u know how u first meet a gal/guy, and there's this "infactuation" factor goin on... u don't fully know her/him, but u wanna know more outta pure curiosity


i dunno, maybe cause they're from anotha place...where they potentially could bring a new set of material to tha plate?

i'm just guessing

i live in so cal. a friend of mine who is a pretty good dj has been booked a few times in south carolina. the club pumps him up as this awesome hollywood dj and so on. they have done so well on those couple nights that they have booked him once a month through the rest of the year. i mean the guy is good don't get me wrong, but he is no "star name" dj. they pay him in the 4 digits range (defintely not DJ AM $$$) and cover his expenses, flight, limo and hotel so i guess that answers your question.

he spins like a cali dj (like a lot of us out here do), which is not really what a lot of djs are doing there, so i guess he sounds a little different.

the club does much better on the nights that he spins, and the residents take a break. if they didnt, then they wouldn't book him through the end of the year.

I think the club culture has changed so much over the past 5yrs. There was a time that if you booked an out of town DJ it meant an increase in the number of people coming out to your parties. Now a days I think it's more about the party rather than the DJ. If your promotional company has a really good rep and your not over saturated then you can do fine with locals. Personally I really like to see new and interesting DJ's/Artists play my home town but remember the average person is not very well informed compared to the average DJ/Promoter. Unless they are a big name(here) or you have a great name for yourself you'll just be spending extra dough to have the well informed have a good time. I hate to say it but I've lost money on many DJ's/Artists I thought would bring people out!!. In the end there is always some satisfaction in bringing new and challenging artists to the forefront.

they almost never do, unless they have been to that city before and buit a following. like dude is talking about in SC. but average club goer has no clue

the Big Name NY djs get booked all over the country, yet they i dont see them on many flyers here. do they draw in your market???

in my opinion, used to be a NY dj had access to "hotter music" and newwer music. Thus if you wanted to hear the hot new shit u would book a NY dj (IE when i lived in Miami i saw this), but now, like previously said, it is less about the music, and more about the party. also now the whole country has access to the hot new music. also djs arent playing the hot new music. Look at AM. last time i heard him play he broke like one song that i had not heard in a 2 hour set, so there is no need to book a guy to hear the new shit.

so i think they book out of town djs for a prestige factor.

Booking an out of town DJ means you won't hear him across town next week in most cases. It gives you something 'different' to promote.

Sure, there was a time when the music coming from a city was significantly different so you could bring in a out of town DJ to get a feel for the party in that city. New York, Chicago, and Detroit were all notorious for developing a lot of the various genre's in the early days. But that's just not the case any more...


I've been working on putting together my drops, intro's, outro's and the like to create name recognition. I'll start working on mix tapes in the near future and hopefully it will all pay off.

But out of town DJ's can draw a crowd if they have 'name recognition' or if they're 'different' from your residents but can still appeal to the crowd. It also requires a lot of publicity, and quite a bit of hype.

I agree with funk21, proffesor ink, and musicmeister.

It's way more about the party and the promotion than it is about the music. I love checking out out of town dj's, but most party people don't know who the dj is.

I went to go see ?uestlove spin here in sf at this party promoted by vintage 415. Those guys throw great parties, very trendy crowd with tons of beautiful women. They also bring in big name dj's. Now I was talking to some friends of mine who went to the party. They had no idea that ?uestlove was the drummer for the Roots (btw he rocked it).