Rolling Stone: Private Clubs Are Turning Live Music Into a Membership Perk

Rolling Stone ran a feature today, “Inside the Exclusive Music Gigs at Private-Members Clubs,” by senior reporter Cheyenne Roundtree. It looks at how private clubs have started booking headline-level artists into rooms of a few hundred people. PCM founder Zack Bates is quoted in the piece as an industry expert on why clubs are putting money into live music, and why members will pay for it.

Here is a summary of what the article reports, followed by what it means for clubs outside Manhattan’s nightlife scene.

What Rolling Stone Found

The story opens in the basement of Chez Margaux in the Meatpacking District. Amsterdam house duo ANOTR played an unadvertised set there for about 250 members before heading to Cannes and Ibiza. The club runs private, ticketed shows about twice a quarter, and its past bookings include Rüfüs Du Sol and Black Coffee. It has also taken the format on the road, with a pop-up in St. Tropez and an après-ski set in Courchevel. Membership costs $4,000 a year plus a $3,000 initiation fee, and tickets to the ANOTR night reportedly reached $1,000.

Chez Margaux isn’t the only club doing this. The article also covers:

• Zero Bond opened Baby Disco at its Las Vegas outpost. On opening night Doja Cat performed and the Chainsmokers played to a few hundred people, a small fraction of the crowds they draw elsewhere on the Strip.
• Soho House is bringing its music festival to New York for the first time. Alanis Morissette headlines, and tickets are $450 for members and their guests.
• Aman New York’s Jazz Club has hosted Diplo and Jack Harlow, and it runs a residency series launched by Black Thought of the Roots.
• Stylus will open on the Lower East Side in early 2027 as a club built around a high-fidelity listening room, at $10,000 in annual dues plus a $5,000 initiation fee.

The article sets this against a live-music business where ticket prices keep rising and many tours are struggling to sell. It also describes a more affordable version of the idea: Brooklyn venues like Elsewhere and Baby’s All Right sell memberships built around frequent attendance rather than exclusivity.

Where PCM Comes In

Rolling Stone turned to Bates for the business side of the story. He told the magazine that demand is still rising, with applicants to New York clubs up 42 percent last year. He also said the next phase of the category is about connection: clubs that put members in a room with like-minded people. In his words, members are “looking for experience over possessions.”

That matches what PCM sees across its client clubs. Members rarely leave over the golf course or the dining room. They leave when the calendar stops giving them a reason to show up. And they tell their friends about the nights they couldn’t have bought a ticket to anywhere else.

What This Means for Your Club

You don’t need a Meatpacking basement or a festival headliner to use this idea. The article points to four lessons that apply to country clubs, city clubs and yacht clubs alike.

1. The small room is the product. The acts in this story can fill arenas. Members pay a premium because a few hundred people get to see them. For a country club, that could mean a singer-songwriter on the terrace for 80 members instead of a cover band in the ballroom for 400. The smaller format is what makes it special.

2. Ticket the best nights. Chez Margaux and Soho House both charge members for their marquee events, on top of dues. Members accept that when the experience really is scarce. A well-run ticketed series can cover its own costs and give the membership team a story to tell prospects.

3. Take the club on the road. The St. Tropez and Courchevel pop-ups extend the club to where members already travel. A reciprocal dinner in Palm Beach or a hosted night during Pebble Beach Car Week does the same thing for a traditional club.

4. Programming is a marketing channel. A private set can’t be advertised, but everyone who attends will talk about it. The members who were there become your most credible recruiters.

Read the full story at Rolling Stone. To talk through a programming or membership strategy for your club, get in touch with PCM.