Posted on: May 19, 2024, 04:40h.
Last updated on: May 19, 2024, 05:02h.
When a photo of the drink menu for this weekend’s Electronic Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas made the rounds, it generated X/Twitter outrage — at least among people unfamiliar with the concept of bottle service.
The menu listed prices ranging from $1,540 for a bottle of Perrier Joet Belle Epoque Brut (a 616% markup from its $249.99 cost at Crown Wine and Spirits) to $94,000 for a Methuselah 6 liter bottle of Dom Perignon Brut or Dom Perignon Rose (about a 1,074% markup).
To be fair, the drink menu also listed a much more moderately priced $30 bottle of Grey Goose for $975, a $20 bottle of Jack Daniels for $875, and a $10 six-pack of Bud Light for $140.
“No wonder everyone just does drugs,” wrote Twitter/X user houtanY.
“No way that’s real,” noted @DioDiablo7.
“For $875, Jack Daniel himself better be serving the drink,” added @PTBryce47.
Why So High?
These were not the prices at EDC’s traditional walk-up bars, where you order your own individual beverage, and then walk away holding its cup.
Drinks served that way at EDC still cost around $25 for premium liquor — expensive but not head-explodingly so.
The menu displayed prices at EDC’s elevated viewing decks, where drink purchases come with a table with “prime stage view” and a wristband allowing access to all festival VIP areas.
At the Marquee SkyDeck, EDC’s most exclusive experience, buying booze at those prices also got you a golf-cart ride to your table.
Most Las Vegas nightclubs and beach clubs have featured similar bottle service offerings for at least 20 years.
The Bottle of the Sexes
Bottle service isn’t really about the drinks so much as the luxury experience of getting to sit with friends in a VIP section while being catered to by your own personal drink server.
Basically, it’s about telegraphing a message to any potential romantic or business partners in the immediate area who may be observing your behavior — “I’m either filthy rich or extremely well-connected.”
It’s also about the convenience of you and your entire party being able to cut what could be an hour-long entry line.
Sometimes, if the venue is close enough to capacity, a large group of males may not get in no matter how long they wait.
Bottle-Born
Bottle service began in 1988 at Les Bains Douches. Finding itself with more customers than space, the Paris nightclub began offering table reservations that came with a complimentary bottle.
From there the idea spread across Europe, eventually losing the complimentary element.
The first bottle service offered in the US was at New York’s the Tunnel nightclub in 1993. At the time, the $90 bottle purchase it required nearly made economic sense — compared to ordering $6 glasses of the same beverage.
By 1995, bottle service had spread around New York, with new adapters upping their prices and requiring it for VIP room access (at least for non-VIPs). Miami and LA got on board this lucrative and elitist train in 2000.
Bottle service arrived in Las Vegas with the opening of Light at the Bellagio in 2001. Now, nearly every nightclub on the Strip features it.
