CAMPUS Bar in Montreal

[Karl-G]

I don't want to hijack the thread on Taboo.

 

On Wednesday evening I went to Campus at 7:00 p.m. There were three customers at the bar and no dancers in the room. There was one dancer down on the sidewalk, smoking, and I would not be interested in seeing him on stage.

 

On Thursday at 7:00 there were five customers at the bar and no dancers in the room. There were two homely, grungy guys smoking outside.

 

On Saturday at 7:00 there were, I think, five dancers, all of whom looked like rejects from Stock. There were two songs between each dance, so you waited and waited. Four of the dancers had bellies which hung over the waistband of their underwear; two were covered in tattoos. Four were wearing grungy, what appeared to be dirty, pants and shirts, and oversized shoes. All were very unappealing.

 

There was no admission or cover charge at any time. It's very bad. I hope they can recover.

[Poppie]

WTF is going on at Campus? This is not good.

[+ azdr0710]

this is too bad......I'm no expert at all on the Montreal scene as I've only been to the city once and that was about three years ago......at that time, both Stock and Campus, though very different concepts, were seemingly both doing well, felt well-run, and were busy at times they should be busy......even the notorious DL (Drunk Lawyer) was at Campus!

 

there is probably a very specific reason Campus seems to be suffering these days.....some local will probably be able to report back to the forum, I presume

[SirBillybob]

LOL ...I am a local yokel down the road. I never go prior to the second shift of dancers (21:00-03:00). You cannot expect hot guys to spend valuable gym and rest time not earning any cash 15:00-21:00 ... that has not in my 2 decades of going been a good time frame.

 

Campus is a Fri/Sat evening place.

 

I have not seen the moneybags loiwterer around for a few years. ?

 

And with 4 establishments blocks apart again, gaining critical mass is a challenge.

 

I think the problem is that they all usually squeak by with an acceptable profit margin, but four is hardly sustainable for a city this size.

[EZEtoGRU]

I'm not surprised by the OP's Campus report. I was there in the spring and my experience was similar. There were only four dancers three of whom were entirely forgettable (I wouldn't accept a lapdance from any of them even if it was free). However, I did luck out that night as the fourth dancer was a stunning muscle guy. He was the only reason Campus was decent that night. I'm not sure what is behind the severe decline at Campus.

[SirBillybob]

I don't disagree that it is poor, but I do not see much change over the past 10+ years, just little ups and downs. I rarely take a private there. However, there still are non-holiday weekends where all the available seating is taken.

 

Customers purchasing dances drive the business. This is not a classic management issue. A few days ago there were a few attractive fit dancers making no money. That is not a management deficit. The dancers make nothing if the club is full of drinkers/watchers. The customers are essentially the management team. I am equally to blame, but I do not waste their time.

 

I think that my perspective is different because the true differential was about 12 years ago when dances jumped from $10 to $20. That created a huge dip in all clubs and recent dips pale in comparison. From 2001-mid2000s the clubs were jammed on weekends. Many guys were cleaning up and also rotating thru The Gaiety some weekends.

 

I don't know where the concept "reject" originates. The migration is bidirectional, guys trying a change to inflate their income. I would say my top favourites have been distributed fairly equally between Campus and Stock.

 

I starting coming to Montreal, years before moving here, in 1980, when Apollon in the west-central end of town was the peeler bar. They had a lot of flak from the straight bar patrons in the district but I went too infrequently to witness it.

Edited September 11, 2019 by SirBIllybob

[LD19847]

Concerned to hear this, it's not good for the other clubs in the long term if Campus is suffering.

 

Campus could start by looking at its online presence. It is way, way, behind Stock. The Campus website hasn't been updated for ages and Stock has a bigger presence on social media.

[SirBillybob]

The dividing factor is dancer privacy. What spurs media dev’t with Stock is the online streaming and related services. The dancers there need to be comfortable with exposure. They have local families and this is a temp gig.

 

The club even has an area geo-nogo zone for the site. And the FB/Instagram media is focused on the more “respectable” ladies crowd, less stigmatized because it is again like a strip-o-gram concept for bachelorettes.

 

The central theme of social media is the entertainment.

 

There needs to be a place for strippers to be relatively on the down low if they require. Even then, a hen party may be very awkward if they attend the same gym, school etc. Or a cousin informs Mama Bear ‘guess who shoved his dick in my face’. Many are physique competitors who need a certain image for sponsorships. Therefore, Campus.

 

Dancers are ersatz escorts with minimal anonymity. Why should they bother if the promise of great bank is not fulfilled?

 

I thank God in heaven Campus does not push media banner ads with pics of fake guys.

