The EXPO 2017 Legal Panel featured club owner Joey Bien, who has converted the dancers at four clubs to the “employee” model, as well as two labor attorneys—Rey Velazquez and Howard Davis—who specialize in these conversions.

The single most pondered topic at the Gentlemen’s Club EXPO legal panels has been whether to treat entertainers as non-employees or employees. Each year the industry has witnessed an increasing number of entertainer classification lawsuits. Many clubs have recently converted their entertainers to employee status in an effort to avoid these suits. At this year’s legal panel, rather than answering the employee/non-employee question, the panel focused on what factors a club might consider and what exactly it would do, operationally, if it has already made the decision to convert entertainers to employees.

It’s worth nothing that neither this writer nor ED Publications are taking a position on whether to classify entertainers as employees or non-employees. This is merely a report of a panel that explored such a conversion as well as the benefits and costs.
Panelists included attorneys Howard Davis (filling in for Jeffrey Kimmel due to Hurricane Harvey) and Rey Velazquez, who have advised clubs that have converted to an employee model; as well as Joey Bien, the owner of four adult clubs (Treasure Clubs in North and South Carolina and Virginia) who has recently converted the entertainers at his clubs to employees.

Remedies Now For Future Events

While on-the-job training and experience are invaluable commodities when it comes to the job at hand, it’s simply impossible to prepare for everything. It’s this latter category of situations that demands a contingency plan.
The three gentlemen on hand at the “Crisis Control” panel had all experienced real-life calamities befall them or working associates. Speakers included the President and CEO of Nightclub Security Consultants Robert Smith; First Amendment attorney Luke Lirot; and DJ Platypus, Rick’s Cabaret Entertainment Director.

& the future of five-inch marketing

The number-one form of marketing for your club now and in the future is going to be social media marketing. The number-one avenue for reaching your customers through that platform is through their cell phone. At EXPO 2017, three industry pros offered their tips for social media marketing success.
Five to six inches could be all that stands between your club’s triumph or ruination, because that’s the average size of today’s smartphones. Those devices that has become the universal, pocket-sized means of information acquisition and are constantly being tweaked and improved.
“The Future of Five-Inch Marketing” panel tackled the elusive topic of marketing to millennials and centennials via this handheld vehicle. Speakers included Brittany Santos of Las Vegas’ KHN Enterprises; Scott Richter, owner of Platinum 84 in Denver; and Ariel Goode, Marketing Manager for the Spearmint Rhino club chain.
Here, we’ve printed a portion of their EXPO presentations, edited for concision.