Are Pay to Play Venues Worth It?

SPEAKER_05 0:21

What is up? Welcome back to Beyond the DJ Booth Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Joe Bunn. That right there is my guy, Brian B. We're back with another episode. Welcome back. Thanks for listening. You know what I want to start with today? What do you want to start with? Well, we usually start with. Okay. Shout out to the people in the Patreon that recently joined. Yeah. The back room. Technically, there is only one tier. There's only one tier. One tier. One tier. One tier. 1999. Yeah, get in it. The greatest gift in DJ history. Greatest gift in Patreon.com. Humanity. Patreon.com slash Beyond the DJ Booth Podcast. Shout out Troy Brion from Belafonte, Pennsylvania. Have you been there? Nah. Okay. You know Harry?

SPEAKER_04 1:03

Alan Waddle. Waddell. Waddell, sorry. From Atkins, Iowa. Never been there? Iowa or Idaho. Iowa. Idaho's ID.

SPEAKER_05 1:10

ID. You're right. Yeah. Luca DeMaria from Seattle, Washington. There we go.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

Home of grunge music. So if you want to join us, we'd love to have you in the back room. We've been dropping some great stuff here. Speaking of the podcast, we have put it on video on Spotify. So if you are already consuming it via Spotify, you get the option now to see it on video, which is kind of awesome.

SPEAKER_05 1:30

It's just like a little button. You hit it and it switches. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

And we're working on getting it on Apple. We've uh run into a little bit of logistics challenges, but we're going to get it on there eventually. So it's it's actually now an option through our service provider. Yeah,

Welcome And Patreon Shout Outs

SPEAKER_04 1:43

there you go. Yeah. Let's go with a little opening bit here. I think you've got an interesting face. And you know, when things happen, I can just read your face so well. I want to see if you have the smallest smile. Okay. So the idea is to look down, and when you look back up, I'll do it to kind of show it to you. And it has to read as a smile, but I want you to do it the smallest smile that you can do. Okay. All right? Okay. Just see how good it is. All right. So I'll go first. All right. So did it read as a smile? It reads mad to me. Okay, read smile. One more time. One more time.

SPEAKER_06 2:17

Yeah, better.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Better. Okay. There was movement in the mouth. Okay. Let's see if you can do it.

SPEAKER_05 2:22

It's the least movement you can do. Ready? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

That's pretty good, actually.

SPEAKER_05 2:28

It's pretty good. It's a very slight uptick of the mouth.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Yeah. I'm trying to watch myself when people are giving toes. Uh-huh. I've seen pictures of me where I'm just like laughing like it's nobody's business. I'm like, was it that funny? Or and no more. Are you overacting? Yeah. So I'm I'm every time I'm just like behind the booth trying to make the smallest smile possible. Wow. You know, I have a little, what's that?

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Uh you ever seen that uh that little it's like a gif and it's a Shrek. It's like it looks like this little smile. Yes, yeah. It's that.

SPEAKER_04 2:59

So I'm in those pictures, and I'm just like, I'm like, why am I looking like this? Right. I've got to make all facial looks very minimal.

SPEAKER_05 3:05

Right. I need to get out of the picture, man.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 3:08

Yeah, I like that. So I think it's because I don't know why, but genetically, I don't have any top lip.

SPEAKER_04 3:15

Yeah, I remember you saying that.

SPEAKER_05 3:16

Right. Or eyebrows. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

Which is very strange. Speaking of eyebrows, I had my Uber driver. You know, we're going to the airport. Yeah. This girl's like, I don't know, 65 years old. She goes, real quickly, you have great eyebrows.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Yeah, somebody said that to me the other day.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_03 3:34

That's not something

DJ Collective Announcement And AV Partner

SPEAKER_03 3:35

I think about. I know.

SPEAKER_05 3:36

I'm like, thank you. You know what I'm saying? Thank you, question mark. Yeah, like well. I think y'all don't think about it because y'all have such premium eyebrows. Thank you, question mark. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:47

So anyway. Hey, real quick, Joe, should we explain the back room or just let people figure it out? I think we should explain. All right. It's our Patreon. We call it the back room, a community for you, our listeners, the booth heads. And if you're not in there, you are missing a ton of stuff.

SPEAKER_05 4:03

Things like bonus episodes, exclusively recorded monthly for backroom members. Plus the tracks that we pull that actually work for the events when we play them and when you play them. Early bashed episodes, giveaways. Look, we have the good stuff there, not junk. We're not going to email you some sticker.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

And it's $19.99 a month. For now.

SPEAKER_05 4:23

Yeah, for now. Go to patreon.com beyond the DJ Booth Podcast. Again, patreon.com slash Beyond the DJ Booth Podcast.

SPEAKER_04 4:31

Join us and our booth head community in the back room. Well, let's talk about the DJ Collective. I thought what we could start doing on these episodes is drop an announcement every week that we record.

SPEAKER_05 4:40

Great idea. Great idea.

SPEAKER_04 4:41

Just to throw things out there.

