Spicing Up The Gig: From Working with High-End Planners to Skyline Chili

0:15 what's up everybody. Welcome to beyond the dj booth, episode one numero uno. I don't even think we said the title in the trailer. I think we pointed to the screen and then that was it. Nobody ever referred to the title beyond the DJ booth. And what was inspiration for you? I mean, we kind of worked on this together a little bit right. We came up with our own, we definitely chat GPT'd it. I think this was on our own, though I don't think AI have solved this for us. The rationale or the reasoning for the name was we're not really talking about, like scratching, mixing, right, the actual art or act of DJing.

0:56 It's more about the business of DJing, I would say the behind the scenes, like what happens when you're not behind the DJ booth. So, beyond the DJ booth, that was my rationale. You agreed to the title, so what are your thoughts on it? Well, to your point, I think it I mean in a podcast format without gear in front of you. It's hard to like show mixing techniques and all that stuff. So to me it was not just the business, but all the things we talked about in the trailer, which is music, all the other things that we cover travel hacks, possibly war stories, all these things that you hear outside of the booth when you're coming home from a gig or who knows. Just just you know it was all-encompassing, vague enough, but also had a little bit of feel of the DJ booth being like okay, we're doing DJing, so it's not going to get lost.

1:51 That's why I mean I definitely like the alliteration of beyond the booth better. Beyond the booth just kind of rolls off the tongue, but I didn't want people to overlook it. I wanted to niche down and really say, look, we're two DJs, we're talking about DJ. Stuff Like this isn't about I don't know what a diner Like. I didn't want them to be like what kind of booth. You know what I mean. So I think that, as much as I really loved Beyond the Booth, I feel like adding the DJ part was pretty essential for what we're talking about. I agree, All right, so let's talk about last weekend. So I'm, I'm, I'm here, I'm doing work in the office. Last weekend, off for a while. Where are you?

2:31 You're you're, you're West? bound. I'm in state I was in which is rare for you, right? Really rare. I live in Raleigh. I have yet to do a show in Raleigh. I don't really market to Raleigh, right, you own this market, so I don't. I don't really, unless you want to come work for me, which he doesn't, yeah no well, I mean honestly like I have enough leads outside of the right of the triangle, as a traveling man yeah so, but one market that I have been in frequently is Asheville up in the mountains, yeah, and uh, specifically, I think it's an hour more northwest yeah, right, because it would. I definitely was going up a mountain like yeah that much, yeah, yeah, yeah so highlands, specifically and randomly.

3:12 I'm on this vendor venue. Randomly, I'm on this venue list. I've never played at this venue before first time, so the only thing I I figured out after the event was that somebody from another venue, which I know how I got on that list and played there. They worked for this one venue that I was at this weekend for like literally two weeks, and put you on it and put me on the list, wow. So again it goes back to relationship building. Why that's so crucial Because you never know where people are going to go and, who knows, I could be on this list for six months, six years, who knows? You know, just but I haven't been taken off. So I get this gig. It's beautiful up there right Stunning.

3:53 Dude. I took some video posted on my Instagram. It doesn't even do it justice, yeah. North Carolina mountains are next level man. Totally amazing and you're, you're, you were a little early for the leaf change, kind of true fall, but I mean you were still there like prime time. That's why I love this state, man. I mean I remember when I was talking to you you were living in Manhattan. You were going to Florida. You were going you know points west and I was just like man, you know you're having a kid, you've got to get out of the city. Man, like you should come to raleigh. It's right in between florida, yeah, and new york. And you're like, yeah, yeah, maybe I will. The next thing, you know you're buying a house here, but you see why I've never left. Yeah, right, you've been to the beaches here.

4:33 Yeah, amazing, you can walk for miles on the beach. Totally, you can drive four hours west and be in the mountains, like there's not a lot of states that are this no unique, I guess yeah, anyway. So this gig, I uh, yeah, a lot, of, a lot of things happen at this event. You know number one, uh, for those that I haven't shared this publicly, really but uh had to have hernia surgery. Zero out of five stars. Do not recommend that in any form or fashion. You referenced him on the trailer, but mike walter yes and like an og in this industry yes sir, your former podcast partner, yeah, he had had hernia surgery. Okay, okay. So the day before the surgery I finally think about I should call mike. Yeah, give a little insight. Insight, how's this recovery?

