If you can chug down that cold cup of reality, then the good news is that those that can do, and those that can’t host events for those that can. Your last spin of the dice is to become the fixer, the behind-the-scenes scene-builder – the club impressario. Put on a good enough night, and in 10 years time, you could be the next Danny Rampling, reminiscing about your seminal event to future generations of Channel 4 documentary-makers.  As you stare genially into the camera, recall this blueprint that kicked it all off…

The Deets

Security

Get some real heavies on the door. If you don’t have real heavies, get that titchy kid from school who’s always threatening to send round his mates who are real proper gangsters.

Guest Lists

Your guest list should be split evenly between people who are in the media, people who would like to be in the media, and people who are pretending to be in the media.

Marketing strategies.

Ladies-get-in-half-price is always a winner. Nothing brings ladies to your club quite like the insinuation that you have to bribe their kind merely to walk through the door.

Drugs

The best sort of clubs have a drug scene attached, so make one up. Regular drugs are all passe and overexposed, so you’ll need to find a new substance in order to make your club into a subcultural hub. How about a scene called ‘egg’, based around taking HRT pills for recreational purposes: hyper-dosing on progesterone, then crying a lot, listening to Duffy & Mama Cass, moisturising your hands and generating nebulous guilt.

Good Potential Names

Pure. Sounds definitively like a rave club. If it is a rave club, all good. If it’s a white supremacist club, also all good.

Shit On My Face. Edgy.Has provocative, polemical value. However, may encourage unwanted element of feacophiliacs, so remember to assign extra budget to cleaning utensils.

Club Nong Ning Nang. The deliberately silly club name, also known as the anti-name name. While this sort of naming shows a likeably slapdash, devil-may-give-a-flying-fuck attitude, it also makes answering the phone vaguely humiliating, so best avoided.

TYPES OF EVENT YOU COULD PROMOTE

The Wacky Club

Symbolised by the sort of indie-pop night where girls wear pigtails and they give out cupcakes on the door, the wacky club is all about bringing out the inner child in us all. Remember: for licensing purposes it’s still necessary to ID everyone’s inner children.

Advantages: Crowd too terrified to go to real nightclubs, so will have less of a basis for quality comparison.

Disadvantages: Providing unadulterated cake to so many frail constitutions could result in mass hysteria from sugar-exposure. You’d probably have to tear-gas the place once they started getting cranky and agitated. On second thoughts, the sight of 100 twentysomethings dressed like 8 year olds writhing on the floor and pissing themselves in agony after a good teargassing isn’t something anyone should have to explain to the local constabulary. Avoid.

The Anything Goes Club

Celebrate your great post-millennial eclecticism by playing the same eclectic mix of MIA, Beyonce, Gang Of Four, The Smiths, Snap and early Madonna as everyone else.

The Small Town Club

Your town’s so small there’s only one venue to choose from anyway: the Royal British Legion. Having to put on a party with a bunch of heavily-tatted ex-squaddies slumped over by the bar will probably put a crimp in your style. But roll with it – with any luck, it’ll all turn into one of those schlocky films where the squaddies gain a new lease on life by learning to relate to vibrant youth culture, culminating in a breakdance-off between ex-NCOs and a racially eclectic group of teens. Or maybe they’ll just loosen some of your teeth in an alley. It’s high stakes, but high rewards.

The Commercial Club

A tacky night with commercial R&B, ridiculously OTT bouncers and a dress code that means you get to be headbutted exclusively by skinheads in collared shirts and dress shoes is, of course, what people actually want. Why else do you think the West End is so pricey? Girls dancing on the tables is still the ultimate accolade for any club in this bracket. Girls dancing on the girls dancing on the tables is probably just showing-off.

THE FINAL SCORES

Always remember that this is a business first and foremost. There’s no place for poor enterprise models here, so count up how much money you’ve made and proceed accordingly.

Between 10 and 20 Pound profit. Go out and build a line of blow that stretches from here to eternity, you beautiful succesful club manager, you.

Between 100 and 300 Pound loss. Consider yourself lucky to have gotten out alive in this cut-throat industry. Build eternal line of blow to celebrate.

60, 000 Pound loss. Someone may be scamming the ticketing system. Try getting the doorstaff to put a little cross in biro on every ticket they collect so they can’t be re-used. Alternatively, reconsider your ‘First 50 through the door get a free Faberge Egg’ policy.