sell high-profit lady drinks. So even though she doesn't work for the bar, I'm confident bar managers don't tolerate slacking. Almost certainly they lean on her to get men into the bar and to sell them drinks. Might there be a quota like there was for the girls who worked directly for the club under the old go-go system?
I suspect the agency girls are comfortable making their appearance fee, plus a little extra drink commission. Especially when all they have to do is show up, look cute and alternate between shouting "WELCOME" or asking every guy they see "you buy me one drink?" Will the bar owners be comfortable paying higher overhead (to the agency) and getting less revenue (from barfines)? At this juncture, they probably are because that's better than they were doing during the depths of COVID. But after the Naughty Boys return in force (and they will) will this business model survive? The Arab's success with his chain of clip joints teaches us there are at least some guys stupid enough to pay sky high drink prices just to sit next to a girl they think is pretty (either knowing she's not available for more, or having been tricked into thinking she'll go with him). As many of you have noted, that's almost killed Soi Cowboy. It remains to be seen whether Nana Plaza will return to the good old days or follow suit.
Thanks to Mr. Tooms for adding this additional information.
Mixx, Shock 39 etc are these open?
Clubs like Mixx, Shock 39 etc where the Russians, central Asians used to be picked up. Are these open?
How is the current situation for non Thai girls?