AY: “I Lost N500 million opening a non-smoking nightclub because no one came.”

AY: “I Lost N500 million opening a non-smoking nightclub because no one came.”

Ayo Makun, well known by his stage as AY, a well-known comedian and actor, has spoken out about how a nightclub business lost 500 million Naira because it forbade smoking.

In a recent interview, he claimed that the nightclub failed following a substantial investment with media celebrity Chude Jideonwo.

AY claims that despite his wife’s advice to reconsider, he disregarded it and later regretted it.

He described how, on Fridays, he would go to the club but that it would be deserted. He also described how he had no idea that having a club where people don’t smoke is bad for that kind of business.

The comedian claimed that the club’s prohibition on smoking stemmed from the fact that his wife always returns from nightclub visits with her hair smelling of smoke.

The stand-up comedian claimed that the prospect of packing out event venues for comedy performances served as his motivation.

He stated:

“I woke up one day and I said to myself, ‘it’s time to open a nightclub’, ‘AY, if you can gather 6,000 people at Eko Hotel, what’s in a club that you can’t just gather 100 to 200 people buying drinks I think God just wanted me to know that ‘this one is not your calling’, ‘you are the one calling yourself’.

“It is good to have the right partner, my wife was strongly against it. I said, ‘No, it is good for networking and PR’. Shout out to all the guys who are doing it and getting it right.

“But I thought then that when I come, I am just going take all of them out of the market. It was a huge investment running to about N500 million.

“We put everything in place, the staff strength was solid, the interior was crazy and I will go there every Friday, I will look at the door and I am not seeing people coming. The opening was grand and massive. I started with a non-smoking club; I didn’t know that all these things go together.

“The wise ones will call me, and I will tell them that sometimes when I take my wife to the club when we get back her hair will be smelling of smoke, and women should have their wigs neat’. Long story short, I saw my ‘period’, it was very bad”.