Mike Hegazy spends his nights roaming the cold streets of San Francisco. Sleek in a black peacoat, he is on a mission to find new customers. After spotting potential, he saunters up to a crowd of beautiful women and attempts to sell them his three package deal: sex, music and intoxication.

“Aye ladies, how you guys doing?” he says.

They smile.

“What are you doing Saturday night?” he asks. Not giving them a chance to think of an answer, he moves onto his next line.

“It’s my birthday and we’re doing it big,” he says.

Then, in a motion so smooth it must have been done a million times, he slides his hand into his pocket and whips it out.

It’s a flyer.

Hegazy is a party promoter. As a partner in the production team Angel Majik, Hegazy is creating a buzz in Bay Area nightlife. You probably know him best (or at least his type) as one of those flyer guys, ready to bombard you with endless invitations to countless events after a sweaty night in the club. But in the end, Hegazy is just trying to show people a good time, and get paid doing it.

“My primary objective is to get people I would like to party with to come to my party,” says the light-skinned, verbose 26-year-old inside the Levende Lounge, a packed club on Mission Street in San Francisco.

A year and a half ago, Hegazy quit his corporate sales position to team up with Jonathan Mack. Together, they put on parties and events that cater to high-energy twenty-somethings in the Bay, who have a thing for Caribbean and reggae music. Hegazy says his parties are the best because of their diversity and the cool vibe they emit.

“Some places have a sexy vibe, some have a pretentious vibe, some have a laid back vibe, and some have a fun vibe,” he says. “Our vibe is a little bit of everything.”

The job of a promoter is simple and requires three basic steps: planning, promoting and partying. Hegazy’s daily schedule goes something like this:

“I wake up to my first phone call, handle whatever business I have to handle,” he says, “and then I go back to sleep.”

After he officially gets out of bed, around 3 or 4 p.m., he handles a little more business. This usually involves scheduling a D.J., designing flyers or booking a musician for a show. Once the clock strikes 9 p.m., Hegazy hits the streets to start hustling. He stays out until 3 or 4 a.m. trying to persuade people to come to his events.

But the benefits? No boss, no set schedule and quick cash. What’s not to love?

Demetrius Roquemore of Location 415, another popular party planner in the area, says he makes, at the very least, $100,000 annually in this business. Case in point: last year, he planned a concert for Raphael Saddiq at the Mezzanine. By the end of the night, his net profit, derived from the 1000-1200 people who showed up and paid between $30 and $70 a head, was $70,000. He gave $12,000 to Saddiq, spent $3,000 on the venue, used $5000 for marketing/miscellaneous and pocketed the rest. You do the math.

The San Francisco State graduate put on his first party in 1998.

“I had a friend that was throwing parties and I started helping him,” he says. “[Then] I took out a student loan for $2,000 and started doing it myself.”

That first party set a precedent for the success Roquemore, now 30, would have in years to come. He has thrown parties and put on shows for Dwele, Trey Songz, The Gotti Brothers and basketball player Baron Davis. He even coordinated Nelly’s Apple Bottom model search tour last year.

He says his parties are dope because you can always count on seeing a celebrity. Is this claim true? Possibly. At his party on Monday, April 17, Golden State Warriors basketball player Jason Richardson and Slim from the R & B group 112 just happened to stop by.

The vibe at Fluid, the party’s venue, looks like a modernized version of Ikea. It is upscale chic. The tiles on the floor are lit up with fuchsia lights that shine from underneath. The eight speakers surrounding the bar are all white, matching the four walls of the club’s interior. Zoom in on Roquemore, however, and you begin to wonder if a promoter’s job is really that hard. Dressed in a brown blazer, a white boondocks t-shirt, jeans and a camouflage army hat, he sits on a barstool chopping it up with a female all night. She wears a jean blazer, a ponytail, and appears to be very interested. In Roquemore, that is.

But perhaps there is more stress to the job than meets the eye. Promoters say the hardest part is the unpredictability, which in laymen’s terms, means the chance of losing money. After all, most of the time it’s their own dough that’s on the line.

Fast forward to Saturday and Hegazy is in this predicament. It is the night of his college party and, unfortunately, it happens to fall on spring break weekend, a time when most of the demographic he is trying to reach are out of town. The first thing you notice when you descend the set of windy stairs of the Shattuck Downlow venue in Berkeley, is the lack of people. Two hours into the set and Hegazy makes the decision to leave his party to promote at other locations.

“I’m trying to maximize my opportunity cost,” he says. “By staying I will make no money, whatsoever. By leaving I will potentially increase my revenues and make more money for the next event coming up.”

Tom Flannery, 27, of Ankh Marketing, another promoting company in the Bay Area, knows the feeling of having to make quick, but crucial decisions.

“The job itself is like a rollercoaster ride,” says the friendly promoter who wears invisible rimmed glasses. “There’s always obstacles to figure out how to circumvent.”

But the glitz, glam and groupies seem to make it worthwhile. Like the other night, Hegazy didn’t have to pay the $10 cover charge everyone does to get into the club. It’s part of a promoter’s code of conduct: never charge one another for entrance. All he has to do is walk up to the bar to get free drinks. Most nights, he chooses a vodka tonic.

And the ladies? It’s probably safe to say that the party thing has them flocking in like flies.

“I love running into beautiful, beautiful women,” says Hegazy, emphasizing the second beautiful. “Like,” he says eyeing a female in the crowd wearing a red cap, matching bright red lipstick and tattoos on her arms. He reaches his arm out to tap her to get her attention. She is excited to see him. They hug. Her and Hegazy? They go way back, she says.

All three of the promoters say they envision themselves promoting, in one form or another, for a while. But in envisioning a long-term future in the business, a conundrum arises. At 45, will these promoters’ age repel their clientele as they roam the streets trying to get people to come to their spots?

“I won’t be passing out flyers at 45,” Roquemore laughs. “That’s why you have interns and you have people to work for you.”

But when it comes down to it, all it really takes is a hook to get people to show up. Back on the streets, Hegazy tries to get a couple of honeys to come through Saturday night.

“Excuse me ladies, you guys into reggae, dancehall and hip hop?” he says, simultaneously trying to pass them one of his flyers.

“Oh, I already got it,” says one of the friends, her disinterest in the festivity seemingly apparent.
Sensing the possible loss, Hegazy thinks fast.

“We are going to have free food,” he blurts out.

A twinkle lights up in the girls eyes.

“I heard free food,” she exclaims.

And alas, another person is hooked.

CONTACT JONES AT JJO19@SFSU.EDU