The Alliance

What's better: to be feared or loved?

Take a good look because there aren't many pictures taken or articles written about these guys, and by these guys I'm referring to The Alliance.

Make no mistake about it, when you mention their name it strikes an emotional cord to those in the Hollywood nightlife scene. Some good, some bad, but there is no one who is on the fence about them.

While most of you reading this blog were probably in grade school or junior high/middle school, when these guys were throwing some of Hollywood's hottest, and most exclusive parties.

The Alliance was formed roughly 17 years ago (circa early 90's) with Josh Richman as the ring leader, along with partners Shane Powers and Hartwell.

From the Sundance film festival to weekly Hollywood nightlife parties, they have always been able to bring out A-List celebs and young Hollywood's finest to whatever event they were associated with.

Names like Brittney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Tobey Maguire, Sean "P-Diddy" Combs, Paris & Nicky Hilton, along with sports icons such as Kobe Bryant, A-Rod, Reggie Bush, and Tom Brady attend their events regularly (and still do).

They are able to wrangle up celebs, and in turn, that helps bring out the pretty girls and big spenders to their Hollywood club nights. Hollywood nightclub owners seek them out to help open their establishments.

Here is where the hate & love come in to play.

The formula is pretty simple: having big A-List talent walk through the doors of your establishment every week, helps bring better brand awareness to your venue (and also makes the pages of gossip columns, magazines and TMZ).

The problem is this....it comes at a high rate.

While the profit margin for most bars/nightclubs is roughly 25% after cost (which means, after you have covered your operating cost to help pay for your staff, and alcohol, etc. a venue's profit is roughly 25% of the revenue generated for the night). Now most venues will pay out promoters 15% - 20% of the revenue for the night....The Alliance gets 25% - 35%!!! And guess what...everyone in Hollywood has been lining up to give it to them.

Why?

Because for a venue owner if you are able to break even or take a small hit one night a week, but that night helps create "the buzz" for your venue, then you will make more money on your other nights; whereby you pay the other promoters less and sell bottles to random walk ups.

Whenever David Judaken owner of MyHouse, Opera/Crimson, and MyStudio opens a venue guess who he has doing the opening night?

In fact, The Alliance insist on being the only act in town (sorta speak). Their deals are usually based on the fact that: they will take 25% of the night, and that their night, will be the only night open at the venue for at least one month.

Meaning that the venue owners cannot open another night during the week until after one month of being opened. Giving The Alliance the exclusive rights to the place for the first 30 days. Sam Nazarian of SBE agreed to it when they opened The Colony.

Every Hollywood venue must have a so-called A-List night; if they don't then they will usually shut down after 90 - 120 days.

So that's why many of these places pay them. However, to be clear, they just don't work for just any venue. They usually need to know a lot about the ownership before they go into business with them.

Back in the day there were only two names that were able to pull in A-Listers: The Alliance and Brent Bolthouse.

Now a days most venues have no so-called A-List night; which is why you see so many grand openings and grand closings. Also, this is the reason you'll see brand new venues that hold 800+ people, open 5 nights a week (its because they need the money to keep the lights on for another 30 days).

Currently The Alliance are a two member group, instead of a trio (I'm planning on writing another blog post about that later ("the Josh & Shane chronicles").

Their current weekly Hollywood nights are:

Tuesdays @ MyStudio
Thursdays @ Voyeur
Fridays @ The Colony
Saturdays @ Teddy's

*Along with 4 annual events at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood: Memorial Day, 4th of July Pool Party, Halloween & New Years Eve.

Love them or hate them they have out lasted everyone in the Hollywood night life game.

This will be my last post, until my next post.