PARENT PAGE
This page is to all parents/teachers/administrators/officials that have heard about us, but aren’t sure what we are or are concerned about their teenagers coming to one of our events:
We have been meaning to do this for some time, but always got sidetracked or busy. So we are glad we finally are able to create this page, and write this letter to all concerned parents/teachers/administrators/officials that have contacted us over the years seeking to learn more about what we do and how we do it. Unfortunately, due to the situation of being totally consumed with organizing events and finding locations to do those events, it becomes extremely difficult to explain the exact same thing in the exact same way to everyone who asks over and over again. So this is our attempt to broadly answer questions about us, so that, most importantly, parents, feel safe and secure allowing their teenagers to come to our events without worry.
When most parents hear “nightclub” they immediately think bad things, and this is because universally nightclubs have been, and still are, portrayed as “bad” or have some relation to unlawful activity in order to stay in business. THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE; otherwise there wouldn’t be so many nightclubs both here in Minnesota, and across the country. Nevertheless certain clubs have gotten horrible press coverage, and for good reason. Bad stuff has happened, and thus people in general, have a negative view of every nightclub and “everything nightclubby”, no matter if they are completely on the “up and up”. So by writing this paragraph we wanted to ACKNOWLEDGE THAT FACT, as a way to show that we completely understand those parents concerns, and we want to help alleviate them.
In the shortest possible way of explaining how we came to be, we originally created ourselves, in essence, as a direct result of other teenage nightclubs in the Twin Cities as well as the declining number of dances occurring in most high schools.
At the time (2008) our group had been throwing tons of house parties because people would come to those instead of school dances and we got stellar attendance, but as everyone knows, there tends to be NO CONTROL at large house parties. As a result people can literally do whatever they want. Most of our group didn’t drink, yet there was always alcohol. None of us did drugs, yet we always felt they were present. None of us were about “hooking up” we all just wanted to have fun and socialize. However, due to the lack of control we always felt worried and thus didn’t have a great time ourselves. In addition to this, at around the same time, some (not all) teenage nightclubs were “extremely loose” they didn’t have a dress code whatsoever, they didn’t verify age, they allowed girls to wear next to nothing, they had extremely loose rules, they basically allowed teenagers to do whatever they wanted.
This was a big distinction between us, and what we now call our competition. Because they wanted to MAKE AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE THEY ALLOWED ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING TO HAPPEN (a typical view of a nightclub), whereas WE WANTED TO RUN CLEAN, SAFE, ORDERLY, CONTROLLED, FUN, SUCCESSFUL EVENTS. Overall, our events tend to be “done at the cheapest possible price that still gives the ultimate experience”. As a result this ends up making it so we almost always break even. The reason we have continued so long is because we LOVE WHAT WE DO, and think of it as a public service more than a business. A place kids can go socialize, dance, and just have a good time, in a controlled, safe environment.
So essentially, in the briefest way of explaining it, we shifted our house party promoting and experience to a club location that was failing, and thus was willing to do teenage events on an off night, and later a Saturday night. The major difference between us and the competitors was that we instilled a dress code that forced people to do simple things like: wear clothes, pull up their pants, not wear chains, not wear hats, not have beat up or gang affiliated clothing. In general we made Stargate (the nightclub we started at) CLASSY AND CLEAN (as much as we could) in the time span of one week. Before we took over it was extremely, (and we mean extremely) ghetto, and absolutely no suburban kids came. Within one week that flipped around. We probably turned away 300-400 kids each night, that didn’t meet those basic requirements, during those first few weeks. But by simply altering the dress code and establishing a set of rules we cut down on most of the negative aspects that are associated with nightclubs.