SPEAKER_05 4:42

If you don't know what the DJ Collective is, it is the conference that I do with Brian B and Jason Janai. We've been doing it for many, many years now. It's the DJ CollectiveOfficial.com. It is now held yearly in Raleigh, North Carolina, which is where I live, where Brian lives, where we record this podcast every single week. It is November 16th through the 18th at a gorgeous, gorgeous wedding venue here called the Maxwell. And we want you to be here and tell them about one of these first partners that we found on the Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

So what's a partner? It's somebody who we're paying to basically partner with us in throwing this event. So we take great pride, we try to in the A V area. We want to make sure it's not just functional, but is inspiring in some respects. And I feel like we got a partner here this year that's gonna do that. That is the Slate A V group. If you're not familiar with them, you probably are familiar with one of their owners, or maybe the owner, I'm not too sure. Dawson High. Dawson High. Shout out St. Louis. Yeah. So we've already had him come down once so far, I think. Yeah, he flew down. And we've come up with some ideas. I'm not gonna share any of those here, but let's just say that we're trying to raise the bar once again on the A V level of not just again functionality with microphones and things like that, but also inspiring people with the way that some of the tech is set up and utilized. Yeah. So shout out again, Dawson. Thanks for being a partner with us in this. We're excited to have you with us and uh can't wait to see what comes from it.

SPEAKER_05 6:08

Honestly, guys, please check out the website. I think this would be something you would get a ton of value out of, the DJ CollectiveOfficial.com. Let's get to our bring it back segment. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Brian B said a thing. Joe Bun went wild. Y'all lit up the comment, spicy style. So we hit the escape, check the playback. Did we release the A? Yeah, we said that Bring it, bring it back to Rewind it back food. Be on the DJ boo boo. We set the fact up, bring it, bring it back to Rewind it back, Ryan B, Joe Bun. We're fixing them hot takes fast.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

So I think I told you that I had my first pay-to-play venue. This was a while back. It was called the Alice. Uh, we don't do that very often. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:48

Where is it in Florida?

SPEAKER_04 6:49

Florida. Brand new venue. It was a $2,500 investment for the year. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 6:55

Not terrible. Not terrible.

SPEAKER_04 6:57

Yeah. So I was like, I gotta make sure I get my money back at least on that. So the update is that to date, we've had seven leads, of which three of them have booked. Okay. And revenue total amongst those three bookings is about $7,200. Okay. So it cost me $2,500. One of those three shows I'm personally doing so that I don't have to pay anybody for it. And that was my question to you is like when you look at pay-to-play stuff, how do you know that if you got your money back? Are you doing it off like just the gross revenue? Are you getting into the weeds on like, you know, okay, I gotta subtract out what I'm paying our guy to see if I actually got my money back? Like, how do you look at it if it was a success or not? Because in my case, we basically, after paying $2,500, we've grossed $7,200. That leaves us with $4,700. One of those shows is definitely more than $2,500. So we've more, if I'm doing it myself, I've I feel like it's a wash.

SPEAKER_05 7:46

For sure, I probably would back out what I had to pay the DJs to come to that final number. But I mean, at the end of the day, here we are halfway through the year. You've made your $2,500 back, and that's all I really care about. Yeah. I mean, I know people have these metrics where, like, oh, if I'm gonna do an ad on

Pay To Play Venue ROI Math

SPEAKER_05 8:01

the knot or an ad in this magazine, I don't remember what it was. Like, I need to 3X the money or I need to five. I don't think that way. Okay. Number one, do I want to play at this place? Is there gonna be long-term growth there? Like, did this become 20 shows a year? Right, you know, or 25 if I send the right people, or we, you know, we just end up basically taking it over. Right. It would have to be a ton of money for them to charge me per year, which in Jersey, that $2,500 would be $25,000. I remember Jan I and some other people up there saying that they had deals with some of these, I don't want to call them mafia run places, but but places where it was, you know, you you basically were expected to show up in January with a bag of money. And it won $2,500.

SPEAKER_04 8:41

Now I know you're not doing pay-to-play, but let me put it into your world. Yeah. You do a lot of private showcases.

SPEAKER_05 8:46

Yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_04 8:47

Do you look at it kind of like this? Sure. Like how many leads you're getting, how many bookings, what you paid to do that show. I didn't reassess it.

SPEAKER_05 8:55

But it is very low investment. Or I've done so much stuff for this venue, it doesn't cost us anything. Other than my time. And I don't pay my guys to be at those shows. So I have no real investment other than either if I need to go do it, right, or they go do it, and I've burned their Sunday to go do these things. So it's not even monetarily based at that point, it is strictly about time.

SPEAKER_04 9:16

I'm looking at it six months in. We're getting close to June here. Yeah, no. Just to see. And I think you have to check on that stuff on a regular basis, not at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_05 9:24

It's the same thing. I posted that clip yesterday on our uh Instagram about where me and you were talking about ROI and keeping track of your leads and stuff. Yeah. It's so important, man, because if you're not getting leads from the knot or wedding wire or the Alice, why are you gonna keep paying it? Right. Right? If you'd gotten no shows, you'd be like, you know what, we don't need to spend $2,500 here next year. Yeah. They're not giving us any business. As long as you guys like paying there and it stays around $2,500, no brainer. Well, we'll see. We haven't done any of those three shows yet. So you haven't done those are coming up in the fall.

