CELEBRITY
SPORTS
GAMING
MOVIESHow To Be A Bouncer
by Harmon Leon
Where would we be without bouncers?! From Studio 54 to the modern day dance club, without bouncers our bars and clubs would be a haven for people who don’t have IDs and enjoy fighting.
Eager to find out more about the wonderful world of professional bouncing, I became a bouncer for one evening at a popular San Francisco club (name withheld in order to avoid getting my friend fired).
My purpose for becoming a bouncer: To keep the club a safe and orderly place! Going by the bouncer pseudonym “Ace”, I made sure I was prepared with essential supplies.
- 1 Clipboard
- 1 Black Bowtie
- 1 Flashlight
- 1 Attitude
- 1 Pack of gum (gum chewing helps create “attitude”)
- 1 Velvet Rope
- 1 Orange Cone
- 1 Janet Jackson-type Headset (NOTE: Make sure headset is not plugged into anything)
No article on bouncing technique would be complete without the consultation of Patrick Swayze, star of the seminal bouncing masterpiece Road House and the Patron Saint of Bouncers. Any bouncer in a tough situation would do well to ask WWJDD? (”What Would Jack Dalton Do?”) If your answer isn’t “Chase your bouncing dreams and overcome your bouncing demons in a rowdy Southern bar called the Double Deuce,” you aren’t doing what Jack Dalton would do.
On the Tuxedo/Bowtie Combo
“The most feared breed of bouncer is always the one in a dapper tuxedo and bowtie. Why? A tuxedo contrasts well against any huge muscles straining the seams of it, creating a dichotomy that says: ‘I am secure in my abilities to both select a bottle of wine and beat you to death with it.’”
On Headsets
“Procuring a headset gives both the bouncer and the club the edge you need to compete in the world of high-tech bouncing. You don’t even have to plug the headset into anything-just occasionally speak into it while checking IDs, giving yourself a high-tech feel of control in a land of jetpacks and tomorrow.”
On Chasing Your Dreams
“You should always do this.”
Funnily enough anyone who actually works in the industry will see this article as just really baseless, misinformed and ultimately petty shots at actually standard practices, stuff that is there for really good reasons no less.
The rope is there to seperate doormen from patrons and regulate the entry/exit into a venue. Telling people to line up is not only a venune licensing requirement (in Aus/UK anyway) but also to prevent possible altercations between patrons and/or the public, because drunk people don’t like getting bumped into.
The headsets are plugged in, which may be a suprise to you, and are also one of the most effective safety equipment any guard will have. Those little headsets have saved lives across the world; both of patrons and staff. A flat radio battery has in the past have resulted in harm for Crowd Controllers, it is a terrible situation to be surrounded by hostile patrons without any way to contact other guards.
Crowd Controllers take ID checks seriously because if the police find underage patrons inside a club the management of the venue can be fined thousands of dollars. Because of insurance, standard operating practices and regulations, these fines may actually find their way to being the responsibility of the individual crowd controller. So if you feel that looking back and forth from ID to face is a funny, ask yourself if the guard is perhaps just trying to make sure he doesn’t sink his life by making a bad judgement call.
There is a ton of things that can be made fun of within the security industry, however this article picks out the only things which actually make sense to implement. It is like making a joke of firemen for having a truck and protective gear; I bet they don’t really even connect their firehoses to anything, they just want to look cool and heroic. It just sounds stupid and childish to even write something like that, let alone a whole article on it.
Seriously if this is the best you can come up with, you might as well be making fun of airplane food.