Dancer Archive
Thread: How to make money as a dancer
[the following is tongue-in-cheek, but mirrors my experience pretty closely]...
First, this guide is for the ladies. Gentlemen, I don't know what you need to do as, last time I checked, I am not one of you.
Ladies, there are two important aspects to making money: income and expenses.
Let's talk about expenses first. There are some important rules to follow:
a. Never pay for clothing. That iswhat God made men for.
b. Never pay for anything else either. God made a lot of men and it is our duty to let each one of them feel priveledged and useful by letting them buyus things. Consider it your holy duty.
c. It is allowable to pay for travel faire, but it is preferable to let your escort buy your ticket. You do take an escort with you when you travel, don't you?
Careful application of these rules will bring your expenses down to nearly zero. This allows your bank account to swell. Remember to save for your old age dears, you won't have your looks forever.
Now, let us turn to income. Many dancers complain that customers don't tip or tip poorly. While it will always be true that the brutes in the audience will not tip, the following rules will soon have the money flowing in like water.
1. Dress nicely. I recommend formal wear, although party dresses are acceptable too. Avoid showing too much skin, although you should have a revealing outfit or two for times when this is called for. Unless you are a Twilek, throw your Revealing Fleshwrap away as it does not look as good on you as you think it does. Customers appreciate it when a woman dresses well and will tip better if you do.
2. Have an extensive wardrobe (but remember, don't pay for it!). You should have a large number of outfits to wear to fit the occaision. However, do establish a theme to your clothing so that each piece is easily identified as being uniquely you. Try to avoid looking like every other dancer (this can be trying at times). Change outfits during your show (use Smoke Bomb to hide the change if you have it). Some customers will ask for a fashion show. Do so! It is fun and these customers will often tip well.
3. Be fun, engaging, witty, charming, mysterious, flirtatous, daringand a little fiesty. More than anything else, your attitude is what will bring in the tips. The more fun you are having, the more fun the clients are having and the looser the purse strings will be.
4. Practice at flirting. It is a delicate art and is very fun when done well. By all means, avoid being tawdry or blatant. Done well, flirting will leave the client not quite certain if you are being serious or not, believing not but hoping so. You are aiming for an exquisite tension between you two. This builds loyal and generous customers quickly.
5. By all means flirt with all the women that come into the cantina! The nearby men enjoy it and the women will be surprised and pleased. You can often receive tips from everyone.
6. If any medics sit in the bar and heal you for more than a short time, make sure to tip them. Most will be surprised that you do so and many will immediately return your tip. Often I hear embarassed comments about how I am providing "free XP" to them, despite that fact that they are doing a service for me and spending resources in the process. Many times these medics will end up tipping you!
7. Never refuse a gift. It is rude to do so. Always say thank you. Remember that a gift is a gift and does not create any obligation for you.
8. Above all, do not sell lapdances, 'private shows' or the such. While these may pay well, they take you away from the clients and make it very difficult to remain fun, engaging, witty, charming, mysterious, flirtatous and daring. You are aiming for high-volume, reliableincome and won't get itif you just become a stripper or worse.
9. Try to avoid using /tells when talking to clients. You can hardly be fun and witty if you appear silent to the majority of the patrons.
10. Never ask for tips. However, if you get a "/tell" that says "Sorry, the rest of my money is in the bank", it is acceptable to playful instruct how to do a bank tip. You will normally get a second tip as the client tries it out and there will be no hard feelings if you did it with a lighthearted touch.
11.Work only one or two cantinas. You want to get to know every single person that routinely comes through them. This will give you an enormous advantage in the end over itinerant dancers and the tips will rise for you over time as you take ownership of the bar.
Finally, a few tips for handling the bores in the crowd.
i. Many people, both entertainers and customers, will go AFK. Ignore them or make light fun of them.
ii. Some customers will pick fights in the bar. Ignore them too. Do cheer for the underdog regardless of faction.
iii. Large pets will often appear in the bar. Do not yell at the handlers. Instead, engage them for a moment, let them feel good about themselves and then kindly ask them to put the pets away. If the handlers think they are making a joke, let them know you appreciate it (even if you don't). Play along for a moment or two and they will comply with your wishes in the end.
iv. Some children will come in and try to disrupt things with rude and unfunny jokes. You can try touse the same technique as you do for the creature handlers. This will not always work and you may need to /addignore them. But, spend as little time as possible on these children.
v. Show respect to everyone, even if you kid them or they are disrespectful to you. In the end you will not need to ever defend yourself as there will be many who will do it for you.
By carefully following these rules, you should have several hundred thousand credits by the time you reach master. Then the only problem will be trying to find something to spend them on!
When I first started reading this thread I thought it was actually a joke, but as I went on I saw you were actually serious lol. At that point I decided not to reply, but then the more I read the more I just had to reply. First off you tell the girls not to buy their own things? Wheres the pride in that? Thats just lazy and greedy. Also, not every dancer has a guy out there who will buy her a 50k wardrobe and pay for all her travels and whatnots. Secondly, keep your prudish little opinions about twi'leks wearing felshwraps out of it. People have their own opinions of who looks good in what, and if a fat ugly twilek or mon cal orwhatever elsecomes into the cantina wearing underwear on her head, why grief about it? If shes happy let her be. Some of your points arent bad, but overall your moral of the story seemed to be "be a greedy bi**h, take everything you can get from other people, and put on a phony flirt show with everyone so theyll think your nice and give you money"
A better way to make money as a dancer: Be yourself, have fun, and take up another profession such as crafting or combat (thats what we have all those skill points for afterall), sell stuff or do missions. If that dosent intrest you, take up imagine design, Im sure people will pay at least 1k creds for a good makeover. Dont rely on men to coast through life, by doing that your not respecting yourself or other people, no one likes a mooch.
