Hmmmmm.

Choose your club carefully. Pick a small one and build up from it. Make sure you get on well with the owners, it really matters over time.

Make sure you have a big crew. If its you on your lonesome, its near impossible. Having mates sort stuff out, and them having mates to bring along gives you a stable base of people you can build from.

Put money into it. If its worth spending time and energy, its worth spending money. Too many nights fail because people are willing to donate kidneys for the cause, but are afraid of spending a few hundred quid.

Tread the fine line between what you are interested in, and what everyone else is interested in. Too many promoters put on a "birthday party" and just choose all their personal favourites. Know your audience, and what you can get away with.

Be patient. Can take years to build up a good reputation.

Blag everything not nailed down. Don't pay for anything that can be borrowed. Sound System, flyering, printing etc

Get good residents. A headliner might bring in a crowd, but a resident sets the tone of the night. Shit amateurish residents make a night look rubbish. No amount of headlining acts will save you. The residents need to warm up the night, not grab their moment of glory. Its more about playing for the crowd than battering them to death with peak time aspirations.

Be prepared to lose money. Do it for the love, or not at all :)