SPEAKER_04 9:53

So we'll let you know. You could walk in there and they treat you like stucky. Yeah. And then maybe one and done. Brian B here. If you've been nodding along, like, yeah, I should probably tighten things up, that's your cue. Because listening doesn't build your business, execution does. That's why I created the DJ's Creative Edge, a coaching platform for DJs who want to stop guessing, raise their standard, and actually get paid what they're worth. If you're ready to play at a higher level with a real accountability, go to thj'screativeedge.com. Click the contact tab, and we'll see if this is something you should be doing right now. Let's get back

ROI Mindset Leads Growth Time

SPEAKER_04 10:31

to the episode. Let's move into story time. All right, so this is where we talk about our gigs, and I had an interesting one. I don't know if you saw this. I don't even know if I've ever mentioned it on here before. Maybe I did, but I did one with Paul Russell.

SPEAKER_05 10:49

Yeah. Little booth thing.

SPEAKER_04 10:52

Dude, this couple on a Monday, May 4th. Oh, that's right. May the 4th be with you. I didn't get the reference at first. But was anybody Star Wars out? No, but that was the gift bag. The thing is, she didn't bring it up in any call. It's probably my fault for not asking like why you're doing this on a Monday. I didn't even think about it, really. But there's no lightsabers, nobody had on a phone. Nobody, nobody's a barbank suit. In the gift bag, she in the gift bag, she gave socks. Like Star Wars socks. And she wanted everybody. I'm like, eh, I'm not putting that on. I'm not gonna, I'm not going that heavy.

SPEAKER_05 11:23

Tell them out. If she said you have to come as a stormtrooper or Darth Vader. No, not for this gig.

SPEAKER_04 11:30

It'd have to be pretty up premium 12K. Way more than that. I think it's gotta be about 15 to start. So come in a Star Wars game. Yeah. Obi-Wan. You know, I had Moda one time where somebody gave me a uh Dead Mouth 5 hat. Or was it the Marshmallow hat?

unknown 11:44

Dead Mouth.

SPEAKER_04 11:45

I've always called them Mouth. Or no, marshmallow. I'm sorry, it was marshmallow. Oh, yeah. But I had to wear it.

SPEAKER_05 11:51

Not the whole show.

SPEAKER_04 11:53

They wanted me to, they they brought it to me during before the doors opened, like, hey, we got you something. You played your whole set, man. Not the whole set. No, that thing was hot as I couldn't put the headphones around it, first of all. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 12:04

He's mixing off the waveforce.

SPEAKER_04 12:06

I got a picture of it, so I'll insert it into this episode when we have it. It was it's a pretty cool shot. But anyways. Anyway, go back to the gig. So she and her fiance, believe it or not, he actually had uh uh an issue where he was in the hospital. They didn't even know if he was gonna make it. Jesus. So music was really kind of like the through line for their relationship. And he was like, you know, incapacitated. And all of a sudden, the one song that like got him out of it was Little Booth. Come on. I'm not kidding. Like that was the song. I don't know what it was, but then that became their anthem for whatever reason. Anyways, she went down the rabbit hole with Paul Russell's like discography, yeah, and just like started to listen to all of his stuff. Oh then she did the Instagram DM and said, Hey, I just want you to know that like your music pulled my fiance out of you know, you know, being in a coma. And I'm just curious, would you ever consider coming and performing at our wedding? And he said, Yes.

Sponsor Break DJ Coaching

SPEAKER_04 12:58

Did he get paid? He got his travel, that was it. Wow. So he came and did a good thing, right? I've seen interviews with that dude. I mean, he's a good one. He is a very positive guy, so he shows up. I mean, he shot a bunch of reels with you guys. He did stuff, yeah. Now that was the bride's ideas of like maximizing this, right? But he did he shot like a whole storyboard with us, all this kind of stuff. He posted it on his actual story, not that, but another piece. Yeah, and then they hired Sir Purr. Yeah, I hadn't worked with that person before. Yeah, it was a little interesting with that because they wanted to do this bit with Pink Pony Club and Sir Pur said it doesn't align with my brand. Oh, interesting. So it is about a strip. So yeah, so they're like, I can't come out to that song. Anything else I can come out to, but not that song. Right. Well, I mean, at least I had probably had to clear it with them. So I used um, I think House of Pain again. Yeah, jump around. Yeah, I know it's it's Ramsey's thing, but I thought it can't be bad.

SPEAKER_05 13:49

Did they have a thing? Do you know? Yeah, they do. Saquon, will you look up um what the Panthers play when they score a touchdown? Just Google that. I did Google like what I mean. They hit that that that growl thing, but then they it's

Story Time Paul Russell Wedding

SPEAKER_05 14:01

a classic rock song. You'll know it when it uh when he when he pulls it up.

