Leaving the Club: Escorts, Taxis, Parking and the Locked Door

Never leave the club alone. Security walks you to your car or your taxi and watches you drive off, the car is parked close, lit and in view of a camera, the taxi is one you booked from a firm you know and whose driver you confirmed, and the shift ends only when your own front door is locked behind you. Most of what goes wrong for dancers goes wrong in the hundred yards between the back door and the car, at three in the morning, with a night's cash on them, and every piece of this routine exists to close that gap.

Why the parking lot is the dangerous part

Inside the club you have bouncers, cameras, other dancers and light. Outside you have none of them, you are tired, you are carrying cash, and anyone who wanted to know when you leave has had all night to find out. Dancers Information's guidance on traveling to and from work, built with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, treats the walk out as the highest-risk minute of the shift and the one most dancers rush through. The fix is not vigilance, which runs out at 3am. It is a routine you do every single night without deciding to.

The escort

Ask security to walk you out, every shift, whether or not anything happened that night. At most clubs this is standard and the bouncers expect it; at some you have to ask, and at a few you have to insist. If your club will not provide it, go out in a group of dancers and treat that as a mark against the club (see /advice/when-to-switch-clubs). The escort stays until you are in the car with the doors locked, or in the taxi, and watches you pull away. A customer waiting by your car is a problem that evaporates when a bouncer is standing next to you and becomes something else entirely when he is not.

Tip the bouncers who do this, and tip them well on the nights you did not need them. The walk out is part of what the tip-out buys.

Driving yourself

Park before the shift the way you will want it at the end: as close to the door as you can, under a light, in view of the club's camera if there is one, reversed in so you can leave without maneuvering. Have your keys in your hand before you step outside, the car unlocked at the last moment and locked the second you are in. Check the back seat. Do not sit in the car counting money, texting or warming up; drive, and do all of that behind a locked door at home.

Vary your route home now and then, and notice if the same headlights are behind you for more than a few turns. If you think you are being followed, do not go home. Drive to somewhere lit and public, a 24-hour gas station or a police station, and call someone. Dancers Information's stalking guidance is explicit that the one thing you never do is lead someone to your front door.

Never drive tired or drunk. A dancer at the end of a double who has had three drinks is a crash statistic before she is anything else; see /advice/drink-safety for the sober rule, and if you have had too much, the taxi plan below is the plan.

Should I take a taxi or a rideshare home from the club?

Either, booked by you, from inside, with the details confirmed before you step out. A known local firm is the gold standard because the driver can be asked for by name and the dispatcher has a record. A rideshare is fine if you check the plate and the driver's name against the app before you get in, and never get into a car that pulls up and offers because "someone ordered". Have it collect at the entrance, not round the corner, and have security see you into it. Sit in the back. Give an address a street away from your own if you are at all unsure of the driver, and walk the last minute with your keys in your hand. If you use rideshares regularly, your pickup point is on the app's record; a different pickup point now and again is cheap.

What if a customer offers me a ride?

No, every time, including regulars, including the one who has never put a foot wrong. "Security walks me out, club rule" is the line (see /advice/blame-the-cameras), and it is true at any club worth working. A customer who knows which car is yours, or where you got dropped off, has information no customer should have. The nicest regular in your book does not need to know the color of your car.

The locked door

You are at work until your own door is locked. Dancers Information puts the end of the shift there, not at the club exit, and the reasoning is that the walk from the car to the flat is a second parking lot. Keys ready, lights on inside if you can set them, no stopping on the step to check your phone. Once the door is locked, then count the money, then text whoever is expecting to hear you are home.

Which brings up the check-in. Have one person, a partner, a roommate, a dancer friend, who expects a message by a certain time and knows what to do if it does not come. "Home" at 3:40am, every night, is the whole system. Some dancers set a timer on the way out so the text sends itself if they do not cancel it; the Hotline "I'm leaving now" check-in does the same thing. The tool does not matter. The person who notices does.

After a bad night

If something happened during the shift, a customer who would not take no, a man you refused who was angry about it, someone who asked where you live, change the routine that night. Ask for the escort even if you never usually do. Take a taxi instead of driving, or have the bouncer check the parking lot before you walk out. Go the long way. Tell the person waiting for your check-in that it was a strange night. None of that is paranoia; it is what the routine is for, and the one night you skip it is the one night it mattered.

Do this tonight

• Park close, lit and reversed in before the shift starts.
• Ask security to walk you out, and tip them for it.
• Set up one person who expects a "home" text by a set time.
• Keep your keys in your hand from the back door to the locked front door.