Okay, now I'm pissed.

I thought I would try out the Jive Bar on a Monday, for no other reason than I was in London and it would be easy for me to get to.

Whilst the night was generally Okay, I wasn't overwhelemed, perhaps not even whelmed. Let's put it this way, better than Ashtons, not a patch on Fulham or the Hippodrome.

I digress, the reason I'm pissed is that I paid full price to get in. "What's the big deal?" you might say, well, it was mentioned to me on the night by a firend that she had got in for free and that she had been sent several free entry passes. It turns out, another friend of hers had as well.

After asking around, it appears that a lot of people have been getting free passess to Ceroc venues over December and January. Now, I've mentioned the free ticket thing before, but then I had been sent a free pass on a membership ID that I hadn't been using, the theory being that I would then use it and Ceroc would know I was still an active member.

This is different.

I only canvassed a few people, but this is what I found:

One friend has received free tickets amounting to 28 free nights in Dec and Jan. I'm pretty certain he can't get to all those free nights, unless it's the lesson in one and then across town for freestyle in another.

For the grand total of three people I spoke to (one male two female), who have been getting free passes, they got on average 18 free passes over December and Januaray. (The actual breakdown was 28, 10, 16. Average = 18)

Here's the thing, if we estimate that Ceroc London has perhaps 20,000 active members on their database (I have no idea what the actual number is, it could be more it could be less), then we could make a quick assumption that for each person on that list, Ceroc are sending out 18 free passes. So that would be 18 x 20,000 = 360,000 free passes.

Well, we know that isn't really the case, because I didn't get any, so let's assume that only one person in five is getting the free passes, that makes it 72,000 free passes over the last two months that have been sent out.

If we bring it down to January, then 36,000 free nights have been given out and I'm pissed because I've been paying.

How many nights are there in a week in London? 10, 12, 15, 20?

If its 20 in a week that would be 80 classes in a month and 36,000 / 80 = 450 free passes, per venue, PER NIGHT!!! For crying out load.

We can play with the numbers all we want and it is still unbelievable. Half the assumed number of members on the database to 10,000 and it's still 225 free passes, per venue per night. If we assume 10,000 members and 40 classes a week in London, then we still only bring the number down to 112 free passes, per venue, per night.

Halve the database numbers again to 5,000 and it is still 66 free passes per night. How many people go to the London venue you go to? That would mean half of the dancers at Ashtons or Fulham wouldn't be paying, everyone twice over at O2 ;-)

So, other than me, is ANYONE actually paying to attend a Ceroc London night anywhere in the month of January?

Is this a good marketing tool? Or is it for other reasons?

If it's a good marketing tool, then it's really pissed me off as I resent paying £8 a night when large numbers of others pay nothing. If they are doing this for other reasons then what can those reasons possibly be? There is only Jive Nation and Jango in Central London and they aren't exactly a big threat to Ceroc are they?

Am I being paranoid? Should I hold back on the caffeine?

My final thought is that the members of this forum, as we know, are not representative of the general Ceroc going population, so we may not necessarily fall into the targeted demographic for the free passes. However, it would still be interesting to know just how many of the forum members are getting free passes, just to see how pissed off I should be (as well as all other member who are not getting freebies)

PS. I think my Math is correct, but someone please check ;-)