Oh man, I get so mad hearing stories like that. If there's one thing I will never agree to do, it's pay-to-play. It's not my responsibility to be The Reason there's people in your club. If they really knew what they were doing, they'd have regular customers and they'd ask you for a demo.
THIS * infinity.
Sadly, there are far too many clubs that have ceded their business responsibilities to a revolving cast of dumbasses that sift through a bunch of emails and call themselves "booking agents." These lame motherfuckers have no skills and have never even met anyone who gets what you are saying Patrick. Sadly I am here to tell you that they are now the rule and not the exception. Whether it is pay-to-play or "What is your draw?" The WIYD crowd will book you at 7pm on a Tuesday, charge $10 and say if you don't bring X amount of people you can't play there again.
The good news is, if you don't like this kind of joint, wait. That buttmunch will go out of business soon. The other big scam is the battle-of-the-bands/showcase crowd. A lot of times they are combined. The only way to win is not to play these things. Typically you see 12 acts, all of whom are very young and could never get into a club (age restrictions) for a normal gig. They prey on them to bring mom, dad, uncle, class-mates. Whoever has the biggest family/circle of friends wins. You could literally go onstage and poop. They don't care. I once was invited to play one of these and accepted because it was a charity event AND I already had all the gear packed up for another show. When I got there and they asked everyone how many tickets I pre-sold I spoke up loudly "None." Dude got so mad at me, claimed it was a "Charity" and somehow I was hurting children that had cancer. I had previously asked if this pre-sell was required to play. Promoted heavily. Told the guy since he could not guarantee a specific time slot- that my people would show when they showed and buy tickets at the door. It turns out your presell decided your time slot. He told the clup owner's goon to kick me out. I let him know that the dude specifically lied to me and is lying to him. That I would under no circumstance ever play/enter his club again (I'd been there in other bands and had seen several real shows there). Big surprise, I met up with a couple guy that were at that event and played/coerced all their fam to come out and support with pre-sold tickets, they even bought a number of them themselves. This guy went all over the country and when it got to the end of the tour (featuring his ugly no-talent kids)- it turned out the charity was bogus. He kept all the $ from ticket sales as "expenses."
This guy sold this bullshit to the club owners. But I blame them for being scammed. If the budweiser truck pulled up and the driver handed them an envelop that said magic beer powder, just add beer- it is their own fault for falling for it.
Sorry for the tl;dr post.