Club operators are often curious about how other clubs, in other cities, run their businesses. What’s it like to have a club in a city like Las Vegas, or Miami, or Dallas? But here’s an even more intriguing question: What’s it like to operate a club halfway across the world, just south of the North Pole? We spoke to a man who knows.
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Situated 600 miles south of the Arctic Circle, Oslo is the capital and most populous city in Norway. Oslo is famous for its blend of natural beauty and modern urban life, it’s also known for its stunning architecture, including the Oslo Opera House.
Norway is one of the nations that experiences the “midnight sun,” where some portions of the country experience months where the sun never sets … and months where the sun never rises. In Oslo, that means less than six hours of sunlight in winter, and days where the sun doesn’t set until after 10 pm in summer.
Learning English in Norway is mandatory, and that begins at at age six. Norway itself has 5.5 million residents, while Oslo’s population (700,000) is similar to that of Denver or Nashville.
Okay, enough with the factoids, here’s the real question: Are there any strip clubs in Oslo? And if so, what is it like to own and operate a club smack dab in the middle of the land of the Vikings?
Well if you read the headline to this story you already know the answer to this question — there is! The String Showbar is owned by Magnus Morland, a former fitness competitor and entertainer who took over the club in 2003 and has since turned it into the most successful club in Scandinavia — and, perhaps, the entire EU.
MANACK: What brought you into the adult nightclub/strip club world? Did you work in a club before you became an owner?
MORLAND: I started up in this industry as a stripper myself. I was 22 and after finishing my service in the Navy and a year at the maritime school to become a ship engineer I was bored and just wanted to do something completely different in life. I was very into my fitness training and had just competed in my first men’s fitness competition in Norway, but I found that it was a lot of hard work and very little payback. Then I saw a TV show about a male stripper and it just clicked for me. I realized I could make good money from all the training I had done and still have a lot of fun at the same time.
From that day it was no turning back. I moved to Oslo and started to work for the biggest agency at that time called “Showhuset” in Norwegian. Here I got mentored by the owner, Simen Enersen, and brought into this exciting world of striptease. I started a Norwegian version of Chippendales called the “Boys Express” and we toured all over the country for years and entertained in local discos where we hosted ladies nights. At the agency I started to work as an agent doing bookings, while I was also dancing. We booked Norwegian dancers at clubs around Europe, and I started to work in a lot of these clubs myself while I was also booking the dancers there. It was in this period I got to get more into the strip club scene and I realized that If I was gonna make some serious money in this industry I had to become a club owner.
In 1998 String Showbar opened in Oslo and the owner started to book dancers from our agency. I got more involved with the club and was offered the manager position. In this position I could use all my experience from the industry and especially from all the different clubs I had worked with around in Europe. So together with the owner we worked out a club concept that targeted business people. We started to have VIP rooms and a limousine service; this was in the years building up to the dot-com bubble and people were throwing money at us. Business concepts were scrambled on napkins in the club and investors signed up and celebrated with more champagne and private shows. It was the craziest time ever!
In 2003 the owner of the club needed to sell, as he was building up another business and he couldn’t own a strip club anymore. He offered me a deal where I could pay for the club monthly as I was running it. I was in no position at that time to pay the whole amount in full and no bank would never lend me money to buy a strip club. So this was my big chance to become a club owner.
In that same year, 2003, I also married my wonderful wife Catherine who was a dancer in the club. Together we took over the club and worked day and night for years, doing everything by ourselves to cut expenses and pay down as much as we could on the club. In 2008 the club was paid for in full and Catherine also gave birth to our first child, so then she stepped back from working nights and to work more from home and take care of our new family. (How many children now?)
MANACK: How is String Showbar different now from when it first opened?
MORLAND: From when String Showbar was started in 1998 it has changed a lot, but it has always had the same concept as an “exclusive gentlemen’s club” targeted towards business people. After winning a court case against the Norwegian Tax Department in 2007 where they had to pay us back VAT for the previous four years, we used all that money to rehabilitate the club in 2008 (note: Value Added Tax (VAT), known as Merverdiavgift (MVA) in Norway, is a consumption tax applied to most goods and services at various stages of the supply chain).
Today we are constantly doing changes to improve the club and income potential. In 2019 I stepped down from being a manager in the club and Remi Slaattnes took over this position. Remi has an energy and a never-ending mission to always improve and do things better in the club. Every week we go over suggestions and brainstorm on how to be many steps ahead of our competitors. When we agree on changes and new additions in the club, it’s my job to make sure it happens and deliver it so that Remi can make the best out of the club at night.
MANACK: Remi has been with you for a long time. How has that relationship evolved over the years?
