We spent a night out on the town with Tablelist, the app that can get you into your city's hottest clubs

Raisa Bruner

Have you ever wondered how to get in to the hottest nightclubs?

Outside, you see long lines of lithe young partiers. Inside, you know hip revelers are guzzling magnum-sized bottles of Dom Perignon and dancing the night away.

But that pesky velvet rope can be a daunting barrier between you and the blasting music, beautiful people, and blurred-lines debauchery within.

Enter Tablelist, the app for getting in to nightclubs.

"People have a fear of going out," Julian Jung, CEO and founder of Tablelist, said to Business Insider. "Nightlife has this awful stigma attached to it."

Launched in 2013, Tablelist markets itself as a fail-proof way to book yourself into the most exclusive hotspots in cities across the US, giving you "peace of mind" that you'll have a place to party. Like an OpenTable for clubbing, it lets you choose your location, type of experience, and beverages of choice. You can even use the app to split the bill with friends. 

"It's the first platform that really brings this world into the 21st century," Jung said.

Curious if it actually works? Business Insider took Tablelist for a test run. See how we did.

Jung started the company when he realized the nightlife industry was woefully behind in its technology. Reservations for hotels, cars, flights, restaurants — these could all be made at the tap of a finger. But clubbing? Not so easy.

Investors seem to agree that there's something to the idea: since launch, Jung has picked up about $5 million in funding from a list of investors that includes Atlas Ventures, Twitter's Wayne Chang, Hudson River's Jason Carrol, and nightlife gurus Simon Hammerstein and Michael Gruber.

Step one: sign up and select your location. Tablelist currently operates in New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, with more locations slated to pop up this year.

In December, they sold $1 million in nightclub tables across all markets. Each month, between five and ten thousand users log on and book tables with the app, according to Jung.

And people, Jung knew, were dropping a lot of cash every night on their boozy activities.

The biggest spenders were Miami and Las Vegas customers, who shell out upwards of $2,000 on average for a table, while in Boston, that number shrinks to $500 for a night out. 

Step two: choose your club. In New York, the app has worked deals with all of the big names in nightlife, meaning that pretty much any destination you have in mind is available for the right price; 38 venues are listed for the booking here.

The app picks up a 10-20% commission on a booking, similar to the margins that a nightclub promoter will make. But instead of doing everything on the fly like a promoter, Tablelist has a data and technology focus to help venues maximize their sales, while ensuring customers have a seamless experience.