SPEAKER_04 14:05

So anyway, it got tagged in the clip that Paul Russell put uh up there. It was daylight, bro. Because it doesn't get dark until like eight o'clock. Right. I mean, I had the deck stacked against me. Yeah, you did because it doesn't look very big either. The party was not.

SPEAKER_05 14:17

I mean, a hundred?

SPEAKER_04 14:18

Less. Woo! And I think she thought there was gonna be a hundred there, and then I don't know what happened, but in the last little bit, like the declines came in. It's not a holiday, you know, so people gotta go to work the next day. Yeah, right. It's early, yeah. And you know, and then uh the fact I have 30 people or 40 people is what it was, ended up being that for four plus hours. So, anyways, it was a tough gig, but I will say that like the people there supported it. And Paul Russell could not have been nicer, yeah. Like he was there for probably 90% of the wedding, wow hanging out, yeah. And she had a lot of his songs on the request list. Yeah, they're low-key good. Yeah, no, like they're poppy, like they're really good.

SPEAKER_05 14:57

It's just they don't pop off. No, it's it's he's got a he's got a um sample heavy stuff. Yes, like that's that's uh never too much. Yes, I forgot who that is. And then to be real. Luthor Vandross, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, Luther Vandross. Did you see the song for the Panthers when they're called Stand and Cheer?

SPEAKER_03 15:13

That's all I that's the only thing I heard. Yeah, I was like, classic rock song, I thought. Okay, anyway.

SPEAKER_05 15:17

So you went to Florida. Bro, you hooked it up on this one. So Romby sends me down to Florida, Alice Beach, and I had been there 20 years ago for some guy's wedding, and I remember it being incredible. Every building is white.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

Did you remember it before you went?

SPEAKER_05 15:33

Oh no, no, I went 20 years ago for a wedding, and then 10 years ago when I came down there and did consulting with you, you rode me through there again. Okay, and I go, Oh, I've been here before. Because we were in Destiny, and you're like, You gotta see this place. And I was like, Oh, I've been here. Okay. But I hadn't been back since whenever that was. Okay. Ten plus years ago. And yeah, 10 plus ago. Yeah. And so I remember how gorgeous it was. Every house, every building is white. Part of like the city culture. Yeah, like the code, yeah. You can't build a house unless it fits. Without it being this particular white case. And they do this thing where all these artists basically do these digital projections on every building, and they call it graffiti, and it is unbelievably cool for two nights, Friday and Saturday. And then Brian got me the Friday night gig. So they open it up around dark, I guess around eight. Yeah. Everybody kind of scrolls the streets, looks at all these, you know, projections on all the buildings, and then they end up basically in the pool for Alice Beach. That pole is baller, it's super baller. It's almost too big. Yeah, I feel like it's huge. And then they got me basically on a little riser right there, you know, at the edge of the pool. And then between the

Alice Beach Gig And Programming Strategy

SPEAKER_05 16:39

pool and the riser is a space for dancing, and everybody kind of just gravitated towards it. And I think I played what, 8.15 to 1115. Yeah. You played it great, man. Yeah, first 90 minutes, pretty much just kind of housey remixes, not really dance stuff that I would normally play.

SPEAKER_04 16:55

But you didn't stick at 128 that entire first part either. You were kind of moving back and forth, and it was like I I even texted you, and I was like, I hope he doesn't have his text on, but like it was programmed perfectly. Appreciate it. It was really good.

SPEAKER_05 17:09

You know, my nerves were shot.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

That was the other thing for me. So, like four days beforehand, this dude is blowing me up on the text wearing him out. Anything, anything and everything. How do I get there? Yeah. Every uh how far is it? Yeah. Do I need to have my toenails clipped? You know, like it was so crazy. Like wearing, yeah, like every little thing. I'm like, bro, like just do the show. You're overthinking this.

SPEAKER_05 17:31

I got in my head. Yeah. I don't know. I don't want to speak for you, but two or three songs then. I felt like you were so good. I was like, I'm good. Yeah. Yep. I can hear, I can see, I get this. Like, I know where this is gonna go.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

The hard part about that gig, in my opinion, the slow trickle that's right, is brutal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:47

Because you don't know when it's gonna pop off. So you can't overprogram early. I listened to the recording back the other day and I can see where I tried to turn the corner maybe a little early. Remember, I started playing Temperature. I think you were and uh and it didn't work, and I was like, I'm a little early. Yeah. And so I kind of went back to those kind of housey states. Right. But other than that, man, we're just people there, people too. You know, I mean, the best of the best looking people. Yeah, people were singing along. Like, I wish I had a board recording. Yes, because the people singing along and then the sacks, right? Your boy Dobby playing would have been a great recording. Right. Especially if they had a mic in the crowd. Right. Because it sounded like a concert. Right. Oh no, it did.

SPEAKER_04 18:26

Yeah, that room is really a good room because it ain't a room, it's under the star.

SPEAKER_05 18:30

Right.

SPEAKER_04 18:31

But I'm saying, like, it's not like an echoey chamber. It wasn't like speakers all the way down the room, but they didn't need it.

