Why Leaving The Wedding Industry Can Be Harder Than Entering It

Season Nine Kickoff And Updates

SPEAKER_02 0:17

What's up, everybody? Welcome to season nine, episode one. Episode one. We're starting a new season. That means we gotta we got 13 to bang through.

unknown 0:26

Damn.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Can't stop. Can't stop.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Should we just take a break now for a month? Would you guys be mad? What if the episode just ended right here? That's right. Would you guys be mad? It just goes to black. And then we don't stop believing plays and then it just goes to black and then we don't come back on for like a month. You think people would be mad? I think they would. Maybe then we would feel the love. Leave us a review, by the way, if you haven't done so lately.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

This drops on the 23rd of September. You think you're gonna be in the thick of it at that point?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

No, I'm gonna be at the Harry Styles show in Madison Square Garden. That weekend. Yeah. In the pit. Wow. Yeah. Come back. Birthday party on the 25th. That's right. Yeah. I'll be at a corporate.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Wedding on the 26th. Yeah, I'll be in. I've got two corporates back to back, then your birthday. Nice. And then a wedding. Uh let's shout out some of our Patreon members. Are you not familiar with the Patreon? Well, if you're not familiar with the Patreon, get familiar with the Patreon. You should be.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

We just dropped gold last episode. Lots of uh bonus content there for you. So Patreon.com slash beyond the DJ Booth podcast. Oh shit, we're international? Again. You know, we you know it's so funny. Ron Burgundy? Oh no, Ronnie Burgerson.

unknown 1:36

Ron Burgundy.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

No, Ronnie. I'm Ron Burgundy. Ronnie Burgerson from Learson Viking, Norway. Norway. You know where we're not big?

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Where?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Ghana. We got some email the other day that was like, your numbers are way down in Ghana. We're like, damn, Africa fell out. What did we say? Is that okay?

SPEAKER_06 2:01

Wait, somebody emailed you from Ghana? No.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

We get these statistics in some run random podcast installation that we did years ago. And it's like, your numbers are way down in Ghana. So the two people, like one person fell off or something, maybe like but we're big in Norway, apparently. We're huge in Norway.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

We're big in Australia. Love it. And then Paul Taylor from Waterbury, Connecticut. Thanks for your patron. Have you ever been there? No. I've been to Connecticut. Yeah, me too. I haven't been to Waterbury Connect.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Darianne.

DJ Collective Sponsor And Speaker Talk

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Darianne? Yeah. What's in Darienn? I don't know. I knew some guy that lived there, I think, from college, and he invited me up. Okay. It was it was a high-dollar city, it felt like. Amazing. It was near the I think a lot of people that don't want to live in Manhattan. Yeah. Commute over. The nice one.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Yeah. You want to talk about our DJ Collective announcement? We got a biggie today.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Man. Shout out our boy, Justin Brock, and the company that he works for, RCF. They are sponsoring the DJ Collective this year for the first time.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

They will be the official speaker company in the sessions. Nice. As well as at the parties. Really?

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Mm-hmm.

unknown 3:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Nice broker. Nice broker. Yeah. Excited to see how it goes off. I mean, I'm an R I'm an RCF fan now. I know I was an EV fanboy for a long time, but Yeah. You're on them. This is what you use every weekend. It is. Evox 12s.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Apparently they got some new products coming out.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

They do. They got the uh J11, I think, is finally back in stock. I haven't been sent that yet to demo. Probably going to end up keeping it. And then they have a V15, which I'm interested in demo and possibly keeping as well. Because right now I only have that one set of speakers, and then of course my e-verse eights are my favorite. Trying to get you on those for my um battery-powered cocktail speakers, Phil speakers.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Um Justin will actually be in attendance. Oh shoot. Okay. And so will their Shelly, their is it sponsored DJ? I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

I mean she'll be playing travels with them some. I saw her, she was at DJX and did some uh product videos for them. But um she uh according to Jenna has a great DJ as well. And actually I saw her at um another conference, and she was really I'm pumped.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Good party DJ. We haven't announced where she's playing yet, and but we will do that at another drop before the conference. Okay. Let's hit the pop culture minute. Brian B. Jobon dropping heat

Luxury Wedding Trends Worth Watching

SPEAKER_02 4:31

just for fun.

SPEAKER_04 4:33

Pop talk spinning like a record spine.

unknown 4:37

Woo!