[ooc]
No, you were correct to start with Ruby. It is a joke (see the tongue-in-cheek comment at the top).
Gwen would think it was serious, but that is her nature. Think of the post as mostly in-character. But, yes, it is a joke. Thereare also some useful tips floating around inside it.
Sorry if you were offended hun. Gwen is a bit imperious at times. 
As for greedy? Gwen is never greedy, but the title is "how to make money", so perhaps it came off that way.
That's the problem with writing: it can be so hard to get the tone just right.
Nancy - writing for Gwen
Olvenskol wrote:
Nancy - writing for Gwen
Lithium: It's not just for batteries, anymore 
I should point out a few things.
1. I have to agree, no one but skinny female twi'leks look good in fleshwraps. If you feel liberated, and want to wear one, you should know you look awful in it (unless you're a skinny female twi'lek). I would never be so crass as to point out that you look awful, but trust me, you do.
2. It's entirely possible for men to buy you your entire wardrobe, and your tickets offplanet. All you have to do most times is ask nicely. In real life, you often have to put out, which you don't have to do in SWG.
3. Putting on a phony flirt show is a good idea, as it will get you things you might otherwise not be able to afford without running missions or something. See number 2 above.
4. Being greedy does not make you a b*tch. Being judgemental does.
5. There's nothing wrong with being nice to everyone. If they want to reward you for being especially nice, then more power to them.
I'd like to point out to the male dancers here that after testing to not try and follow this under any curcomstance...
1: no we do not look good in fleshwrap =p
2: don't try and get one of the female customers to pay for your clothes, travel expences ect. you are likely to get alot of angry glares as you do.
3: the flirting is fun and can turn a bad tip into a good tip.. but be careful out there men.. don't try and turn the flirting advice given here around to fit us, most of the male orriented customers in the cantina, are likely to suddenly be in the oppesit end of the cantina, when you flirt with them.. Or that nice medic that was healing you before suddenly being nowhere in sight.
(( on a side note I had great fun trying this as a male dancer, and the whole group was laughing so hard they forgot to flurish when they saw the customers reactions ^.^ ))
(in character)
What you describe works. It is true. You can really leech off poor men, try to create hopes and expectations in them, make them pay for you. Then walk away. Flirt with everybody. But just flirt, confuse them, make them hope for more than you give. You make people pay you because theythink that maybeyou will make them happy. But in the end you don't.
Some people said I have no pride or no honor because I go with the men, because I am cheap, giving away myself. Maybe I am, I don't know. Others said that I am greedy, asking for money before I providespecial services. But I tell you what:Flirting with men, using them, creating false expectations is something that I could never do. If a man or a woman is nice to me giving me a big tip or many presents, thenI also want to make the person happy.
Yes, you said you should not provide lap dances or personal services because they draw you away from the crowd, the big revenue stream. But I do this and I do it with pride. Maybe there is a way to make big money fast by just teasing and collecting the money. I would feel bad and I would feel sorry for the people who gave me those presents, full of hope, yet disappointed in the end. Milking the hungry, the desperate, yet not satisfy their need? No.
It is true that I need the money, much money. This is why I am working hard, giving everything I can give. Sometimes even more than I bare to remember. I never say "I love you" because it would not be fair. But if Iget paid to becyberian angel I will becyberian angel and I won't run away before my patron is happy. And if I see that smile on his face and that happiness in his eyes Ifeel proud, very proud and forget what other people might think about me. And I won't have leeched on the men, because mypatron will have received something from me, something well worth his money :-)
"2. It's entirely possible for men to buy you your entire wardrobe, and your tickets offplanet. All you have to do most times is ask nicely. In real life, you often have to put out, which you don't have to do in SWG."
You don't have to put out in real life either. If you merelyask nicely for stuff, the guy will usually assume that you might put out. Guys are stupid (and one-track-minded)that way. Of course, when you DON'T put out, the guy might be annoyed (because he may haveassumedthat your requestcontained an implicit agreement containing a 'put out'clause - which it didn't).
Suddenly, I'm very glad I'm a male dancer. I feel very bad for the females out there who still have dignity but are assumed to be something they're not.
This thread highlights one very big reason why I stay away from cantinas now.
- J
(in character)
Yes, Pickles. It is always a problem that people might confuse you with somebody or something that you are not. I have this problem too. There are some exotic dancers who will ask for money again and again, then turn to the next patron when they emptied the pockets of the first patron. How do people know that I will really stay with them and provide them with good service after they pay me the service fee? Maybe after they met some bad girls they don't buy my service because they are afraid they get cheated again.
But don't worry, please keep visiting the cantina. There are also many nice dancers and musicians. Just don't fall in love too quickly if a cantina dancer flirts with you. And maybe ask what she really wants or feels for you before you go with her to the shopping mall :-)
Heh, the first part of the list sounds like a pamphlet for the "modern" woman in the 50s.
But it was quite humorous. It's a bit incongruous because it's so light-hearted and then moves into more serious (and in many cases, valid) suggestions.
The first part was definitely worth the laugh, though.
"I read this thread and it just makes me sad. How did it all come down to this? When did the noble profession of dancer get reduced to flesh peddling and focused on separating people from their wallets?"
At the precise moment that the developers decided that the best way for dancers to make money was through tips. I've said it before, and no doubt I'll say it again - the only dancers I know ofwho work for tips are strippers. This gives players a false perception,and that perception is wholly derived from the tip system. This is a big problem in the game. The only way dancers are ever to be treated seriously by other players is if they charge per gig, like real dancers do. Until then, we'll always be seen as the game equivalent of pole dancers.