SPEAKER_05 18:37

No, like it no, it was right up there. It sounded great all the way down. Did it? Oh, yeah. Every clip I see myself, I'm just kind of smiling. I seem very relaxed. I'm not like staring at the laptop. I didn't put it together in the order, but like you said, I had a crate I knew I would pull from. Right. And I don't think I went outside of that crate.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

My favorite part was actually the night before.

SPEAKER_05 18:56

Yeah. We had a great time.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

We got to hang out, go to dinner, courtesy of Joe Bun's tab. Yes. And uh forgot about that.

SPEAKER_05 19:02

We brought our we got it. And I go, This is my card, motherfucker.

SPEAKER_04 19:08

He hit him with a we got it, but yeah. Uh we invited our friends, the the planners who've helped us with the DJ collection. Dude, that was probably one of the best dinners I've had in like months. I love it. Where I just like we were just cutting it up.

SPEAKER_05 19:19

Yeah, we were at Hillary and Brianne. They're awesome. Yeah, and they helped it picture up there. Yeah, they helped us so much in Atlanta. They helped us so much in Nashville. Not bad eye candy to have on a dinner situation. Adorable girls making two old men look good. And yeah, we were outdoors on the ocean or whatever that what's that body of water called? The Chattahatchie Bay. Chattahatchie Bay. Okay, Chattahatchie Bay. Yeah, we're chilling out there. It was a gorgeous night. It was good. Yeah. We had a great time, man. At the hotel. Yeah, how was the hotel? The hotel was awesome. Lodge 30A shot out of that place. Yeah. Everything around there was great. All the restaurants, coffee shops. I walked everywhere, walked to the beach. You hooked it up on this one, bro. I mean shout out. I got a content creator. She was incredible, man. Her name was Caitlin. She shot it, sent me a million different clips. Worth the money? 100%. Not only did she shoot pictures, she shot clips. She gave me a couple of reels. She gave me a couple of TikToks. She had a good like uh uh light as well, like professional grade. And like any content creator, even the girls that I have here, Juliana and Katie, they get their asses out on the floor.

SPEAKER_04 20:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:24

And that is the key, man. They don't they don't they have no inhibitions, they don't feel uncomfortable out there, they're cute, they're hyping people up. People are all up in the camera like it's a music video. Like that's the kind of person you need. Oh, yeah. If they're gonna stand beside you the whole night, no good. Yeah. Super dope, man. Thank you. If you're still sending your couples a bunch of forms and emails trying to collect event info, or if you have wedding planners sending you a 10-page PDF, you already know how messy that gets. Event sync is something we've been building for the past year to fix that. One place for all your event details, timelines, communication, everything. No more chasing people down, no more missing info. Stop spending hours prepping for events, stop spending hundreds of dollars a month on multiple apps. Check out geteventsync.com and get in on founders pricing right now. That's geteventsync.com.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

Let's hit our off the records rant segment.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Uh, off the record, let me talk my sugar honey ice tea. They throw in shade while I'm sipping on this ice tea. Don't care if you hate or like me. You know why? Cause that's just how nice means. I'm gonna say what I want to say. It's right time to rant and raid, get out the way.

SPEAKER_04 21:47

So I've been taking a lot of Ubers. I've been traveling pretty frequently, and this is driving me nuts, bro. I get in these Ubers. I already know it. And they got the little uh Johnny's car wash little thing up there hanging from the rear view. The tree. I don't it's not even a tree. I don't know. Black ice. Yeah. That's what it's called.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

Yeah, that's the best one.

SPEAKER_05 22:07

Like the one my son has. Who decided these smell good? I don't think that's it. I don't think that's what you're smelling. It is so bad. I don't think that's what you're smelling.

SPEAKER_04 22:15

What am I smelling? It's their fucking cologne. But it's the same in like every Uber I'm taking. It's the very same one. It's like enough where it almost makes me gag. It's cologne. And I'm like, how can you, as the driver, not seeing it? It's cologne.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

But like maybe it's like, maybe they're like using like or air freshener. Blunt out spray or something. Oh.

SPEAKER_04 22:35

I

Content Creator Value On Site

SPEAKER_04 22:36

mean, I understand why they want to do it, but like for that reason. But like still, it is like so potent, bro.

SPEAKER_05 22:43

Like, I'm about to throw up in these Ubers. I I've started doing this, and I don't give a fuck if they see me or not. I put my nose in my shirt and ride the whole way to RDU like this because I'll actually throw up. Okay. Even when he gets in the van, we go into shows. I'm like, yo, you went heavy on the cologne today, my boy.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Yeah, but I got a good cologne.

SPEAKER_05 23:02

He does. It's not a it's not a knock on him. I don't like smells, period. I don't like girls with perfume. I can't do any of those like super fragrant stuff. You got a sensitive nose. Same here. I got a sensitive nose. Maybe I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember it being this bad. I will throw up. Yeah. Like I'm actually in the back getting nauseous. And that's only 15 minutes to the airport from here. It's so bad. It's so bad. But I think it's Cologne. Okay. I don't think it's what you think it is. Really? All right.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

So let me. I don't want to go down this rabbit hole. But I want to go down this rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_05 23:38

I feel like I'm taking the Uber driver's side right now.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

I don't want like, is it a certain demographic? No, no, no. It does not matter. It does it.