SPEAKER_04 4:38

Pop culture class where the stories collide. Two DJs bringing the flavor world wild.

unknown 4:45

Woo.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Mm-hmm. So, Taylor Swift, we obviously didn't see anything from those weddings. From that wedding. Isn't that crazy? Still crazy to this day. Yeah. But we did see some other big weddings. So I thought I'd show you one of them. This first one is isn't a celebrity wedding, but I just, it's a high dollar one. In Lebanon, very influenced by the Tomorrowland vibe. Check out this video. Is that not insane for somebody's wedding? In a cave. Look at the lighting. Interesting design. This is not good. I mean, you gotta hit the weather just right. Wow. For that. Now, another celebrity wedding that was big. Where do you where did you how did that even come up? Friends with the planner. You're kidding. I mean, I say friends, I shouldn't like go back. I mean, I know the planner well. They've been to engage, so I kind of knew them. That is bonkers. Yeah. One more video I'm gonna show you here in a second. This is uh another celeb wedding that just happened. Alesso's wedding. See this? Yeah, so you got it. Here's the recap video in Lake Como, yeah, Italy. Went all out. Tent vibe? But look at that. That is not like your normal tent. Some Brian Beach here right there. Stunner of a bribe. Buddy of mine that's been to engage Jose Villa Chavez. The uh photographed. Martin Garrett, Martin Garrett. Sketching things become more and more popular. The loud paintings and stuff. What an epic job. Holy moly. I thought it was interesting, lighting such a big piece. Um experience. Yeah, instruments. They had a band. I don't know if you could tell early on. Then they transitioned to a DT. Yeah, I saw that. Right. But even the look, if you go to the next photo here, I mean, look at that. That is iconic lake como I mean. I can't imagine what that costs just to put out that drapery on the on the floor there. Right. Um, that's incredible. The next shot, I just thought this was a cool shot from the inside. Those chandeliers are a big thing right now. I'm seeing, but lighting and experience, that whole Tomorrowland kind of vibe, even though this is Alesso, obviously he's got the money to throw at it. Right. And then the next one is this the whole fireworks thing. I mean, another iconic shot, but that whole thing with drones and all of that, that's not drones, that's that's fireworks, but they're big. Yeah. And then what I loved was they they showed on social um a raw dogged version of the three DJs, Martin Garrix, uh, Dylan Francis, and then an unmasked marshmallow playing. So this is here. All doing like a back-to-back with a leftless track. Pauling.

SPEAKER_05 8:58

Those three heavy hitters.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

That's so cool, dude. Right? Wow. Anyways, I think it's always good to keep a pulse on what's happening with all this stuff. Yeah. Because it definitely trickles down at some point to some level. May take a couple years for it to get to Raleigh, but eventually that stuff is something that you need to keep watching to see how that stuff trans trans you know sends to us.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

I mean, yeah,

The Back Room Patreon Breakdown

SPEAKER_01 9:29

I I think people even people that are on like a you know a sensible budget, whatever, let's call that 50k, still look to this stuff for inspiration. They do? Yeah. Absolutely. Right, because everybody wants that, but I mean not everybody's got two million dollars or whatever that costs.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Fly everybody to combo.

unknown 9:45

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

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_01 10:00

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 batched episodes, giveaways. Look, we have the good stuff there, not junk. We're not gonna email you some sticker.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

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

SPEAKER_01 10:20

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

Three Hour Zoom DJ Stream Strategy

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Join us and our booth head community in the back room. Let's hit the story time. So you did a stream. I thought it was a pretty long one. Four hours? Three. Three hours. Still. Three hours is a long stream.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

And about a week or so ago, they changed it to start or it's global. Oh. So this is a break, or this is people like, how is this?

SPEAKER_02 11:01

No, they're I mean, I can't. They're at work. Yeah, there were probably middle of the day. They're like, hey, don't want to learn.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

No, it's not the middle of the day. Well, I'm talking about for the people that are here because there's Eastern time, it's middle of the day. West Coast, it's morning. Europe, it's night. That's an interesting move.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

They wouldn't delay it to like there is no optimal time. Right. So and I gotta play it. So what is the what are they telling people to set this up?

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Hey, here's a music soundtrack just to take your morning multiple times. In fact, I have three more to do this year. Someone's dropping bass, second story, just while you're listening to you streaming. They're just they just say, hey, you know, we've got a live DJ today. It's like a um the morale team sends out an email, you know, join from work. I mean, you can see everybody like coding and doing work and stuff. If they turn their camera on. But no one's dancing, really. No, but people are just kind of like bobbing their head. If they most people, oh yeah, I'm chatting the whole time, and the chat's going nuts. Okay. And I'm talking, you know, about this all in Zoom. All on Zoom. I'm camera about the song. I'm on camera. One camera. One camera shot. Which one are you doing? Straight up? The Hudley Go right in the front. So it's got my hands, it looks like uh almost like a fisheye lens. Yeah. And then I was right here in front of this wall. There was a painting here and not that. These are on, and then I've got the lights on. It's the same setup as this. I had I just dragged the the prototype gig desk bun gear right here. And then I mean it's you know, I have a hard line into the uh internet. I have the Hudley Go camera. How are you programming this? Like, what's your thought when you're going into this? I take a lot of I take an hour or so the night before to put stuff into a crate that is not very common. So edits that I know they've never heard or won't hear, songs that they people wouldn't be tired of. Like there's no Uptown Funk or 24K Magic or Brick House, September, it's none of no wedding stuff, really. And are they asking for any songs on the streets? Yes. And it's in because it's in Europe, it gets a little sideways. Yeah. Like literally just like, and I'm like, literally like live downloading stuff from Apple. Wow. Not always, like sometimes I'm just like, yeah, I'll play something adjacent to that. Or I'll play, they'll go Lady Gaga, something, something, B cut. And I'm like, I you can hear, you know, just dance. Yeah. I'm not saying that, but I'm just in my mind, and I'm kind of because nobody's here but me, there's nobody really stopping the chat from moving, so I'm kind of having to remember them or like drag them into the prepare folder if I'm gonna play them.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Um, some people are dropping five at a time, you know what I mean? Some things are just like metal or like just I know are just not appropriate. Right. Not lyrically or or content-wise, but just like nobody wants to hear slipknot, right? Like, this is fucking stupid. Like, I'm not playing slipknot. You know what I mean? I'm still trying to make it like melodic and and vibes. And like if I was sitting there working, would I listen to this for three hours?

