Photos: Pavel Khon
NIGHT PROWL – Stroll into Glow Nightclub on nearly any Friday or Saturday night, and you’ll find these black walls tightly squeezed with the most dedicated dancers and the deepest beats that Bangkok has to offer. The city’s leading underground club is celebrating its eighth anniversary this weekend, and there’s more cause to party now more than ever. Glow’s calendar is completely booked until February with local and international DJs and there’s a new lighting system from Germany being installed in the coming months.
Hanging out at Glow, you’re also bound to meet the nightclub’s owners, Gert VanSteenbergen and Jam Tularak, who are there almost every evening not because they need to, but just because they like to. Gert, who owns recycling companies in China and Thailand, opened Glow with no prior experience in running a nightclub. Jam, Gert’s partner in both love and business, met him by doing Glow’s marketing and graphic design.
[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_original”,”fid”:”22478″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”height”:”906″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”width”:”600″}}]]
What many people don’t realize is that as popular as Glow is now, it wasn’t always so well received. In fact, it took a bloody long time to fill that dance floor to the sweaty capacity that it so often enjoys today. Night Prowl met up with Gert and Jam to talk about the nightclub’s evolution through the years.
NP: Where did the idea for Glow come from?
GS: I wouldn’t call it a joke, but it wasn’t like I wanted to start a new business or a nightclub I just wanted to do something for fun. I was living next to Q Bar, so I was going there on basically a daily basis and that was the reason a little bit as well because I thought Q Bar was going in a different direction than I liked. I wanted basically to create a bar or club where I would like to go.
I had a friend look around to see if there was anything available to buy or rent. After some searching, we ended up in this place called Faith Club that had already been closed more than a year. I remember sitting in Hong Kong airport when I saw the pictures and I looked at the photos and said okay let’s do it.
NP: What did the space look like before?
GS: Let’s say the pictures looked much better than the place looked. The main door was where the speakers are now, and in the back where the lights are were toilets with the doors hanging open. There was no bar upstairs, there was a pool table. We tore the whole place down to the bare bones, so the only thing left from the old Faith is the base of the bar.
[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_original”,”fid”:”22479″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”height”:”899″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”width”:”600″}}]]
NP: Was it busy right from the beginning?
GS: (laughs) Definitely not. We had our regular customers let’s say which came everyday every week, mostly friends or friends of friends. We had a stable crowd, but Bangkok didn’t know about Glow because we didn’t do this mass advertising. We were going more word of mouth to get the right customers in.
After that first year, business became slower and slower. When we moved to deeper underground music, the amount of people went down.
JS: The fourth and fifth years were probably the worst. We were stubborn. So many people were coming in saying, “Why don’t you do a hip hop night?” Promoters came in offering to do model nights, everyday there was somebody with a great idea coming in saying, “I’ll take it over and make it work.” But we never gave in that pressure. We had an idea and we went for it.
NP: So were you ever unsure about the business concept?
GS: Many times. I had this thing like, “What should we do? Are we doing it wrong, is the decoration wrong?” I decided to myself, I’m not in this club for the money. In the beginning, we lost money. Even today if we break even, it’s no problem. For me, it’s kind of a hobby, not a business where we have to get as much money out of the customers as we can. If people come in here and have one beer all night, fit’s ine by me. I hope they enjoyed it.
NP: When did Glow start picking up?
GS: Around the sixth year. More people started to learn about Glow, locally but also internationally, especially in Berlin. There was a time when Glow was probably better known in Berlin than in Bangkok. It was just a good match, we had a couple of DJs from Berlin here and I don’t know, all of a sudden all these people seemed to know Glow. For us, it was a fun place to be playing good music and this just happened. The taste of people just changed to house, house became big. Now people understand it.
NP: I’ve got to ask because a lot of people are probably wondering – so how was it that Sven the Bartender came to work for you?
JT: He started here in the third year, our old manager said she knew him so we brought him in and since then, he just never left.
(both laugh)
GT: He was basically the furniture, he didn’t leave! We’re just kidding, he could have gone to any other club and they would’ve paid him more money. He stuck with us through thick and thin, good times and bad times. He’s also a big music lover, so the music we played just clicked with him from day one.
JT: Sven is such an easygoing and charismatic person. But seriously, we appreciate that he stuck with us.
NP: Why do you think the nightclub is so successful now?
GS: There’s definitely a place for underground music in Bangkok. It’s trendy right now in a good way, not in a bad way. What’s important is at Glow we never, ever tell the DJs what to play. Most of the clubs I know have a playlist and if the DJs go too deep, the owner will come and say, “You can’t do that.”
JT: That’s true. People ask me why we don’t have bodyguards at the door and I say it’s because we don’t need it. A lot of the people who come here know each other, so if you’re a single guy or single girl this is a place to just come and party with no pressure. That’s what is special about Glow. It’s fun and it’s just easy to talk to the other people.
[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_original”,”fid”:”22480″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”height”:”222″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”width”:”600″}}]]
Glow 8th Anniversary Party
Glow Nightclub, Sukhumvit 23
Friday, October 4
Entry is THB 350 (includes one drink)
Dress code is “futuristic”
