Bangkok Reports

[HorseTrader]

It's pretty alive until 11 pm.

But drops after 11 with only a few gogos being open till 12 or 1.

Did you ever see it pre-COVID? Overall it looked pretty slow to me, including from 10-11 last night. A couple places were busy, but most were near empty or closed. I walked out of one of the agogo places a little after 11 and was surprised to see how much Nana had cleared out over the prior hour.

[Blr City]

Reached Bkk day before yesterday, the Nana plaza scene is pretty dead. Hired a freelancer from TF, tured out to be fat chick with horribly smelling pussy. Could not bear for more than 5 minutes, paid the money as promised and send her away. Booked another called cindy, which turned out to be a quite decent one - 8/10. Overall burnt 4 K baht (2+2). Hope to pick up some decent chicks from go go bars tonight.

It's pretty alive until 11 pm.

But drops after 11 with only a few gogos being open till 12 or 1.

[South Blr Paw]

Planning a trip next week. Are the clubs MIXX, Shock 39 open?

Do the Russians, Central Asian, Indians still in there to be picked up? Or is it dead.

Any new night clubs that have the Russians these days?

[South Blr Paw]

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?

[Rodent 65]

I had drinks with an agency girl few days ago. She has been working in a well known Nana Plazza gogo for few weeks only. She said she does not get salary but only 100 thb per drink. She makes 20-25 drinks per night. She accepts barfine if she likes the guy. If she does not show up at work she has to pay 700-1000 thb per day.

And you really bought that story?

[Houston Player]

I had drinks with an agency girl few days ago. She has been working in a well known Nana Plazza gogo for few weeks only. She said she does not get salary but only 100 thb per drink. She makes 20-25 drinks per night. She accepts barfine if she likes the guy. If she does not show up at work she has to pay 700-1000 thb per day.

Total bullshit you don't know what you're talking about.

[Gigi Buffon]

It doesn't seem like the girls at the pimp are available for anything beyond dances.

At the club, that is correct, but outside is fair game. I've even travelled with a couple of them in separate occasions. I would meet them at the club, exchanged Line and then set up separate arrangements outside clubs hours.

[EihTooms]

I had drinks with an agency girl few days ago. She has been working in a well known Nana Plazza gogo for few weeks only. She said she does not get salary but only 100 thb per drink. She makes 20-25 drinks per night. She accepts barfine if she likes the guy. If she does not show up at work she has to pay 700-1000 thb per day.

What is the upside for her working for an agency if she is on commission only for LDs, gets no salary (no portion of the fee the bar pays the agency per girl?) and she has to pay 700-1000 baht if she doesn't show up?

During normal times I think the agency got paid about 1,500 baht per girl per night. I don't know about today or how much the girl got from that fee.

I would think any decent looking and behaving girl, a freelancer really, who wants to hang out at a bar and help them sell LDs on commission only would be welcome to do it any night she wants to show up. Why would she sign on with an agency that will pay her nothing and will only charge her 700-1000 baht for not showing up?

I might open such an agency myself. Just sign right here, honey.

I suspect she left out something in her explanation.

[Rodent 65]

Reached Bkk day before yesterday, the Nana plaza scene is pretty dead. Hired a freelancer from TF, tured out to be fat chick with horribly smelling pussy. Could not bear for more than 5 minutes, paid the money as promised and send her away. Booked another called cindy, which turned out to be a quite decent one - 8/10. Overall burnt 4 K baht (2+2). Hope to pick up some decent chicks from go go bars tonight.

[InTheClouds]

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..

I had drinks with an agency girl few days ago. She has been working in a well known Nana Plazza gogo for few weeks only. She said she does not get salary but only 100 thb per drink. She makes 20-25 drinks per night. She accepts barfine if she likes the guy. If she does not show up at work she has to pay 700-1000 thb per day.

[Goatscrot]

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.

IMHO 2018-2019 Pattaya's Go Go action was better than BKK's. Interestingly, the best Go Go in BKK circa 2018-2019, IMHO, was Kings Castle 1 which had adopted the Pattaya Agency model. Again, I know some guys hated it, but damn, they had the best looking girls! As well as the steepest barfines.

So let's see how things develop in BKK after the Government drops the covid test upon arrival and all the other covid mandates and regulations and things really are post covid. I do not think the look-drink, no barfine model will be adopted by 95% of the Go Go's. But I could be wrong. In the meantime, anybody who spends their money in one of these no barfine bars is a ******* in my opinion. Ha Ha. Just kidding. It is your money, do what you like. HeHaw.

Anyway, I ain't buying no ticket to BKK until I know what the post covid scene is like. I think we will know the score within a month or two of the country's real reopening. I would love to return in September, but I will just have to see wait and see. Meanwhile I am heading to SP in 10 days. It's my third trip down South in 12 months. I can't wait!

The classic go go model died with the advent of agency girls.

[TooDirty]

Went to Hillary1 and met a server there name Ammy. She says she doesn't go home with customers but she will if you buy her enough drinks. She was ok in the bed. BJ was bad LOL but she was really pretty. She let me CIP.

Did Ammy make interesting female origami with her bar towel? I remember a cute Ammy there from about five years ago, but I couldn't ever get a date from her. Ended up eating BBQ on the Nana sidewalk with a few Hillary girls then got bumped up one's cousin, Belle, on the walk back to OnEight.

[Bunky]

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.

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.

[EihTooms]

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...

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.

[EihTooms]

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 4 girls I know who work for a "Modeling Agency" (their term for it) and are called in to work in Nana Plaza some nights remain in their somewhat upscale street clothes and mostly work the outdoor bar areas on the ground floor, 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.

But there are some "no barfine" girls who are more scantily clad inside the bars who might be from an agency or who just decided they aren't going to go with customers or are resistant to because they live with a sponsor, boyfriend, husband, etc. Maybe they are formerly agency girls who needed to expand their options lately. Perhaps they would be up for what you mentioned. But I still have not seen much of anything more than bold lap dancing going on in the booths, crotch rubbing outside the clothing and so on in Nana Plaza. I could have just missed it.

Of course, it isn't as though all of these "no barfine" girls working inside or outside the bars will not have sex for money. My experience is some will if the timing, conditions and money is right.

Some of the differences you'd be dealing with: 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.

But she has no relationship to a bar owner, mamasan or allegiance to anyone there, has not borrowed money or gotten an advance in emergency money from anyone there.

A mamasan or co-worker who might serve as helpful matchmaker between girls who fuck and fuck for real, owe them money, know they really need money and all that and reliable customers who are willing to pay for it are not part of their routine.

And that means there is also no incentive, some might call it "preasure", peer, co-worker, money owed or otherwise, to go with the men they want to return over and over again to the bar and to do a good job for them in the bed.

The agency girl can still be a FL if she is up for it, if it does not interfere with her often unpredictable bar appearance assignment. But for the most part she is paid to show up at the bar on time, stay until closing and is not inclined to either compete with girls in that bar who are looking to make money for having sex or to pick up the slack for them on that count when those girls are busy to keep the P4P money flowing through that bar and to the other girls in them.