MORLAND: Remi started up as a bouncer while I was the club manager and we worked together for many years and learned to know and trust each other. Some years before the pandemic Remi also started to do part-time managerial work as I needed to take some days off in the week. It became very clear that he was good at it and he gave the club new and fresh energy. Times had changed and our customers were also younger now. In 2019 I had to stop working nights and Remi took over full time as the manager of String Showbar. We made a deal that he was gonna be able to buy himself up to a 25% ownership of the club during the next three years. This was crucial for him to be fully motivated for the task ahead of him.
String Showbar has always been based on personal relationships with the customers towards us and the dancers. Remi continued this tradition and just did it better; he also created a party atmosphere in the club with more fun and crazy stunts. At the same time, he was very result-focused and just pushed through all earlier records of (profits).
During the pandemic we were forced by the government to be closed for most of the time. They’d give us permission to be open with limited hours, but we would not be allowed to serve alcohol. It was basically a waste of time. During these periods, Remi worked both the door and the bar on his own just to keep the expenses down.
When the pandemic was over in 2022 and with Remi as a full-time manager, the market exploded. Everybody wanted to go out and party. It was crazy; we often struggled to have enough exclusive champagnes to sell in the club. The club’s profits doubled from 2019, and String Showbar was one of the most profitable nightclubs in Oslo. In 2023 it increased another 18% and then in 2024 with another 4%.
MANACK: How are adult clubs perceived in Norway, specifically in Oslo? What does the public think about clubs, and have you ever encountered opposition? Are you allowed to advertise String Showbar, and are there restrictions to your advertising?
MORLAND: There has always been some opposition against this industry in Norway; we have a local feminist group who has been protesting for as long as I have been in this industry. We also have some political parties who want to make this industry illegal and have tried doing that with not much luck. The general public in Norway have no problems with this industry and it’s getting more and more accepted in my opinion.
Advertising has become more of a challenge than it used to be. For many years we advertised on the back page of Norway’s financial newspaper in paperback. This was before social media. This worked very well and really paid off with our targeted customers. These days, no mainstream media will allow us to advertise and the same with social media; Google adwords is okay with some restrictions. We are putting a lot of effort into organic traffic to our web page and all social media channels. We also do local advertising at night in the streets, which gets us fined regularly by the (city) council, but we are putting that expense into our marketing budget.
MANACK: Are your customers tourists, locals/residents, or both? Are tourists surprised to find a strip club in Norway?
MORLAND: We have customers from all these categories, but we aim for more quality than quantity with our guests. So the big spenders are business people who can be locals, but also those who travel to Oslo on business from other cities or countries. We do have some tourists and I don’t have the impression that they are surprised to find strip clubs here.
MANACK: I’m sure you’ve been to American strip clubs, so I’m wondering how you’d compare your clubs to some of the ones you’ve visited? What is similar, and what is different?
MORLAND: I have only been to clubs in New Orleans and Las Vegas in connection with the Expo. The clubs in Las Vegas are, of course, out of this world and so big compared to any other places I have been. It’s a very high level of professionalism in the US clubs; you are so good in making concepts and brand building. I love to visit them and experience that. The size of String Showbar is 200 square meters (about 650 square feet) and we can seat maybe 70 people at most, so size is the first big difference. Oslo is only populated with 700,000 and a total population in Norway of 5.5 million people, so it’s important to have these numbers in mind when comparing size. We can have from 8 to 12 dancers at night and we are open seven days a week from 8 pm to 3 am.
MANACK: Do you find a difference in how busy your club is during the Summer’s “midnight sun” or the days in winter when there is no sun? How does the weather impact your club and how busy it is? What are your peak times of year?
MORLAND: The holiday season in July and August is normally slower; if the weather is good people want to sit outside and party more. The rest of the year is very good; some months like June and November can be over average. Winters in Norway can be very hard and in the darkest months, from December to February, people can be limited from going out because of winter storms and bad weather and that does affect business.
MANACK: Where do your entertainers come from? Are they locals, do they come from neighboring countries, or something else?
MORLAND: We have mainly entertainers from Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Norway. Because of Norwegian law we can only book dancers from within the EU.
MANACK: As you may know, “how” entertainers are paid on the US has become a major issue with class-action lawsuits, states like California forcing clubs to classify entertainers as “employees,” etc. How are entertainers paid in Norway compared to how they’re paid in the US?
MORLAND: Here we only pay commission through bank transfer. It’s not allowed for entertainers to get paid in cash; all payments from customers must go through the bar and be registered. If the customer wants to tip the dancers or get dances, he has to buy our own String Money at the bar. The dancers get a 40% commission on all String Money. There is also a 25% commission for each bottle of champagne the dancers sell. The dancers get paid on a weekly basis, and if they are not Norwegian residents with their own private registered company, I have to deduct 15% tax from their salary and pay according to an International European artist Tax Rule.
