Paid to party

LAS VEGAS -- Three years ago, as Paris Hilton was about to turn 24, the celebutante got a sense of her worth to the nightclub industry in Las Vegas.

She had celebrated her previous three birthdays at Light, the Bellagio hotel-casino nightclub run by the Light Group. But for her 24th, another company swooped in with an offer that trumped the standard private jet to and from L.A., a free stay at a luxury suite, a sumptuous dinner and, of course, free booze.

The hotel heiress would get a big paycheck -- Light was told $200,000 -- just to party, but it had to be at PURE, a rival nightclub at Caesars Palace run by the PURE Management Group.

Her people let the Light Group know that their former deal was off.

"We said, 'OK, well listen, we're not here to tell you not to make money,'" said a former Light executive, who did not want to be identified.

Celebrities often make appearances and walk the red carpet as part of the deal for coming to a nightclub. In return for generating media coverage, they receive all sorts of free goodies, if not cash. For nightclub operators, it has become the standard way of getting their establishments known.

Besides buzz, it generates more patrons, more people willing to pay a $30 cover charge, $15 for a cocktail and $500 for a bottle of name-brand vodka or champagne.

"If you quantify that in terms of the amount of press they got off it, the press they got off it was priceless," the former executive said.

PURE was looking to re-create its formula with a grand-opening party for the LAX and Noir nightclubs at the Luxor hotel-casino Friday night hosted by Britney Spears. The company would not say how much it is paying her or whether Spears would perform. A revamped club, Blush at the Wynn hotel-casino, also was hoping to cash in by opening Friday.

It's the start of a raucous couple of weeks that include Labor Day weekend and the MTV Video Music Awards -- events that will attract plenty of partiers and paparazzi.

PURE managing partner Steve Davidovici said rumors of celebrity payments are exaggerated, and pointed to reports the group paid $250,000 to Spears eight months ago to host PURE's New Year's Eve countdown.

"That's a lot of sour grapes from other nightclubs, I guess," Davidovici said, while giving a tour of LAX, a plush club that resembles a chic 1920s opera house. "It's a third of those prices."

Even at that, the appearance fee, which works out to about $83,000, was money well spent, he said. The club sold a table next to Spears that night for $50,000, and some 3,000 revelers spent $250 each on tickets.

"If you look at (the celeb fee) from a monetary standpoint, it's significant, but not if you're taking in half a million dollars," he said.

PURE nightclub alone will generate about $53 million in revenue this year, while the company plans to gross more than $120 million from its 12 venues in Las Vegas and the Bahamas, he said.

Industry observers say celebrity-spotting is worth the price of admission.

"It's fun to be famous and rich. That's why people pay to get in and watch," said Lori Levine, the president of Flying Television, a talent-booking firm in New York.

"If you go to a club to see one of the 'It' girls, you take a photo on your phone and you'll have a story to tell for the rest of the summer."

The pay scale for a celebrity ranges from free drinks to thousands of dollars.

NBA stars command appearance fees from $5,000 to $30,000 and models can broker $2,500 to $25,000 "depending on whether she's been in Victoria's Secret or Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue," said Ryan Schinman, president of the entertainment consulting firm Platinum Rye Entertainment.

Both Light and PURE say building relationships with the stars and giving them great service is key to getting them to return.

Davidovici said it takes more than buzz to keep venues making money, though.

"You couldn't get 5,000 people three nights a week for three years to come if you didn't run a real establishment, if our doormen were rude to people and the cocktail waitresses weren't friendly," he said. "It's more about the regular customer than the celebrity, because that person is spending money."