Over that following year after we were illegally forced out of Stargate due to a change of ownership, instead of quitting, we found an event center next to the uofm (which was ideal for us, since so many of us went to school there), and started doing our events at that new location. We are a “dance club” after all so we hoped that an event center would work, and it did, sortof. But we had to put in a ridiculous amount of work to make it run. Which was not conducive or frankly healthy to many of us, in the long run. Once our contract was up at the end of the summer. We took a break and decided that weekly events, in general, were too hard to do in the current market. But we still wanted to do our Halloween event since the previous year we created a haunted maze that lead to a huge costume party and everyone loved and talked about it for nearly a month afterwards. (It was tons of work and it didn’t benefit us financially at all, but basically the teenagers loved it, and we didn’t want to let them down). So we found a new event center/nightclub in Burnsville and started doing events once per month, instead of once per week. Our strict rules relaxed somewhat over those first few events, and as a result we had a few fights. When those happened we quickly reinstated our guidelines, and after New Years we never had a fight (which is absolutely amazing, even to us).
That summer saw a complete re-organization of our … group (we hate to call it a company since we really don’t make much money, and its more a “labor of love”) which resulted in most of us continuing in Party Posse Productions (our company) but some of the group leaving to form their own company or simply quit doing stuff altogether due to the lack of financial reward.
So we restructured during that Summer to basically what we are now. And that restructuring has allowed us, in general, to provide an EVEN SAFER, BETTER EXPERINCE, for our guests. Which is why since we restructured any small issues that were present before dropped to next to nothing.
Our first event after the restructuring was also our first foam party which drew a record crowd for us. We did it again three weeks later and blew our first record out of the water. And even though we relaxed the dress code and allowed people to wear swim suits, and their could have been lots of problems, we had excellent security and absolutely nothing bad happened. This lead us to do another foam party down the street at Bogarts in Apple Valley, before winter hit. Then during the following summer we did more foam parties then anyone had ever done before in Minnesota. Frankly, each one is extremely expensive to put on, but it allows the teenagers that might not be able to go on a big trip down to Florida, Texas, or Mexico, to still get that Spring Break experience at some level.
With the closing of Olmeca (our main venue) due to the city tearing down the entire complex and placing retirement homes there, we were left without a home and thus up until now we have been jumping back and forth between nightclubs and event centers (along with other things) and doing events whenever they had open dates. Its been hard and difficult to even pull off, but WE LOVE DOING THE ACTUAL EVENTS, so we have kept at it.
We fully admit, at some venues things haven’t run as smoothly or as orderly as we have wanted, but nevertheless we have still had extremely successful Foam Parties, our annual Halloween Party, and Winter Break events. And due to the response we got from everyone (which we tend to get a lot because of Facebook and social networks, that allow for easy communication) it seemed like everyone enjoyed it.
And that essentially brings us to now. THE BOTTOM LINE is that our group (the people behind every Synergy event since we began almost 4 years ago now) are a group of 20-30 High School and College kids that felt that house parties were too uncontrolled, school dances were extremely limited in both how many there were and how people were allowed to dance, and that while high schools were to restrictive, other teenage clubs went the totally opposite direction, and allowed things that we felt weren’t in the best interest of a teenager. SO WE HAVE STRIVED TO PROVIDE THE “HAPPY MEDIUM”.
WE HAVE TRIED TO OPERATE OUR EVENT WITH CLASS (excluding our summer Foam Parties), EXCELLENT SECURITY (so nothing happens), GREAT THEMES (so its not just a dance, but rather an all inclusive event such as a Beach Bash or Winter Wonderland) and an overall objective to RUN THE BEST POSSIBLE EVENT REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH MONEY WE MAKE OR LOOSE.
There are always naysayers that absolutely hate clubs. Such as parents that are extremely religious or conservative that simply think what we do is simply bad. However, what is funny about that, is that most of our group is actually religious (to some aspect) and conservative about many of the “club aspects” (to some degree) and both of those ideologies have allowed us to strike (what we think is) an EXCELLENT BALANCE between allowing kids to party and have fun, without the negative elements that are associated with most clubs.
OUR GOAL is to provide a fun, safe, controlled event for all attendants, at the lowest possible cost, without sacrificing the overall experience. We want teenagers to be able to come to a party that they know wont have drinking or drugs and that they feel safe at, and socialize, dance, party, have fun with other teenagers from all around the metro.
