Venue Fees: The Newest Ways Las Vegas Nightclubs Are Screwing You

By Scott Roeben, on March 25 2018
2 min read 22 comments
Las Vegas Nightclubs

We’ve long railed against insidious, often deceptive, CNF charges (or “concession fees”) at Las Vegas restaurants.

It seems Las Vegas nightclubs are getting in on the customer screwing action with a snaky new revenue-generating surcharge we haven’t seen before: Venue fees.

An alert tipster informed us about a 7% “venue fee” tacked onto all bills at XS Nightclub at Wynn Las Vegas.

XS Nightclub venue fee
By the way, those numbers on the right are in U.S. dollars. The mind reels.

One of the reasons we haven’t seen this fee before, and why we can’t definitively say it’s new, is we would rather dive headlong into a pool full of piranha while wearing bacon manties than set foot in a Las Vegas nightclub.

So, what’s a “venue fee”?

We’d say it’s a resort fee for nightclubs, but with resort fees, hotels at least pretend you’re getting something in return for your money.

Venue fees, like CNF charges, get you absolutely nothing as far as we can tell. Nightclubs charge it because they can, plain and simple.

The 7% venue fee at XS Nightclub may not sound like a lot until you see the prices at the club, then it really starts to sting.

A 7% venue fee on an $8,000 table is $560. For nothing, as far as we can tell. Even for a lower tier table (the closer you are to the dance floor, the higher the cost), the venue fee for a $4,000 table is $280.

XS Nightclub
Las Vegas has a never-ending supply of WTF.

We tried computing the venue fee on the cost of table and a $300,000 bottle of Ace of Spades Champagne, but our calculator melted.

Learn more surprising things about Las Vegas nightclubs.

The great news, of course, is nightclubs are still free for groups of attractive young women. So, there’s that. Do expect to be asked by a club promoter for photos of you and your girls before you get your comped table, and expect you’ll be joined later by male customers with deep pockets.

Chances are you visit nightclubs a lot more often than we do, so we’d love to hear if you’ve seen this new venue fee elsewhere. We suspect XS isn’t the only offender.

XS Nightclub
Somebody has to pay for all the untz.

We’ve seen mentions of venue fees in reference to Tao, Hakkasan and Omnia.

Club-goers don’t seem deterred by the price of tables or venue fees, so we’ll add it to our list of “Things We Don’t Get About Las Vegas.”

You know, like Criss Angel, eSports and the ban on lotteries.