SPEAKER_05 23:48

It does not matter. Okay, okay. I've seen white, black, Indian. It's bad. No.

SPEAKER_04 23:54

But then I think about it like, would I want the alternative? Do I want it where there's no smell and it's just like rank? What if it's weed? I don't know. I'll take weed over cologne. I would take weed over bad cologne. Yeah. What? So it's not like. See, I see the actual thing that says car wash hanging on.

SPEAKER_05 24:09

I do too, but I still don't think those are able to put off enough odor. That's my question. Because it's so potent. It's cologne. It is so called. Because they're going neck,

Sponsor Break Event Planning Tool

SPEAKER_05 24:19

neck, wrist, wrist, neck, neck, wrist, wrist. It's so bad. Anyway. Clip that. Clip it's a real. That's a new that's your new rap. That's your new hook on your new rap song, Saquon. Nick. Wrist. I don't know what the name is. Bro, don't get me started on it because I'm the same as you. I will throw up. It's so bad.

SPEAKER_04 24:41

So if you're an Uber driver who's DJing part-time, quit with the cologne. Oh, it's so bad. Jesus. I can't get it. I can't get past it. It like throws my whole day off. Like I literally get out of it. I'm like, what did I just say?

SPEAKER_05 24:53

I think it's transferred to me, or either it's getting in the cilia, the nostril hairs, or whatever those hairs are called. I think it's trapped in there, and then I smell it all day. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

It's in the cilia.

SPEAKER_05 25:03

It's in the cilia. It's so bad. I don't know what to do. It's just driving me crazy. That's the right word. I feel like it's cilia or something like that. So what about you? You got a rant? Man, I will say if I had the one knock. Were you still there when this happened? Yeah. I was in the back and I'm like, what just happened? Yeah. I'm 90 minutes in, close to it, about to turn the corner. I can feel the momentum shifting. People showing up. Yeah. And the fucking power goes out. And I'm like, is that my laptop?

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Did your controller completely go off too? Nope.

SPEAKER_05 25:33

So that was in a different circuit. It was on a different circuit. My monitor was off. So I couldn't even play like to the crowd through the monitor. The monitor's off. Everything is off. Laptop is still on. Sorrata is still. Unacceptable. Unacceptable. Dude, like when it was a big ass traditional A V company, huge JBL system or something. Line array, double eighteens. It was big. But dude, if you're doing an event like that, and I'm assuming that company's probably been doing this for years. Yes, they have

Off The Record Rant Uber Cologne

SPEAKER_05 25:59

to do that. You have to divide your power up. How do you not know that? Or get another generator or make the city or whoever puts that event on. And then they throttled me. They fucking throttled me. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They turned all the subs down, they turned my bottom down. And I'm like, in an imperfect world, it would have fucking ruined the show for me. Because I would have been like so pissed off. Right. Probably if it had been my own year, I would have been so pissed off it would have messed up how I played. Right. But I just kind of grinned and bared it. Yeah. I mean, luckily they were so close to you that it didn't really like. But but I looked at the recording, it was four minutes.

SPEAKER_04 26:31

Oh, yeah. Oh no, no. 45 minutes in DJ time.

SPEAKER_05 26:34

And

Power Outage And Sound System Issues

SPEAKER_05 26:35

it was before people got to the point where they were booing stuff. And I couldn't even get on the mic and go, hey guys, we're getting this fixed up. But I had nothing to talk about.

SPEAKER_04 26:41

Yeah, you had, but when you came back on, you handled it like a pro.

SPEAKER_05 26:43

I was like, yeah, sorry about that, guys. Trip the breaker. Let's get going on. If it happens again, it's on the recording. If it happens again, just keep singing. Here we go. And then I was back on. But I was just like, I just couldn't believe at an event of that kind in a community that wealthy that that would happen.

SPEAKER_04 27:01

I can't believe it either.

SPEAKER_05 27:03

I don't remember the last time that happened.

SPEAKER_04 27:05

And to their defense, and this I don't know if this is the case, but there's idiots that plug crap in there with all those projectors. Yeah. Some idiot could have plugged into it without them knowing, but you still gotta be checking that stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:17

Like you cannot this is the premium entertainment. In a town where the cheapest house is $70 million. Like this is not like, you know, an outdoor rec party or something.

SPEAKER_04 27:28

My only question for you was did you throttle, meaning going up in volume during the sound check, or were you kind of just like I said, here's where I usually run.

SPEAKER_05 27:36

I had the master touching unity. I had both of the channel faders all the way up, but the channel thing was touching unity. Yeah. And I said, This is like max. And when I played, you know, when they put me on during the sound check, it was loud, like at the volume that I was playing that first 90 minutes. And for whatever reason, those amps heated up, or that something happened. It was crazy. And I was like, no freaking way. Like right when it was getting ready to run the corner. Yeah, I agree. Anyway, that's my my rant. Just please do better. Let's move into our music.