Over the years we have had a lot of concerned calls, messages, texts, etc. about our events. We have tried to answer them all, but since this is essentially a part time gig for all of us and there’s few people to man the phones, its incredibly difficult to reassure every parent or concerned person.
So if your teenager is thinking of coming to one of our events, and you are concerned, please realize that we do everything we can to make sure it runs smoothly. We over think and over plan, due to what has happened at other nightclubs, and we do absolutely everything in our power to prevent any sort of issue before it starts. Over the past year we have really started to view this entire endeavor more as a public service rather then a business.
So we aren’t trying to convince anyone to think one way or another, and we realize that no matter what we say some parents will always have a negative impression of clubs, however, we are trying to reassure everyone that OUR EVENTS ARE SAFE, CONTROLLED, WELL RUN, AND WELL ORGANIZED. Moreover we have a very good track record over the course of the nearly 100 events we have done for over nearly 4 years now.
So hopefully this page and write-up reassures you. We love what we do and if we had more support and less concern by parents, city officials, school administrators, etc. we could do it all even better. We have tried to establish positive relationships with all the high schools, but in most cases haven’t gotten very far. But if we had that support we could easily make our events bigger and better. Unfortunately we know other clubs have ruined all of this for us, and there will probably always be a negative stigma around any teenage club events, however, we continue to strive to prove that perception wrong.
Thank you for your interest and concern about your child’s well being. And we all truly hope that you give at least one of our events a chance before condemning us too, as I have seen so many parents do, before even allowing their child to go to one event.
Nothing ever runs perfect, but our actions speak louder then this write-up, and although there have been minor issues we have a very good track record over nearly 100 events now, and we do everything in our power to both continue that trend and improve on the quality of our events.
Hopefully this helps answer some questions you may have had, and also explains a little bit about us and what we are all about. We really want to be a public institution on some level so that all teenagers in the entire area have an outlet and a place where they can go dance, socialize, and party and know they are safe. We do what we can to be that place by being a nightclub without all the bad elements. So if you are still concerned all we can say is that we hope you give us a chance.
Thank you from everyone involved with Synergy Dance Club, Party Posse Productions, and all associated venues and events.
We have been meaning to do this for some time, but always got sidetracked or busy. So we are glad we finally are able to create this page, and write this letter to all concerned parents/teachers/administrators/officials that have contacted us over the years seeking to learn more about what we do and how we do it. Unfortunately, due to the situation of being totally consumed with organizing events and finding locations to do those events, it becomes extremely difficult to explain the exact same thing in the exact same way to everyone who asks over and over again. So this is our attempt to broadly answer questions about us, so that, most importantly, parents, feel safe and secure allowing their teenagers to come to our events without worry.
When most parents hear “nightclub” they immediately think bad things, and this is because universally nightclubs have been, and still are, portrayed as “bad” or have some relation to unlawful activity in order to stay in business. THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE; otherwise there wouldn’t be so many nightclubs both here in Minnesota, and across the country. Nevertheless certain clubs have gotten horrible press coverage, and for good reason. Bad stuff has happened, and thus people in general, have a negative view of every nightclub and “everything nightclubby”, no matter if they are completely on the “up and up”. So by writing this paragraph we wanted to ACKNOWLEDGE THAT FACT, as a way to show that we completely understand those parents concerns, and we want to help alleviate them.
In the shortest possible way of explaining how we came to be, we originally created ourselves, in essence, as a direct result of other teenage nightclubs in the Twin Cities as well as the declining number of dances occurring in most high schools.
At the time (2008) our group had been throwing tons of house parties because people would come to those instead of school dances and we got stellar attendance, but as everyone knows, there tends to be NO CONTROL at large house parties. As a result people can literally do whatever they want. Most of our group didn’t drink, yet there was always alcohol. None of us did drugs, yet we always felt they were present. None of us were about “hooking up” we all just wanted to have fun and socialize. However, due to the lack of control we always felt worried and thus didn’t have a great time ourselves. In addition to this, at around the same time, some (not all) teenage nightclubs were “extremely loose” they didn’t have a dress code whatsoever, they didn’t verify age, they allowed girls to wear next to nothing, they had extremely loose rules, they basically allowed teenagers to do whatever they wanted.
