minimum capacity for ecomonic success?

[Lizzy]

I am working on a new building design for a 10,000 s.f. dance club project in a small, but busy tourist town. Although the location is great and the site is large enough for plenty of parking, we are prohibited by zoning code to have only 40% lot coverage. This leaves us with a parking / person capacity of under 500 persons. I need to know whether a club can be economically viable with such a small capacity. Any thoughts?

[Michael Black]

You can make plenty of $ on a 500 capacity, which is not that small. Not huge either which is good for filling a place and being able to open more than 2-3 nights in some locations that do not support large clubs every day of the week. That small town population with tourists probably would not support a 750-1,000 capacity place but without detailed info I cannot say for sure. 5,000-7500 sq feet is a good size for the 500, but 10,000 may be too large and it will look too empty or not happening unless you can rent or use only a portion of the space. When you say coverage, you mean you can only use 40% of the land? If so, could you possibly build up a second level if successful and needed later down the road? Is their other parking nearby that you can use? Even with a 500 capacity, I highly recommend that you design different rooms for flow and the ability to shut off sections for slower times/nights if possible.

[Lizzy]

Thanks for the help.
Yes, the plan is to make several rooms and also to rent the space for other uses during the day. We can have only 40& coverage of the lot so we are looking at several stories but the code requiring Barrier-free access makes this move economically questionable.
There is only one competing night club in the area and it supports 600 people per night.
I am feeling that our building has to be ultimately flexible to succeed.

[Lizzy]

Thanks so much again for the help... Being that I know very little about the nightclub business and I've been hired to design one; everything I've read here has been invaluable.
Another question... I seems that our building is to be design with ultimate flexibility. It may very well be a night club on one evening, a public performance center on another, and a dance studio duting the day. Does anyone know of buildings that successfully address the issues of multi-use plus nightclub uses? I'm especially interested in how to size the main dance floor which needs to fit say 500 people dancing, sitting, or even 50 people waltzing! I want it to feel full when its a nightclub, but not crowded. There will be at least one smaller room. Should the smaller room be designed so that it can open up into a bigger space or acoustically insulated so there can be two types of music happening at once? Has anyoneone had success this a movable accoustic partition?

[Lizzy]

Thanks, very helpful. Its looking positive ... the project might go forward.

[SoundTech]

Hi Lizzy,
Welcome and Congrats on your new venture. My name is Willis and i represent Infinite Audio Systems based out of Miami Florida. We are a design and installation of some of the finest audio and lighting systems in the country. Please check out our website at www.goinfinite.com You can reach me at 859-433-7479 anytime day or night. Hope to hear from you soon!!!!