I thought you were makin 2G's a month just from Fridays and Saturdays?

Uh oh... busted?

I can smell bullshit from about 3.83 miles away.

I play at union cattle co in hermosa beach on fridays and at union cattle co in pasadena on saturdays. i like my boss, the crowd and they pay well, but dont expect to see any turntables :(. the best thing about a residency is that i don't need to constantly promote myself. i am a business man, but i dont like dealing with people who dont value djs. there may be 7 or 8 bartenders, 15 or so bouncers but only one door man and one dj. sometimes, a $60,000 sound system is all balancing on the tip of my needles. dont be shy when asking for money if you think you're worth it.

wow, i just wanted to know how people are advertising. i make 200 a night. it would be nice to make more doing mobile gigs, thats all. i just wanted to know if it was worth it to put up an add in the news papers or yellow pages.

Well I can tell you that the yellow pages is very expensive. Other than just listing your number (not having some fancy ad). I have done a few things in the past. I actually sponsered a little league baseball team. We got a banner in the outfield and our name on the back of the jerseys. We paid about $800 for that...NOT ONE DAMN CALL!! The only reason I still have it is because I DJ their end of the year picnic for free and we work on the barter system. Its a Saturday afternoon and I can hand out cards, flyers and things.

One thing that I did when I changed the name of my company is send out a letter to all our previous clients with a coupon and name change. Actually booked a party from it so that was well worth it. I currently have a mailing list that I got from a friend of mine, so I am going to put together a little direct mail program. I will let you know how that works out. Definaly the most cost effective since you can do everything yourself, just have to pay for paper, ink and postage!

Whatever you do, DO NOT put anything in a Pennysaver or something like that. There are soo many in there for these DJs that charge $199 for a 4 hour party, with lights, MC. It really cheapens the business. Which is why people don't pay the money that we deserve!

Hope this helps

199? my lord.

199 is he out of his mind?

haha reminds me of the old-school ihop commercial.

hahahaa, dude, that is like 50 bucks an hour.

those guy for 199, i bet have the cheapest equipment.

if you make 200 a night on fridays and saturdays, that is only 1600.

They do. I went to a party of a friend of mine (that knew I DJed) and hired some person out of the pennysaver. They paid like 200-250...the DJ had 2 different kinds of speakers, 1 Gemini and 1 something I have no idea. His setup was sloppy as hell. He had 2 home 5 disc players in some shady wood rack and a mixer. He had ZERO music selection. Played old stuff for a high school graduation party. And there were no parents there... It was horrible!

They really cheapen the business! 1 of my biggest pet peeves

its 200 + i get tipped out of the door + holidays make more + special events (december was nice). i go to school full time so it pays my bills, im not complaining. its steady business as opposed to random stuff while i was mobile. i dont need to drag my equipment from place to place or replace bulbs on mobile lights everytime i burn one out, calibrating my turntables from them bouncing around all the time. its the going rate for steady work. if i had the opportunity to make more money, and the place was cool, i would probably consider it. stability is also an issue for me, i dont want to work somewhere where theres not always business or that they would replace me for a big headlining dj.

theres no shortage of djs in la, and club owners, managers and everyone else knows it. put up an add in craigslist for a dj for 100 bucks a night and see how many people respond.

by the way your typing, it seems you have experience in that area?

On the other end of th spectrum, my bestfriend paid a 'professional' DJ $1500.00 to work his wedding reception. My friend was robbed.

The 'professional DJ' had two CD Walkmans attached to a Tandy mixer. I swear to God! His dancefloor lights consisted of a single American DJ "Sparkle" light. Finally, he pronounced every name in the wediing party incorrectly.