5:14 And I knew that I had a wedding like. So the surgery happened on a tuesday. Sunday was another wedding, not this one I'm referencing, right, uh, so I just want to make sure I'd be okay and I gotta fly to it. It was in florida, so I call up mike and in classic mike style he goes. I don't want to sound like a hero here, but he's like I did a wedding the next day. I'm like you bastard. Of course you did so you're like I'm gonna be okay yeah, so I'm walking in this totally overconfident, right? uh, he didn't give me permission to disclose where his hernia was, but just say you can be in different parts of the body, okay, all right, mine was near my stomach, okay, uh, didn't realize how important the core is to you yes, right, yes, it is important the day after the surgery and the anesthesia wears off, I'm like give me the legal narcotics asap.

6:02 There's's no way. I'm going to make this you know you were hurting. Yeah and uh you literally just like even if you wanted to lift things it just doesn't feel comfortable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So travel hack, number one of this podcast. I needed an assistant and since I don't live in the market, I don't have assistants working for me here locally and I'm like we got to go five hours. I don't want to pay for someone's hotel. The cool thing about our industry is that we're super supportive of one another, so I put out a little note on Facebook. Somebody reached out and said hey, I live about a couple hours from Asheville area. I'll be glad to help you there, but I still needed to load the gear in. Here in Raleigh, here in Raleigh, to take it up there, right, yeah, I could have called you, but you would have been $6 million.

6:46 I don't have that kind of budget, so I was like I was actually mad. You didn't call me. You came here and I was like bro. I would have come over there and loaded your shit up for you. Come on, dude. You would have held that over my head for so long. This is terrible, so anyway I got a u-haul van. That's what I do when I don't have a vehicle to carry everything, and I noticed they always try to upsell you. They do, that's right. Do you want boxes, blankets, all of it? One of them is movers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I go. Yeah, I do need some movers. It's just to move it from my upstairs into the van, so they helped me get everything in that was awesome it literally cost me, I, I think, 175 bucks, but that's for them to load in and load out Right.

7:28 So I still want to come home. I would have taken that. Yeah, call me next time. I would have taken. I would have done it for 155. And a couple of topos yes and a couple of topo chicas. Yes, so that is a humongous travel hack. If you're not, um, if you're looking in, you're out of the area, hurt or just had surgery or whatever. Didn't know like you need help. Yeah, and you know it's you all they're gonna, and then, but how did you get the person to help you there? So that's when I did the facebook uh post. Right, somebody showed up. They helped me out with all of that, um, but this was a interesting wedding for, beyond that, just the fact that there was no formalities yeah, the only formality was a toast, so this. What was weird for me as a dj was looking at the music and going wait, there's no formality songs.

8:12 There's no grand entrance, no. First that is weird. No family dances. Yeah, no cake cut. I mean a lot of stuff's been cut in the in years past, but not everything and so you know, I have multiple backups of all these formalities on different devices. I'm like I'm not loading anything. Right, that's wild. So bizarre and for an actual wedding. Like I've been to cocktail parties and done those but not for a gig. Yeah, so that was the first like shocker for me is like man, maybe we're getting to that point soon. I don't think it's going to go away like tomorrow. No, right away, like tomorrow, no, right. But I don't know if you've been feeling it. I feel like the formalities have been getting cut more and more. Now it's like the cake cut isn't even happening these days where they don't even want to announce private, right, right. So it's like I'm okay with that.

8:52 Literally it's like first dance and two family dances yeah, you're done, I'm okay with that. Yeah, I'm fine with it too sure, sure, yeah. So, anyways, that was the first like aha moment for me. I'm like this is a different wedding than I've ever been to right it's 80 people, so literally it's a three-hour dance set um three to four hours actually, because we finished around 6 30, we went to about 11, so 10 30 that's long, it's long. Yeah, there's no formalities and 80 people nothing to break it up. You know you lose 20 people. It's a third of your crowd gone right right, so it's a fourth, but go ahead you're gonna get me on that one um, but you just have to be cognizant of uh flow.

9:35 You have to be cognizant of you said you ripped it. Yeah, it's the best set I've ever played and I rarely. I've never heard you say that like I. I hear a lot of DJs. They'll get in line with it. I'll rip that there's always sections where it's good but this literally from start to finish, was one of my best sets that I've played that's magical man that shit right there will keep you doing it for another 10, 15, 20 years. Shows like that where you're just, like dude, I was feeling it, they were feeling me and, like you said, it's a smaller crowd, so you have to keep them there. Yeah, right, because it's important yes, right, like if you hit them too hard waves yes, you have to kind of mix it and around and um, they didn't give me much to go off of either.