This was a big distinction between us, and what we now call our competition. Because they wanted to MAKE AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE THEY ALLOWED ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING TO HAPPEN (a typical view of a nightclub), whereas WE WANTED TO RUN CLEAN, SAFE, ORDERLY, CONTROLLED, FUN, SUCCESSFUL EVENTS. Overall, our events tend to be “done at the cheapest possible price that still gives the ultimate experience”. As a result this ends up making it so we almost always break even. The reason we have continued so long is because we LOVE WHAT WE DO, and think of it as a public service more than a business. A place kids can go socialize, dance, and just have a good time, in a controlled, safe environment.
So essentially, in the briefest way of explaining it, we shifted our house party promoting and experience to a club location that was failing, and thus was willing to do teenage events on an off night, and later a Saturday night. The major difference between us and the competitors was that we instilled a dress code that forced people to do simple things like: wear clothes, pull up their pants, not wear chains, not wear hats, not have beat up or gang affiliated clothing. In general we made Stargate (the nightclub we started at) CLASSY AND CLEAN (as much as we could) in the time span of one week. Before we took over it was extremely, (and we mean extremely) ghetto, and absolutely no suburban kids came. Within one week that flipped around. We probably turned away 300-400 kids each night, that didn’t meet those basic requirements, during those first few weeks. But by simply altering the dress code and establishing a set of rules we cut down on most of the negative aspects that are associated with nightclubs.
Over that following year after we were illegally forced out of Stargate due to a change of ownership, instead of quitting, we found an event center next to the uofm (which was ideal for us, since so many of us went to school there), and started doing our events at that new location. We are a “dance club” after all so we hoped that an event center would work, and it did, sortof. But we had to put in a ridiculous amount of work to make it run. Which was not conducive or frankly healthy to many of us, in the long run. Once our contract was up at the end of the summer. We took a break and decided that weekly events, in general, were too hard to do in the current market. But we still wanted to do our Halloween event since the previous year we created a haunted maze that lead to a huge costume party and everyone loved and talked about it for nearly a month afterwards. (It was tons of work and it didn’t benefit us financially at all, but basically the teenagers loved it, and we didn’t want to let them down). So we found a new event center/nightclub in Burnsville and started doing events once per month, instead of once per week. Our strict rules relaxed somewhat over those first few events, and as a result we had a few fights. When those happened we quickly reinstated our guidelines, and after New Years we never had a fight (which is absolutely amazing, even to us).
That summer saw a complete re-organization of our … group (we hate to call it a company since we really don’t make much money, and its more a “labor of love”) which resulted in most of us continuing in Party Posse Productions (our company) but some of the group leaving to form their own company or simply quit doing stuff altogether due to the lack of financial reward.
So we restructured during that Summer to basically what we are now. And that restructuring has allowed us, in general, to provide an EVEN SAFER, BETTER EXPERINCE, for our guests. Which is why since we restructured any small issues that were present before dropped to next to nothing.
Our first event after the restructuring was also our first foam party which drew a record crowd for us. We did it again three weeks later and blew our first record out of the water. And even though we relaxed the dress code and allowed people to wear swim suits, and their could have been lots of problems, we had excellent security and absolutely nothing bad happened. This lead us to do another foam party down the street at Bogarts in Apple Valley, before winter hit. Then during the following summer we did more foam parties then anyone had ever done before in Minnesota. Frankly, each one is extremely expensive to put on, but it allows the teenagers that might not be able to go on a big trip down to Florida, Texas, or Mexico, to still get that Spring Break experience at some level.
With the closing of Olmeca (our main venue) due to the city tearing down the entire complex and placing retirement homes there, we were left without a home and thus up until now we have been jumping back and forth between nightclubs and event centers (along with other things) and doing events whenever they had open dates. Its been hard and difficult to even pull off, but WE LOVE DOING THE ACTUAL EVENTS, so we have kept at it.