[SirBillybob]

The only solution is a complete boycott and closure of one or two rivals, a revised paradigm, and this hinges on client org. Far be it for me to spearhead. I could care less and I am able to make the best of what exists currently. Why should Montreal, of hundreds of North American cities, be targeted as the one to fulfill lap dance fantasies? Things change over decades. You are best advised to always push for fave dancers’ contact info so when you return you have a backup plan.

[brettnyc]

Campus was dismal during my visit in late June and not worth the flight from New York City... - making Stock the only game in town these days for muscle lovers. I hope Campus can be saved.

[Ichabod]

When I was at Campus a couple of weeks ago, there were no dancers circulating on the floor, and only one who danced on stage. Fortunately, I was able to get a couple of private dances from Sun, the really hot waiter who used to be a dancer. He said he's allowed to do privates when it's not busy. Really saved the night for me.

[+ newatthis]

I just posted something about this in the Taboo thread before seeing this one.

[+ newatthis]

The August Fugues had a long article about Campus (Gary's 50th birthday IIRC) which described the club as a hangout place for locals. That's certainly been my experience over the years -- people come in to drink, relax, watch whatever boys are there, and talk with their friends (who often include the management and bartenders). Sometimes when I've been talking to a dancer for a while and am not yet ready to do a private, I will point to a group of people sitting at a table and suggest he try to make some money over there (before coming back to me). I'll often get the response "they just come in to drink; they never do dances."

 

Evidently some dancers do well enough to make it worthwhile. A 25-year old whom I've gotten to know told me that he saved enough in 4 years of dancing to buy a house in his home town about an hour about outside of Montreal.

Edited September 13, 2019 by newatthis

[Tweetybird]

It seems like a pretty simple business model, put some nice looking guys on a stage and they will come (customers)

For over a year campus has failed to provide a consistant strip show.

On some nights many many songs are played with no dancer on stage.

The place doesn't seem to be run like any bar I have ever been in.

The staff and both owners are either high or drunk most of the time not paying attention to there business.

Since the former manager left (Danny) the club has been on a steady decline and seems to have been taken over by drug dealers.

Its easier to buy drugs at campus than get a drink.

Pretty sad place.

[Poppie]

Since Danny left the club, I have not seen a "Dancer Manager" present. Tweetybird is right. IMO that has a lot to do with what's (not) going on. Back in the day, Johnnys always had a Dancer Manager. They even had a brief staff meeting early on in the night helping to ensure the bois were circulating and entertaining the customers. Always had a ton of fun in that dump. Gawd I miss it.

[SirBillybob]

The clubs can hire and pay strippers a wage for stage entertainment, in the same way they employ servers, DJs, etc, but it is a criminal offense for the club to have those same strippers provide private lap dances. The club can only profit from bev service if all employees refrain from activities that legally impugn the club and consumers.... it is illegal to purchase lap dances, but legal for independent contractor lapdancers to sell them, as long as the club does not profit.

 

Ironically, the club would likely not profit any more financially if strippers could get wages, as increased bev profits might not surpass wage payouts.

 

This all translates to clubs providing a setting for illegal activity at consumers' peril, and dancers earnings predicated exclusively on consumers paying for sexual favours while accommodating non-earning socializing in exchange for the privilege to work out of there, not for them. It is not Magic Mike Revue.

 

I would not grouse about rec drug trade. Where there is smoking hot smoke there is fire.

 

You cannot impose a "normative" business model on this complex arrangement. It is a setup for transient "employment'.

 

Again, it is the consumer constituency that drives the quality of performers, and its level of concomitant alcoholism that dictates profit margins.

 

This is the algorithm: hot guys sell their services, if it is financially worthwhile (or, for some, expedient), to horny patrons who are willing to pay to incriminate themselves legally, over and above lurking and flirting at no cost while spending enough on drinks to meet venue costs and profit margins, while the hot guys must commit to low-earning shifts on slow periods and evaluate whether the overall average hourly take and soul-crushing sacrifice is worth the effort. For some, the point of diminished return is reached earlier than for others.

Edited September 12, 2019 by SirBIllybob

[SirBillybob]

Addendum: the hottest guys build up a cadre of private clientele, essentially cherry-picking appealing and affluent clients more into body worship. Why do a club shift if you can earn as much privately over dinner and vanilla intimacy over a brief period and be in bed by midnight? Then if and when that dries up be relatively new club talent once again, cycle, repeat.

[Tweetybird]

I'am not really sure what the hell your last rant was about but I'am very sure that any bar even a strip club needs to be run as a business and Campus does or could fit the business model of a bar.

Drunk/High owners and managers is a sure recipe for failure.

The only reason drugs are so available at Campus is because the ownership permits and surly profits from it.