SPEAKER_07 28:11

I wanna know. I wanna know. Hey Annie. I wanna know. What's on your players, Danny? I wanna know. I wanna know.

SPEAKER_04 28:28

Those that haven't been on the podcast in a while, Annie's my daughter. I always go in through the pools, playing stuff. She'll like, oh, I like that song. Put it on repeat. Can you play it again? So these are songs.

SPEAKER_05 28:37

Please, for for the audience, tell them how old she is, because now she's about to be six. Right. Because they would think with how old you are that she would be 16. Let's keep in mind she's six. But I look like I'm 20. So there's that.

SPEAKER_04 28:50

I'm just kidding. You do still have a full head of black hair, which is kind of wild. So these are songs that are working for me at gigs that I'm using that I thought you should be aware of. So we probably need to put on our headphones. No, that are child approved. Okay. Child approved, but also gig approved. Got you. I'm gonna tell you the name of the track and then we'll we'll give it a sample here. So this one is the song called How You Feel by A N O T R. A noter? Maybe another. Yeah, maybe. This is huge on TikTok right now. Okay. Blowing up. I play this during uh Doors Open. Go for it.

SPEAKER_07 29:28

Bring the body close to me.

Whats On Your Players Track Picks

SPEAKER_04 29:32

It's right. This would have been great for your early early night. I love this.

SPEAKER_07 29:40

If that's how you feel.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

And it doesn't really move off of this roof. Yeah. It's pretty much this the entire thing. What do you suppose to do on TikTok to it? That's a great question. We should have had Annie here. Yeah, she could have rocked the dance. I like it. Alright. So another song is called Addicted to Your Love. It's by the Basa. Another great track came out this year. They have another song called Magnetic that's just as good. They only have two songs on their EP. This song is money. I love it. I play it all the time. Early. Very similar feel to the last one. But a great message for wedding. That disco house sound is big right now. Yeah. I love playing that. Great cocktail track. Four doors open even. Yeah. It's not gonna, it's not, I mean, it's four on the floor, but it's not like heavy, heavy like house. Great vocal. Drive. Yeah, drive. Feeling function over drive. So two that you may not be familiar with. Great songs. Yeah. Third one. Song called Free. Ultranate. Remember that? From the 90s?

SPEAKER_05 30:51

Sorta.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

So this is the beatbreaker disco infused remix. Again, you could use it for doors open. I've been using it early in the dance set. First a couple songs in. Really? Great sing along. Breakdown right here. And get out. So this is a twist. I know you probably don't like to mess with the classics, but this is low Flowrida. Uh-oh. Versus Barbara Streisand, the duck sauce. Do you remember that? Yeah, I remember that. Barbara Streisand. I think it's a good twist on this. I usually play the low normal. Yeah. And then the last chorus, I'll drop it on this edit.

SPEAKER_05 32:18

Ooh, I like that.

SPEAKER_04 32:18

So here's a map. It works good. It does, right? Now the drop is a little aggressive, in my opinion. It's like a techno stone. You're going into like techno stuff. Like Barbara's trying to. Oh wow. I always tell. You added that? No, that's in the original. So this is the uh Adam B edit. And it and then it's pretty much it. That's just like it's just got, I mean, it goes another. But it's no, no more low. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just that little thing to get into some house stuff. So it's a great transition trick. That's tough. I like it. Last one, song that's crushing for me, choosing Texas. Yep. This is the Andrew Mark Something Better edit. So this is LL Langley versus Audien. Yeah. Peak hour. I already like the D-Rock mix, but this one's replacing it. Because it's just does so well for me. Should have known better. I played this with that LSP. You did. Which is what do you like to play? Did you play? Yeah. This is this is replacing the T.

SPEAKER_05 33:49

I love Texas.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

It doesn't take Chris to all the sea. Cowboy always finds a way to play. Drink and Jack off of my cell. Choosing Texas back and tell. He's choosing Texas back and tell.

SPEAKER_05 34:21

I like this tech audio. I like the audio. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

It's not gonna work for every crowd.

SPEAKER_05 34:26

But if you got an EDM heavy crowd, that golden era, Calvin Harris, David Getta, like that would go crazy. Who is that again?

SPEAKER_04 34:34

Andrew Marks. Great track. Good shit, good shit, Brian B. So fellows are five tracks. We'll put it in the Patreon and let's hit the gear corner.

SPEAKER_05 34:43

The gear's here. The gear is here. Is here is here.

SPEAKER_04 34:49

I have been trying to use my 360 camera more and more. The mic is doo-doo. So I needed to go with an actual audio recorder. I think you may have put me onto this. I did. I've used it. Yeah. Works great. Yep. I think the critical piece is that you need this other hose uh cable that has a quarter inch to RCA, so I can go master two out, I guess. Yeah. Into this. Yeah. But the clutch part is that this picks up the crowd noise in its own track.

