eProbe | Nightclubs a thing of the past? - Ribbie Chung plans comeback, says there is still hope

Cactus, Asylum, Quad, Mirage, Impulse, Privilege, Pure Plush, and Famous are all nightclubs that were, at one point in time, popular in their own right, adding to the vibrant nightlife that existed in the early ’90s to 2000s.

But over time, each eventually faded, and there is not much left today to tell the tale of ‘club life’ in Jamaica.

This week, eProbe had a sit-down with Brian ‘Ribbie’ Chung, who was responsible for three nightclubs out of the lot, as he weighs in on nightclubs in Jamaica, their rise and fall, and what it would take to erect a new nightclub in Kingston.

His experience

Ribbie, who had been a promoter back in the ’80s (he tells eProbe that he started the concept of long weekend parties in Ocho Rios), made his transition into the nightclub business in the early ’90s, with the Cactus nightclub, located in Portmore, St Catherine, before moving on to establishing the Asylum nightclub along the Knutsford Boulevard hip strip in New Kingston, and then the Quad nightclub (the first multilevel club in Jamaica), just around the corner on Trinidad Terrace.

He operated these nightclubs for around 12 years each, before deciding to give the business a break.

But for a man who has offered much to local entertainment nightlife in excess of 30 years, Ribbie will tell you that there has to be a special love for the business in order to be successful.

“You have to have the love of it, and I had the love for it. People will say to me, ‘I want to do what you do’, and I say ‘sure … can you go out every night and drink? I enjoy doing that. Then they say ‘oh no’. Then I say, ‘do you enjoy going to parties’? And they will say ‘yea’. Well, I go to at least four parties a week. Can you manage that? ‘Oh no’. So I say look, you have to enjoy doing what you love doing. Don’t look at other people. So if you like baking, be the best baker; if you like keeping parties, be the best promoter … be the best at whatever you choose,” he advised.

Ribbie, it seems, had a knack for jumping in and out of the nightclub business at just the right time, as he says there is a shelf life for nightclubs, though they may vary in different parts of the world.

“The nightclub business is an up-and-down business, you have to know when to get in and when to get out.”

So after doing 13 years with Cactus, another opportunity presented itself and according to Ribbie, “Cactus evolved into Asylum”.

“Once we started Asylum, it took off. Asylum was the club,” Ribbie said, even amid other competing clubs at the time, (special mention being made of the Mirage nightclub inside Sovereign Centre).

“It as ‘an exceptional club of its time, before its time. I dreamt that I would have owned it one day, but when it closed down, I approached the landlord, but they didn’t want another nightclub in the complex,” he recalled.

Ribbie was not deterred, however, as he would later establish the first multilevel nightclub in Jamaica and possibly in the Caribbean, as the Zen nightclub in Trinidad was opened around the same time period.

Ribbie did 12-year stints with the Asylum and Quad nightclubs before again opting out of the business.

The big club meltdown

“When we came out of Quad, there was a meltdown in the US, where all the big clubs started to die, based on the economy. We came out of it the right time. I used to go to the Nightclub and Bar Convention in Las Vegas every year, where we get to meet a lot of big owners in the business, and I would see and hear what was happening with the big clubs in the States, because that is where all the suppliers are. So because of the recession, things started to crunch, and people no longer had that disposable income. Therefore, you not getting people coming out as much, so you found that all of the big clubs all over the world, including Jamaica, crunched.

“If you understand club business, internationally and in the States (US) especially … most nightclubs, especially the American clubs, they don’t last for more than two years, three the max. They might close down and reopen under a different name, but they rarely go longer than three years. But in Jamaica we have a little longer shelf life,” Ribbie said.

And for the longevity to work, Ribbie’s recipe was to refurbish his nightclubs every three years, giving each of them a fresh look and feel each time.

But Ribbie says club life can be hard work. “It’s a continuous work, and your promotional team always have to be thinking up different themes for the different nights – Cactus had five nights, Asylum surpassed with six.”

Clubs open and clubs fail

And although Jamaica might have been the exception to the rule where a club’s shelf life is concerned, Ribbie warns that it’s not as simple as it looks, you have to actually understand the business of it all.

“You have a lot of people who come and see people doing business and say, ‘oh, yea, that’s a good idea, I have some money, let’s do it.’ But they don’t understand the back end of the business. So other clubs did open, and a lot of clubs failed.”

Also, given the current entertainment climate and landscape, Ribbie says, “ now, spaces have run out in terms of Kingston, where it is convenient to get an enclosed space. And if you do get a space in like New Kingston, rents now, or the maintenance for a property, has skyrocketed. So if you not opening that club for a minimum of three nights, you’re losing money. If you go with more nights, you’ll make some money.”

New businesses

Now, Ribbie, along with business partners Don Creary and Kamal Bankay, are enjoying another aspect of nightlife with the establishment of the Ribbiz Ultra Lounge (in Barbican – now six years old) and Ribbiz Ocean Lounge (along the Kingston waterfront – now two years old).

But he says they are set to open a third Ribbiz location later this year, on the top floor of a new plaza on Constant Spring Road, that he says has been in the making for the past 12 years.

And yes, the ‘club master’ is getting set to once again stamp his presence on nightlife entertainment, as the new Ribbiz, in addition to the ultra lounge, will also boast “an ultra-mod nightclub and a rooftop bar, with an awesome view,” so it is indeed something to look forward to.

And Ribbie, I am sure, is confident of success, as he says, “I have gone through roughly three decades of entertainment, seeing people come, seeing people go, and I think I understand the business now and paid my dues. I have learnt a lot, opened and closed a lot of clubs, and I understand what it takes in terms of running a good nightclub.”