A lot of fantastic points in that post. Basically, you're talking about the opportunity cost of being a DJ. A lot of times people just say "wow, must be nice to get 2k for an hour or two's worth of work" but they never stop to think about what has to be given up (lost work wages, equipment costs that could be going to housing/food/other essentials, etc) in order to work for that hour or two.pete bubonic wrote:Hakka - first off I want to say props to running a successful night, it's a bloody hard job and you seem to be doing it well. But just doint some basic maths, by charging fives on the door, you're already turning over 5k minimum. Take 5 bills away for venue hire (if you haven't cut deals becasue of the big bar take). Now you say 30+ dj's but I can only see 20 on the flyer in your sig, let's take it as read that probably 10 are local or your own guys walking away with 500 split between them, then you got lets say 2/2.5k for the big names and looking after them. So we're now looking at around 800/1k profit. Now I'm sure anyone working through this with any experience of running big nights, is like fair enough! Man put in the hours, what's wrong with that.
now let's look at it from the artist side, I'll even use myself as an example. Outside of bristol I ask for 150 and normally get haggled down to a bill becasue I'm not well known. I run a label have 5 releases and more coming. I spend countless hours trying to perfect a sound, something unique, I practice mixing, I promote the label, spend hours getting promo strategies right, networking, paying for promo. The label might break even (if we're lucky on the proper leftfield releases), or make a 4bill profit on the bigger releases (which we get raped for by promo costs, free mp3's artwork, mcps etc). So I put in the hours, work myself ragged and on the whole don't make any money from it. So I get booked for a bill, I would usually need to take a half day off off from work to practice (lose 50 notes right there), pay 50 notes to get some dubs cut and usually pay for local travel (taxis etc- becasue most promoters will forget about covering this). yet I still don't ask for more money becasue i can't guarantee i will bring in the people.
Now lets look at it from a headliners perspective, you're day job is f/t music. You need to pay your rent, put food on the table, buy equipment, maybe fund a label, and spend countless hours unpaid, working on music. Unless you're getting remix commissions from major labels (which would usually be between a g to 5g if it were massive), you're going to be struggling to cover all these expenses (especially so if you have a family to support). As Seckle has already pointed out, the money just ain't in releases, even if you move major, so the money has got to come from gigs. And as with all fields of work, as you move towards the middle to top end of the field you should expect your annual wage to be going from 30k upwards (why should musicians earn less becasue they love what they do?) to 70k (more depending on genre, success, time in the game etc). break it down and for middle to top dogs you SHOULD be looking at 500+ a set PLUS all expenses. Especially when you can bring 500 people to the ngiht by sticking thier name on the flyer.
So I can understand from a promoters angle, it looks like you're getting raped, but simple fact is, if you can earn it, you should earn it becasue there aint no saying when that well will dry up.
On a separate note, some complete spengs on my local board and on here have said that 'you shouldn't make money out of something you love', the ONLY thing you guys are highlighting with this statement is that you have no idea how hard it is to run in the game and how niave you are.
As for the argument that supply far outstrips demand in the DJ market, that's not true for the well-known acts at the top of billings. There's only a handful of big name acts in the scene (or maybe more importantly, only a handful of acts that have made a name for themselves outside the scene as ambassadors of it--which is important to promoters).
Talking about the business side of things people love (especially in smaller music communities) can always leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth be people like to think that everyone is 'in it for the music'. But at the end of the day, a big club night with a few hundred or a thousand people is a business operation that needs to cover costs and hopefully turn a profit for the people that go to great lengths to put it on. The artists are trying to make a living doing what they love with the attitude that you've got to make hay while the sun shines because taste is a fickle thing, and you never know when what you do will go out of style to where you're out of business.
But then again, most of you live in a place where you can see a ton of great music, big names and small. I've never had the chance to see a bunch of my favorite acts (though I did catch Whistla in the winter here in Philly--and had a great time--but I'm sure it wasn't even close to easy for him to play here, so that's a perfect example of a guy doing it because he loves it).
