Las Vegas Weekly

August 6, 2009 · 9 AM

To Jack Colton, nightlife industry here can be some of the best years

By Robin Leach

Jack Colton, second from right, attends a lingerie party hosted by Sunset Tan's Jeff Bozz, third from left.

Photo: Courtesy

While Mr. Vegas DeLuxe Robin Leach is on vacation and attempting to work as little as possible from afar, Vegas DeLuxe will be featuring celebrity guest columnists for the first half of this month until Robin’s return. If you’re knowledgeable about Las Vegas, the names should be familiar. Today, nightlife kingpin Jack Colton.

By Jack Colton

Any line of work will inevitably have a certain number of perks available to those who aren’t afraid to take advantage of them. The waitress who doesn’t pay for drinks at a neighboring bar, the car salesman who gets the full service package for the price of an oil change, and even the clothing store associate who hasn’t paid full price for anything new for as long as she can remember. The Las Vegas nightlife industry is little different than these others, but few would doubt that this industry has perks that are a little more entertaining than most.

In addition to a very comfortable income, flexible schedule and being in close proximity to attractive people, being a member of our nightlife industry reverses your role from being the person who wants to be in the popular nightclub to being a person that the club will go to great lengths to have as a patron. Because of the nature of our entertainment destination, Las Vegas nightclub marketers must dually promote their venues to national and international markets and to the 1.8 million people who call themselves locals, making those who work in the nightlife industry not only the backbone of the service end, but also a valuable gateway that helps decide what is or isn’t a place for which others should look forward to going.

“There isn’t a week that goes by that a friend or a friend of a friend from out of town doesn’t hit me up asking where they should go when they get to Vegas,” says local nightclub cocktail server Nikolett Toth. “Of course, you will always get those who are just looking for a hookup, but it all helps to get plenty of extra customers into the club and to meet my marketing requirements.”

Clubs using what’s available to them

Employee marketing requirements are an indispensable way of getting quality customers into nightclubs but also have led to the creation of industry outreach programs, nightlife employer requirements that expect staffs of a club to join together on certain nights to support (read party at) a competing nightlife venue or run the risk of write-ups or other disciplinary actions. This may sound extreme, but this requirement also means that they get to party with friends without waiting in line or paying for drinks. Not to say that they ever would in the first place, as that’s just the start of a long list of perks that comes from being a part of the business.

There are, in fact, so many perks that industry members often must juggle their schedules and power through the inescapable hangover to accommodate everything else they almost feel obligated to enjoy: private luxury suite parties, comped dinners, grand openings of shows, open bars and cash prizes at nightclub contests.

Ty Pinney, a graphic designer who creates ads for entertainment venues on the Strip, explains why he loves the nightlife industry here. “What I like most is the fact that I’m able to meet and maintain so many friendships with completely different types of people.” Ty also attributes his ability to obtain free show tickets and comped nightclub tables to those he has come to know in the nightlife industry: “It also doesn’t hurt that knowing so many people on such a personal level often gives you access to some of the things that are available to them through their work.”

Plenty more behind the uniform

Many visitors are quick to brush off cocktail waitresses and bartenders here as just pretty faces, but they are missing the rest of the story, as the majority of nightlife employees view their current jobs as steppingstones, albeit well-paying and entertaining ones that’ll help put them on the fast track to their next career. Many are homeowners with savings, and it isn’t uncommon to hear a cocktail waitress complaining about having to work late because she has to finish a paper for school.

For those who are ready to change their line of work, not all of them will remain in the hospitality industry. Longtime nightclub host Chad Dallas, who moved to Las Vegas from Oklahoma City in 2004 to work as a busboy at Jet in The Mirage, ultimately reached his goal of becoming a host at the Hard Rock Hotel working with Body English and Wasted Space.

In September, Chad, now 27, will be leaving for Austin, Texas, to open a franchise of a company that helps facilitate youth fundraisers. While entering a vastly different line of work in an equally different market, Dallas believes that the high-level marketing experience he gained here will allow him to excel in his new venture.

“When I started reviewing some of the materials that this new company was using in their existing cities, I couldn’t believe that they would even represent themselves like that. After changing even a few minor things, everyone started looked at me as if I was a genius.”

When the party ends, a new chapter begins

Whatever a person’s career intentions, it has been said that working in nightlife here ages the street-smart capacity of young adults twice as quickly due to the sheer number of people to whom they are exposed, talk and party with. One day you might find yourself discussing the economy with one of New York’s leading financial workers, the next you are taking shots with Paramount Studios president, a far cry from rolling beer kegs with your fraternity brothers. And while it usually isn’t practical to work in the service side of the industry too deep into ones 30s, most employees begin to prepare for their grand exit as the birthdays pile up.

In the meantime, those of us who are still fortunate enough to work and play in the Las Vegas nightlife scene will just have to suffer through the lavish parties, beautiful friends and all the other perks. The party won’t last forever, and there is always a group of younger, talented industry members on the way up, but you can bet your bottom dollar that we’ll enjoy everything until we’ve decided that the party is over.

Vegas DeLuxe’s celebrity guest columnist tomorrow is Liz Grantham of Crazy Girls at the Riviera.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter HERE.

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