10:17 That was the other thing. Um, they gave me maybe 10 songs. They were okay, yeah, nothing like it was super shocking. Yeah, yeah, um, but yeah it was just one of those things so musically. You know, I've been changing my flow on asking questions and one of the things that I ask now is to tell their story through music. I want to find out what are some songs that are like chapter markers in your life and I don't even ask for that many up to 10 and those have had great stories with them. I've never thought that that kind of a question would yeah, you know, resonate with people, yeah and they don't have to even be for the wedding, could be just in general. So the lady the bride goes uh, you know, she gave me one of 10.

10:58 The only song she gave me was brick house, which I haven't had. That on the request right probably in. I mean, I literally I think last time I've seen on a request list may have been 10 years ago I just don't get it. I don't either. Um, not that there's a generation, I think, right yeah, just I think maybe they're not into it as much. That's right. Anyway, this one's on there and the story goes that her mom used to play this at the house uh, no rhyme or reason, sure you know, and that was just a song that stuck in her head. It was like that's my mom's, one of my mom's favorite songs, yeah, so I knew I needed to drop it at the right moment and try to figure out a way to get out of it too, because I didn't want to play the whole thing so I had a short edit and I guess what I wanted to share with everybody listening is that you know, when you're downloading tracks I'm always looking at it like maybe I don't know where I'm gonna place this track.

11:45 I'm gonna download because maybe it might be something I could use, it might go right. So I found this digs uh blend where he took expresso the song by sabrina carpenter, which is super hot. That's super hot and he played it over, uh, brick house. Let's look, can we hear this? Let's, let's give it a little.

12:28 Let's hear this so what's cool about that is that, like it, I went out of the chorus of brick house into this little segue of this, I mean I'm in it for like 30, 40 seconds, pretty much as long as this clip that we just played, and then on to something else. But it was enough where the mom heard the chorus she loved it, yeah and everyone else was like oh man, we're going retro. God, I hope we're not in this set for too long and I just moved right into this. We're back into current you know what I mean. Oh, that's clean, I'll probably never play that edit again. Yeah, but it was there and I took it just because, who knows, there might be a spot where I could use it, you know dude, that that I mean I could definitely see using that.

13:08 I mean just again, cause you and I were talking off air about like I haven't really found the perfect edit of that song. I love that song. And it's super catchy and it was. I mean it was definitely contender for song of the summer, but I haven't really found like the perfect edit of it right. So anything else about the gig you want to. You want to say, before we move on to the, to the meat of the one, the one, uh, one more story I'll give you. This was toast, heavy five toasts. Okay, and I don't know if they come from a background of acting or whatnot, but these people were given incredible toast, just hilarious. One guy's like hey, you know, I, I think the guy was in tech and so he's the groom.

13:50 You mean the groom, yeah, he's in tech security, yeah, and so two of his people from his crowd. They weren't even groomsmen, they didn't even have groomsmen, they were just like them essentially. But they go, uh, uh, we hacked into your gmail because you don't have it secured down and everyone laughed because this guy's in like cyber security, sure, and they found like a meyer briggs test of his from like back in high school because he doesn't know how to use the archive feature either apparently right right and they basically like, went through it and just like, roasted him right, but it was great. I mean, everyone's laughing, even the groom's laughing, right. So then the bride's parents come up and I just thought this was the most bold like speech ever from the bride's mom.

14:33 She goes. It's kind of a bittersweet day today. She goes. I spent the whole morning going through my phone and deleting out all of I think her name was Kyle Kyle's ex-boyfriends from the list From the phone. Like her, contacts list or like the pictures. No, from the list From the phone, Like her contacts list or the pictures. No, from the contacts list within her phone. What? And she goes, and I'm really going to miss a few of them. What is this? And I'm looking at the groom going this is such a dick Like get your hand on the mic. Do I need to kill? this. She's had a few and she tried to save it by saying his name was Bart and she goes. But Bart takes the cake and I'm just like that's not a good enough save Wow.

15:14 But was she doing it intentionally or did it just get away from her? I? think she had a few too many to drink, so this was like real her. She didn't think it was offensive at all, right at all, right, right, but I it was. It makes me cringe right now like I got my. Yeah, that's gross, I don't like. It was just funny when it was the sides, but uh, yeah, great gig and yeah, it was awesome. Well, um, so we promise people you know value, we I love to hear about the gigs and I love to hear tracks that I don't have and probably don't have the time to dig up like you do. But let's talk about. Let's talk about a question, because what we are always going to try and do and really I think kind of the backbone of this podcast, if you will is trying to take questions from the people that are listening to it and implement them into the show and give our take on it.