SPEAKER_03 35:17

Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_04 35:18

So you don't go that. So this is a four-channel recorder. Okay. So two of them are. No, I swear this is the one. This is the one you sent me. It's not.

unknown 35:30

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 35:30

Oh. So this is the H4 Essential recorder. So this is direct from the board. Yeah. And then this too is picking up the crowd noise. Oh, that's what I need. Yeah, you don't have those notches. You're right. And this allows me to get that crowd noise in there without having to have them layer it from the actual camera. Right, right. Which is doo-doo. Right. This is the move. Damn, dude. So battery powered with the uh double A's. Yeah. Um, I highly recommend it. It takes an SSD card. That was one thing I didn't know, but I have it now, so it's all good to go. Any idea what this little unit costs?

SPEAKER_05 36:01

I think this is probably like $179 or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 36:03

A little more,

Gear Corner Better Audio Recording

SPEAKER_04 36:04

$219. Okay. And then this little cable, which is a six-footer, is $13. So you're looking about, I don't know, $250 up. I don't have these. That's critical. So if you're looking for something to get the best recording to sync to your 360 stuff, this is the move. Yep. Nice. So I want to share with that. Let's hit the question and get out of here. Question. So this is from our boy Marty Nightingale.

SPEAKER_05 36:28

Marty Nightingale gets a lot of love. A lot of love podcasts. Constantly answering his questions. Yeah, he refuses to come work for me. Should we stop answering his questions until he comes to work for Bun DJ Company? This goes with the episode, though. So you want to read it? When doing a travel event?

SPEAKER_04 36:44

Oh, there we go.

SPEAKER_05 36:45

What?

SPEAKER_04 36:46

We've just been talking about travel events in the last whole episode.

SPEAKER_05 36:49

When doing a travel event where the client wants to pay you to provide sound and lighting, and it's in an area you don't have a sound company you've worked with before. Do you get the quote from local sound companies slash DJs before giving the client a full pricing quote? Or are you doing something else? I'm actually getting ready to go through this. What do you do? I uh was asked to play in St. Pete, Florida, and you told me our boy Corey Barron did. Did I ever seen his contacted off like I didn't? No, you did not. You didn't. I found it from an I had it on my phone. I already had it. Okay, good. And I messaged him, and I He's got like a full production company. I'm waiting for him to get back to me with a quote. So then I'll say what I want to make, and I don't mark his up. I'm just gonna say this guy, Corey, down there is gonna do all the production, and his part is this, and then I need a plane ticket for this, and I need two nights in a hotel for this. So you haven't sent them a quote yet? No. Because you gotta wait till you get it from Corey. Correct. Got it. Because I don't do this very much. Right. And then ironically, of course,

Listener Question Travel Production Quotes

SPEAKER_05 37:42

somehow he put two and two together and he was like, you know, she reached out to us to DJ the wedding, and I go, But you ain't Joe Bunn, bitch. It ate him up. It's a wedding planner, it's a brother. I go, I've done a hundred weddings with this person, man. And I go, and if it doesn't work out financially, then she is gonna book y'all. Right. You're gonna make money either way. Right, right, right. Anyway, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 38:02

I do the exact same thing. You are doing a disservice if you quote this without knowing what you're gonna pay. Right. Like that would be the worst. Now, the one thing I'll do differently is if you don't know where to start, like you don't know any local people, the best thing you can do, I mean, Facebook, right? Like, just put out a post, just like, hey, and especially with all the DJ groups that are out there.

SPEAKER_05 38:21

If you're a member of the DJ's Vault, we always allow those to go through the DJ's Vault public group.

SPEAKER_04 38:26

We allow DJ Collective one is like anybody who's in there, is that's all we get. Yeah. Usually those questions. Like, and the reason why is because those people are pretty much vetted. Like, you know, those people have paid a premium to come to a DJ conference. You know that the recommendations aren't gonna be crappy. I will say always do your due diligence, you know, make sure to look at pictures, yeah, ask them what they're bringing, list out the gear. Yeah. Now, do you pad it? In other words, no, I don't know. That's correct.

SPEAKER_05 38:50

I'm not gonna mark his up.

SPEAKER_04 38:51

No, do you have them sign with the client directly for this, or does it run through you? It would probably run through me. Okay. How about you? It depends. If it's a high number, why do I want it to run through me? Right. I'm not responsible necessarily, like the liability. They do it.

SPEAKER_05 39:06

Yeah, that's I just hook them up. That sounds smarter. This isn't something I do often.

SPEAKER_04 39:10

But if it's something where I've got to research it, let's say it's an area outside the country, especially where I've never played and I gotta spend the time. I'm marking it up. Okay. Because there's time invested to find these people. Costa Rica was hard for me. I mean I had to go I had to spend time on that. Hope this is helpful. Let's close it out. Let's thank our uh sponsor, DJ Event Planner.

unknown 39:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 39:29

So let's wrap this up. We want to thank our sponsor, DJ Event Planner. If you're looking for a CRM to help run your business, DJ Eventplanner.com is the move. Thanks, guys. See you next week.