[SirBillybob]

How is simply describing how the Criminal Code parameters re: prostitution impact on the latitude of strip clubs to operate as legit business a rant?

 

I don’t condone the drug trade but it is not unique for Campus and is fairly widespread.

 

I drink minimally and do not do drugs, so my judgement is not impaired viz who is impaired, and witnessing it bugs me ... in 20 years I have only seen one stakeholder inebriated. Not Gary or employees.

 

Besides, how would you imagine owner sobriety would change things? What are they missing doing when drinking, assuming they are.

 

It operates fine as a bar, as bars in the area go. I thought posters were complaining about the erotic entertainment and could use some local insight as to how the law hamstrings venues to a degree.

 

I fail to see the causality of drug biz and bar decline; after all, the drug trade existed even during the stripclubs’ heyday.

 

Anyway, why criticize a club for condoning one illegal thing for some attendees yet failing to optimize the infrastructure for another illegal thing? It is simply incoherent, unless your argument is the relative degree to which either activity is inocuous.

 

I am not personally friends with any owners and my input is based on an attempt to analyze and knit together an array of factors that influence visitors getting what they hope for.

 

A balance of critical appraisal, economic trends, realism, and empathic attunement to the law and its restrictions helps me to generally extract a positive experience here and ride the ups and downs. I can see that visitors encountering a 10/10 but following that a low-score experience would be unhappy and posit a few logical but not entirely substantiated theories concerning the differentials.

 

I don’t think my city is the cat’s pyjamas but you can come here and have certain paid sexual experiences in semi-public with relative impunity. If you cannot work it out, it’s on you. If you want more and hotter strippers, tip them generously closer to webcam rates, and while you are at it you may as well take it private. You can pay them, the clubs cannot even if they are willing.

 

Few clubs wish or are able to expand their mandate to profitable streaming, solo porn, and piggybacked camming in the postmodern age. Stock got in early and copycat attempts are likely to flop.

Edited September 12, 2019 by SirBIllybob

[Tweetybird]

@SirBIllybob We must agree to disagree.

My point regarding the owners is that since the manager has left (danny) it seems that no one is running the show.

I have traveled to Montreal 4 to 5 times per year for the last 7 or 8 years and on each of my visits the owners seem to want to buy me a drink. (thats how i know they are drunk. The American guy is almost falling over) I have never been to any other bar located in the village that the management is falling over drunk.

Maybe when I am not in Montreal they are sober and running there business.

As for the drug business, dancers doing prostitution has nothing to do with someone selling drugs.

Maybe Canadians have a different drugs than Americans do.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Tweetybird

[+ SundayZip]

The clubs can hire and pay strippers a wage for stage entertainment, in the same way they employ servers, DJs, etc, but it is a criminal offense for the club to have those same strippers provide private lap dances. The club can only profit from bev service if all employees refrain from activities that legally impugn the club and consumers.... it is illegal to purchase lap dances, but legal for independent contractor lapdancers to sell them, as long as the club does not profit.

 

I knew that dancers are not actually employed by the bar and pay to work there, but I never fully understand the legal reasons for the arrangement. Now I do. Thank-you.

 

It seems that the arrangement has worked for years. Customers have come for the hot dancers and dancers have come because that's where they customers are. But now, if its no longer working, something must have changed. Any idea what that is?

[EZEtoGRU]

Since the former manager left (Danny) the club has been on a steady decline and seems to have been taken over by drug dealers.

Its easier to buy drugs at campus than get a drink.

Pretty sad place.

Campus has been a drug den for many many years...at least 15 years and probably more. Perhaps Campus has become a place you can go to and have a reasonable time only on Friday/Saturday nights after 10:00pm. Weeknights and afternoons seem to have become dead zones for Campus. I remember when you could still have a decent time at Campus with dancers all afternoon. The afternoon line-up was never as good as the evening line-up but you could usually find something decent. Not anymore. That whole afternoon scene from 3-7PM seems to be gone.

[+ newatthis]

Campus has been a drug den for many many years...at least 15 years and probably more. ...

Not just Campus. I know someone who scores all his drugs from dancers at Stock...and has been for many years. And there was often a reek of weed from the dancers smoking outside Taboo well before the current legalization (although I don't know whether selling went on in Taboo).

[EZEtoGRU]

Not just Campus. I know someone who scores all his drugs from dancers at Stock...and has been for many years.

I agree that the presence of drugs is everywhere. I guess I’m just saying it is (and always has been) much more pronounced at Campus.

[SirBillybob]

That is why I implied where there is smoke there is fire, that is, there is a relationship among fringe marginalized stigmatized activities. One would likely access leads to rec drugs at a strip club not a church social.

 

AA philosophy must have been in the house last night ... all managing players sober at Campus.