I've been staying in Seoul for a couple of weeks when a friend mentioned the term 'booking club' in a discussion about the local night club scene. I never heard of that before and it turned out that there are a number of clubs in Seoul with a quite unique system that allows men & women getting hooked up.
I was told that the clubs have a relatively high number of tables, some even separate rooms and that usually groups of guys go there to meet woman. Unlike typical night clubs, the dance floor is pretty small. The guys are buying all the drinks and also platters with side dishes such as fruit and other snacks. The waiters, there are many of them, are not only brining the food and drinks to the table, they also bring the girls. Yes, that's right – they bring the girls.
Many of the women hang out in some waiting area close to the restrooms where they can take care of their make up or they stay on the dance floor. As soon as they are anywhere else, one of the waiters will grab them and bring them to a table or into a room and sit them next to a guy. Some of the girls are reluctant and protest, some are just following. However, they are usually OK with that as they knew what to expect before going there, although sometimes a girl was not told about it before and that means she is in for a small surprise.
I was also told that the better clubs with that system are often packed with girls because of a number of scouts that go to the restaurants and coffee shops in the area and talk girls into going to the club later that night. Having some fun and getting free drinks all night is doing the trick for many. As the clubs are frequently visited by richer guys and sometimes celebrities, this seems to work quite well.
So, once the girl sits next to a guy, they usually check each other out and introduce themselves to each other and the girl typically within seconds decides to stay or leaves (just to be brought to another table).
It gets tricky by guys giving tips to the waiters requesting special girls and sometimes even girls tip the waiters to be brought to a specific table.
After I heard that story, I could not really believe it. I mean, I have seen many really interesting things in Korea and I believed my friend told me the truth, but at the same time it was a bit hard to understand it without seeing it.
Around a week later on a weekday, I had just finished dinner with a business partner, my friend called me and asked if I want to join him and a couple of other guys in 'the' club. I first did not know what exactly he was referring to – honestly, I simply did not make the connection to the story I heard before at that moment. Anyway, I had no plans for the rest of the evening, so I agreed and minutes later I was sitting in a taxi going to the most fanciest booking club in Seoul – Club I in the basement of the Riviera Hotel.
I meet my friend in front of the building and we walked in together. Just the scenery was great, beautiful woman everywhere and even by only passing by I could already see the action going on, waiters dragging and pushing girls reluctantly to some table, a nice small dance floor full with gorgeous hot women, dancing to the latest electronic dance music.
It turned out that we had a separate room and when we reached it, there were two other guys in there, each of them with a nice girl sitting next to them. We joined the group and started drinking.