16:03 And a friend of ours, we both knowk, from cincinnati, ohio. We kind of trickled out a little google forms and, um, if you, if you guys, ever see us looking up like this, we have a monitor up here where we kind of reference things that we're reading, kind of like a prompter. Uh, we'll probably move it down lower later, um, but for now it's up there because that's where it was screwed into a concrete wall and, damn it, it. I ran out of time. So, anyway, let's read the question and then kind of go through it. It's kind of a lengthy question. You know who hates a long question, jason. Janai, yeah, you better be glad JK. Be glad Janai's not on it. Jk, be glad that Jason Janai is not on this podcast, because he would fillet you for writing a long question We've been doing this DJ collective mentoring for a couple of years now.

16:56 We switched up the format and now do this membership thing this year right, yeah, yeah, yeah, and this is kind of where we came up with the idea, right. Absolutely yeah, we've been doing these calls. We've done. I mean, we committed to a year and we've done 37. How, yeah, we've been doing these calls. We've done. I mean, we committed to a year and we've done how many 37. Trust me 37 of the 52. We've gone live every Monday night since January 1 or whatever. I think you only missed one, I missed a couple, you have missed a couple. I think I've missed one, yeah, and Jason's missed one or two, yeah. So, other than that, all three of us have been on these mentor calls. But that's kind of where we got this idea. So let's hear what he's talking about. So the question is this what is most important to planners when considering what higher tier DJ they use?

17:40 Is it appearance of the gear and yourself? Is it their availability to communicate throughout the planning process? Or the other option? Is it them knowing your skill level and ability to provide more than just a dope set? Great question, and let me say this too I think one of the cool things about these questions that were getting submitted is that we both sometimes think completely different. Sometimes we're exactly spot on and I've loved kind of hearing your takes on these things and to the what we've done in this in the past, we've never really pre-screened what our answers are going to be. So why don't? I open the floor to you. What would you say to this? Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that you are more in this event planner luxury space, but I will say that over the last let's call it uh five to ten years here at bun dj company and I'm mainly speaking about the raleigh office right now I don't remember, and saquon will probably back me up I don't remember the last time we did a show that didn't have a professional wedding planner at it.

18:41 So you know, that alone just kind of shows you what happens when you start to uh ascend in the pricing world. You don't have to be the wedding planner and the DJ, and so I think you know, without going through each line of this question, at the end of the day it's all of these things right. I mean, there is, there are countless reasons why these planners recommend us, and I'm not even just speaking about Joe Bunn in particular, I'm speaking about any of the 23 guys that work here in the Raleigh office. It's definitely the way they look. They dress well, they're dressed sharp, they look like they're supposed to be there Even when they show up to load in.

19:22 They've got on a company polo and probably their slacks, their gear. Whether they have a bun gear command center or not, they've at least got professional gear. All the cables are taped down. You're like I'll plug that. Their communication, I mean, is critical, like he says in this. I mean, if they're sending us a PDF, we respond back to it. Yes, that looks great. Yep, we'll be there at four o'clock. Um, you know, it's immediate, it's not. It's not two, three days later, it's if they get an email. And again, all of my guys have a job like another job, but I tell them look, I don't care if it's six o'clock, when you get home from your other job, check your bun dj company email so they respond back to the planners in time.

20:03 What was the other thing? Um and Um and just being a, you know, a great DJ, and then, at the very core of it all is just being a good person. How well do you communicate with them? The other people working the wedding, the catering staff, the lady that runs the banquet hall, the bride, the groom, the people that are coming up to you asking for requests it all rolls into a giant ball of do I want to recommend this person again? And if you're an asshole, you know. Or if you're walking in demanding food or you know, hell, no, I'm not setting up there, absolutely not. Like. Call whoever you need to like. You know, if you're that kind of person or a no man is what I call them instead of just basically being a yes man, like whatever you need, I'll get it done, you know what I mean?

20:52 Then nobody's going to recommend you man. And it just is it's. It's sometimes that simple and I think people overcomplicate it. Anyway, I'm rambling, Go on. What do you think about this? No, I to your point. Uh, in the florida market, where we built really our name in the multi-op world, um, it's a destination market. You, you usually will be fed like almost I don't want to knock the knot or the wedding wire here, but like you almost don't need those platforms because everything is still ran through the planner first. Yeah, it's a destination place. They're going to hire the planner who's going to help them find all these people. I learned that really quickly early on that the old school method of referrals from not the venue even, but literally the planner controls that process.