MANACK: How do you feel dancers at your club compare to dancers in the US? What age are most of your entertainers, or are they all different ages? Do they do pole work at your club, or do they have stage ‘shows’?
MORLAND: All dancers here do pole work at different levels on stage; on average, I would say the stage show level is good as it is in the US. The length of a stage show is six minutes and it’s fully nude. In Norway and Europe we do not have “feature dancers” as you have in the US, all dancers work on the same contract and stage show level. The average age for the dancers is from 20 to 30.
MANACK: Do your entertainers do ‘lap dances’ or ‘table dances’ or VIP dances? How does that work in Oslo?
MORLAND: Here we call it table dances, but it is a lap dance and they do it in the VIP rooms, so a mix of everything. Normally when a customer buys a table dance in a VIP room, the dancer will also sell him a bottle of champagne. On average the dancers income is 40% dances and 60% champagne.
MANACK: For someone who’s never visited your club, how would you describe it? What are some of the defining characteristics, what are you most proud of, what do most customers say when they’re complimenting the club?
MORLAND: What most people say about String Showbar is that it’s intimate, exclusive and friendly, and of course that we have the best and most beautiful dancers. It’s professional and safe, and I think these factors are important for a customer to feel when they are visiting these types of clubs, which unfortunately can also have a bad reputation.
The same goes for the dancers; to be able to attract the good and professional ones, you gotta offer them the best. We have a good reputation among dancers in Europe that this is a safe club to work, where you get treated with respect and in turn, they can make really good money here.
MANACK: The name of your club also mentions a restaurant; what’s your approach to food sales? How important is food to your overall business model at String?
MORLAND: We don’t produce any food ourselves, but for many years we offered sushi in the club that was delivered from a very good sushi restaurant in Oslo. This was combined with table dances, champagne and body sushi in the VIP rooms. For years this was very popular.
Remi does it differently; he wanted an automatic pizza oven and he can now offer customers fresh and hot pizzas at late hours in the club and it has become very popular. People just wanna have some junk food at night and they wanna have it while they are in the club and in the moment.
MANACK: Right now many of our club owners are complaining that their business is way down, and that they are having a very hard time appealing to male customers in their 20s or early 30s. How does the current economy in Norway affect your customers and your business overall? When it comes to guys in their 20s, are you seeing them visit your club? What is your demographic, in terms of the ages of the guests, and how many are female versus male?
MORLAND: While most other nightclubs and restaurants in Oslo saw a decrease in business last year, we increased. It’s hard to put the finger on exactly why that is, but we did appear on a very popular TV show that appealed a lot to guys in the 20s to 30s and that gave us a lot of great promotion towards this demographic. We also had a cooperation with a very popular music group here in Norway and we had our dancers appear in their music videos and concerts. The group always partied at String and this also gave us very good promotion towards this young age group. Now this effect has cooled down and we see that there are guys in this age group that don’t even know that there are strip clubs in Oslo, so we are now working hard on social media to reach out better.
The older customers have always been with us, and again, here it is based on a personal relationship with Remi and their favorite dancer. This brings good spenders back again and again. These are the type of customers that do not get affected by the bad economic times.
MANACK: If you could own a strip club in the US, which city/market would you want to be located and why?
MORLAND: I don’t know enough about the US market to really say that, but of course owning a club in Las Vegas seems great, since the clubs here are so big and beautiful.
MANACK: You’ve been to Expo several times over the years and you’re coming back this year: What do you enjoy most about the Expo? Can you recall any seminars or events from past years that gave you ideas that you were able to use at your club in Norway?
MORLAND: I just love to come to the Expo, it’s the highlight of the year and we always find inspiration and new products to buy for the club. Last year we bought poles from Polefx in LA, Remi saw these when he was at the Expo in 2023.
I have seen so many good and inspiring seminars, but I do remember well the Keynote Speakers Tim Kirkland talking at the Expo in New Orleans in 2015. This was the first time Remi and I visited the Expo. I was very inspired by his philosophy of making a profession that many people look down at and is just “doing for a little while” look so good and making a clear strategy on how to make really good money out of it. When I came home I bought his book and implemented a lot of his knowledge and system in the club.
I also love the inspirational industry people and enthusiastic entrepreneurs we meet here, this is a very unique and great thing with American culture. The Awards Show is the highlight of the Expo, it gives that extra level and shows gratitude to this industry and its hard working people. This year I am also bringing my wife Catherine and I am very excited for her to experience it all.
For more information on String Showbar in Oslo, Norway, please visit string.no.