We fully admit, at some venues things haven’t run as smoothly or as orderly as we have wanted, but nevertheless we have still had extremely successful Foam Parties, our annual Halloween Party, and Winter Break events. And due to the response we got from everyone (which we tend to get a lot because of Facebook and social networks, that allow for easy communication) it seemed like everyone enjoyed it.
And that essentially brings us to now. THE BOTTOM LINE is that our group (the people behind every Synergy event since we began almost 4 years ago now) are a group of 20-30 High School and College kids that felt that house parties were too uncontrolled, school dances were extremely limited in both how many there were and how people were allowed to dance, and that while high schools were to restrictive, other teenage clubs went the totally opposite direction, and allowed things that we felt weren’t in the best interest of a teenager. SO WE HAVE STRIVED TO PROVIDE THE “HAPPY MEDIUM”.
WE HAVE TRIED TO OPERATE OUR EVENT WITH CLASS (excluding our summer Foam Parties), EXCELLENT SECURITY (so nothing happens), GREAT THEMES (so its not just a dance, but rather an all inclusive event such as a Beach Bash or Winter Wonderland) and an overall objective to RUN THE BEST POSSIBLE EVENT REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH MONEY WE MAKE OR LOOSE.
There are always naysayers that absolutely hate clubs. Such as parents that are extremely religious or conservative that simply think what we do is simply bad. However, what is funny about that, is that most of our group is actually religious (to some aspect) and conservative about many of the “club aspects” (to some degree) and both of those ideologies have allowed us to strike (what we think is) an EXCELLENT BALANCE between allowing kids to party and have fun, without the negative elements that are associated with most clubs.
OUR GOAL is to provide a fun, safe, controlled event for all attendants, at the lowest possible cost, without sacrificing the overall experience. We want teenagers to be able to come to a party that they know wont have drinking or drugs and that they feel safe at, and socialize, dance, party, have fun with other teenagers from all around the metro.
Over the years we have had a lot of concerned calls, messages, texts, etc. about our events. We have tried to answer them all, but since this is essentially a part time gig for all of us and there’s few people to man the phones, its incredibly difficult to reassure every parent or concerned person.
So if your teenager is thinking of coming to one of our events, and you are concerned, please realize that we do everything we can to make sure it runs smoothly. We over think and over plan, due to what has happened at other nightclubs, and we do absolutely everything in our power to prevent any sort of issue before it starts. Over the past year we have really started to view this entire endeavor more as a public service rather then a business.
So we aren’t trying to convince anyone to think one way or another, and we realize that no matter what we say some parents will always have a negative impression of clubs, however, we are trying to reassure everyone that OUR EVENTS ARE SAFE, CONTROLLED, WELL RUN, AND WELL ORGANIZED. Moreover we have a very good track record over the course of the nearly 100 events we have done for over nearly 4 years now.
So hopefully this page and write-up reassures you. We love what we do and if we had more support and less concern by parents, city officials, school administrators, etc. we could do it all even better. We have tried to establish positive relationships with all the high schools, but in most cases haven’t gotten very far. But if we had that support we could easily make our events bigger and better. Unfortunately we know other clubs have ruined all of this for us, and there will probably always be a negative stigma around any teenage club events, however, we continue to strive to prove that perception wrong.
Thank you for your interest and concern about your child’s well being. And we all truly hope that you give at least one of our events a chance before condemning us too, as I have seen so many parents do, before even allowing their child to go to one event.
Nothing ever runs perfect, but our actions speak louder then this write-up, and although there have been minor issues we have a very good track record over nearly 100 events now, and we do everything in our power to both continue that trend and improve on the quality of our events.
Hopefully this helps answer some questions you may have had, and also explains a little bit about us and what we are all about. We really want to be a public institution on some level so that all teenagers in the entire area have an outlet and a place where they can go dance, socialize, and party and know they are safe. We do what we can to be that place by being a nightclub without all the bad elements. So if you are still concerned all we can say is that we hope you give us a chance.
Thank you from everyone involved with Synergy Dance Club, Party Posse Productions, and all associated venues and events.