21:39 So you got to learn how to plan that sandbox and as you ascend kind of more on the pricing scale of going up to your point, it's almost automatic You're going to have a planner who's going to manage that stuff. That's right as far as the vendor selection and even who's being presented, sometimes they'll send you two or three different people within a price range, or maybe it's three different price points, and you got to be in their good graces, right. So to me I think the you kind of hit it already, but one is being just a good human and just like. That doesn't mean necessarily that, um, the answer is always yes to certain things. I mean to me when they asked me like what, what is your style?

22:21 What do you do? What you don't want to say is whatever you want me to do. Yeah, right, because to me that shows that you really don't have it figured out. Like you don't have a lane, like I don't know who that what does that even mean? Like you're just going to be a chameleon and do whatever. Like I don't want that. I want to know what your strengths are yeah, what are, and making both you know animals out of balloons or are you just going to mix? Really great, like I need to know. Like what you do is really well. And I think as you go up in price, that becomes one of the most important things. To the last part of your question about skillset and stuff, it's not so much because that's objective, like there's somebody, great, they don't know, they're not in the industry from the standpoint of DJing, right, but what they do know is this is what they focus on, this is their calling card, whatever that is for you.

23:08 So you first, before you even start kind of talking to planners, is figure out who you are, figure out what it is that you want to be doing and be able to confidently say this is what I'm looking to do. Do you, do we mesh? Does the clientele that you have like what I do? And hopefully there's more yeses than noes in that regard, right. So I think that that's big. And then the second thing I would say is it's a long game, it's a long man's game, Like if you think this is going to turn around quickly by just trying to like get the sell. At least my experience has been that that doesn't happen in the next week. No, so you have to build the relationship Like people want to not feel like you're just using them for a gig, which maybe that is the ultimate win is to be working with them.

23:52 Yeah yeah. But if you come in thirsty like I, just want the gig, that's a problem. It's a long game. Right, not even a question, man. I mean, this stuff has taken me years and years. I've talked about it ad nauseum. You know, I still go to the networking meetings. I still, you know, send out gifts I still. You know, I'm in planning a taco luncheon for every planner in town. Like it is, it is long game and it's relentless. And if you're not going to sit there and be that guy and and or girl and and have your foot on the gas the whole time, you're going to lose your footing and you're going to lose your traction and you're not going to be the top of the market and you're not going to get the recommendation from these people.

24:34 And so I don't know, man, it's just one of those things where it is so much more valuable and so much more, I guess, roi than the not ads no offense to them or WeddingWire or whatever online platform came out. Even Instagram or whatever. Whatever Facebook ads it's just that network, the look, the gear, being a good person and treating people well at the event is so much more, has so much more staying power, I guess, than anything else. He said it in there and you reference it too. But also, just getting back to people, yeah, I hear it from planners all the time.

25:17 It's like, hey, I don't hear back from the DJ for, like you know, two or three weeks Our industry looked bad, but if you really, I mean, it's so simple, it's crazy. It's like so simple. Even people do it to me Like I mean, it's just, it's unbelievable sometimes, like it's not that hard to respond. You're not a celebrity. Yeah, I get it, we're all busy, but I mean, and I'm getting messaging, and so are the people listening from DM on Instagram, facebook Messenger, texting, phone calls, uh, website inquiry. I mean, I can, I can probably name 10 different channels that stuff is coming in to me, yeah, and other than the, the inquiries about shows that come to the website, which randy handles.

25:57 I'm responding to all of those like you can't say you pinged me on some channel and I didn't get back to you, because it might be a day, but I'm going to get back to you and that would probably be as long as I let it linger, unless some kind of spam capture grabbed it or something like that. I got back to your ass. There you go. Anything else on this one man? I mean I feel like this is a good stopping point. I hope we help jk out, shout out, cincinnati. Um, yeah, good chili there I know it's random, but they do. They it's called, they're known for it. Have you ever eaten? I've never been there. You've never been oh dude. Let's see, I think that's what it is. My grandparents grew up close to Cincinnati. Okay, okay, so I went there for years and they're known for ton of cheese on it.

26:39 Okay, it's like I love chili at the right time of year, not in the summer. Oh yeah, I'll smash that, okay, yeah, it's good to know, good to know. Well, everybody, beyond the dj booth, episode one is in the can. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Stick around many more episodes to come, hopefully if brian keeps uh showing up here at the studio and, uh, you guys keep showing up and listening thank y'all, see ya.