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noizemagazine - noiZe Magazine Issue 60 May 2009 - Index

Tango Blues
Puts A New
Spin on Club
Promotion
Andrew Briskin manages the talent that makes you move
by Steve Weinstein
“There’s been a major change in
nightlife. The reason the Circuit
developed was so that there could
be places where people could go
and dance, where they could have
big events and feel safe and not
worry about being gay. With the
world in general more accepting—
especially the younger generation—
they don’t need that. They don’t
need to go to a gay bar to be gay.
Nightclubs aren’t for 21- to 30-year
olds going out to meet people. And
if they do go out, they don’t care
if it’s a gay bar. It’s really changed
the industry. It’s changing the way
we do business and our business
model.”
That’s how Andrew Briskin describes
the state of gay clublife in 2009. But
following the venerable Chinese
proverb, out of crisis comes opportunity,
that’s exactly what Briskin
has done. Using his stable of talent,
which includes luminaries like singer
Ultra Naté, J.P. Calderon, Candice
Cayne, Scotty K and Drew G, he’s
been able to persuade marketers
that the best way to get consumers
to respond positively is where they
play. So he’s been assembling packages
for corporate clients to go to
Clubland, where they sponsor special
nights. It’s a win-win: clubs get
talent and a night to promote; the
client gets his message out; and the rest
of us get to dance and be entertained.
“We are managers, but what we do
mostly is promotions, marketing and
branding,” Briskin explains. To cite an
example written about in these very
pages two issues ago, Briskin was the
mastermind behind the well-received
Music to Wear 2008 Tour, which paired
Andrew Christian’s sexy men’s underwear
with Kimberly S.’ driving beats. “We
packaged that,” Briskin says. “We put
his underwear on every gay boy. Clubs
that are lighter venues than Kimberly
would normally play could book her.”
Similarly, Tango Blues successfully
rebranded AtomicMen.com for a rollout
as a gay social networking site. In
this case, Briskin and his staff worked
as a more traditional marketing consultant.
They redid the site “to look like
Facebook more than Adam4Adam.”
Then they began holding Atomic Mixers
in bars and clubs around the country to
introduce AtomicMen to its target audience—plugged-in
gay consumers, the
early adaptors who would respond to
AtomicMen’s features like a mobile app.
Just looking at its roster of talent, it’s
easy to see that Tango Blues is focused
on the gay market. But not entirely;
Briskin has had corporate clients across
the board. Tango Blues is poised to
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