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Did you find any new mixes that worked well that you might incorporate?

SPEAKER_01 14:18

I did, I did. I need to go back through the history. I'll I'll that'll be in the Patreon as well. I'll I'll kind of pull some stuff that went crazy. I remember the the biggest one I was I I I pulled a Drew Pierce, you know, uh his favorite line when he's doing the stream when we used to do the stream, Let's Get Weird. I was like, Let's get weird. And I pulled um um the next episode, Dreah, with 20 cigarettes, Morgan Wilde. Oh 20 cigarettes. And I just I even like surprised myself. Like I dropped it and it starts with the next episode, and then it just goes boom, and then he goes, 20 cigarettes with that plunk, yeah, and I was like, oh my god, why is this so good? Yeah, like how does this work so well together? I I think Scooter might have made that one as well. And people are like, oh, he's flexing now. And I was like, I I don't I I was like, let me just stop y'all and just say, I ain't taking credit for this. Like, if I'm if I play something and y'all think it's depth, it's like it's dope, then I'm gonna say, Who's the edit? Yeah. And I was like, this guy's name's Scooter, he's from Philly. Like, I'm if you want to give props to somebody, he made this. Yeah, or like an even Steve edit. I'd be like, nope, I didn't, nope, I didn't do that live. Like, and are people taking video of this like from their phone? I don't know. At some point, and I forgot to go back and look. Somebody had a I'm seeing the chat, so I have the TV that we have right there, yeah, right in front of me, so I can see the chat, and then my laptop is just my music. I don't see anything over there. Yeah somebody had a screen grab of my hands, and then all these little arrows, and I don't know what it was. I think they were like it could have been a DJ, like explaining what I was touching and what I was doing. Got it. I don't know, but it it it definitely had like red marks on it, like this is a volume knob or this is like a platter.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Like are you able to are you the one starting the zoom or are they? They generate the link. So did you get the recording? Great question. It'd be cool to potentially I don't have the recording, but I'm wondering if they do.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yeah, it might be kind of cool. It'd be good to chop up because it was definitely some good moments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. It was good, man. So I got a couple more of those this year. Yeah, I it did not seem three hours. Now, would I have preferred to do two the original booking? Yes. But I just charge more money and send out another invoice. And that was my next question.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

I I don't even know the dollar amount, but it's worth doing. Yeah, very much so.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

It's epic games. I mean, like well, I mean the client is money.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Like, yeah, like I I probably could have made up something stupid and they're taking it. Yeah. I think the number is reasonable. It's not a good thing. Well, the fact that when you're done, you're like, let me get back to my email. That's what I did. I was like, I had to pack up a couple things, but like move the booth away and stuff.

Corporate Event Layout Problems And Lessons

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Took me 15 minutes, but like I'm here. Yeah. Just went right back to work. That's crazy. That's awesome. It's still kind of like, you know, the fact that it's still happening. The people are still doing those. Yeah. And they love it. Like they love it. Right. Like they were like, we need to book four of these. And I was like, let's do it. Yeah. Well, I had an interesting corporate. I saw that picture and I knew I was in uh as soon as you sent me the picture. What did I say? I go, Who the fuck is playing? Uh Yeezy?

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Like this is so I played for this corporate before. Yeah. They had me at someplace at the Duke Inn or I think a Washington Duke. Yeah, maybe. And that actually went off because it's a smaller room. Yeah, yeah. But they had thousand a thousand plus people. I mean, it was packed to the guilds. People actually they had an adjacent room. It was a the like filled room.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah, they have a bunch of ballrooms there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

That people were coming in. So it didn't take but two seconds to fill the dance for.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

I think these guys got a little in their head about like, oh, it's gonna pop off. Yeah. Let's make sure there's enough room. So they had 500 people, which is still a good number.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

A rock club or something?

SPEAKER_02 18:05

It was uh well, they call it the memorial auditorium. They hold freaking concerts in there, obviously. Right? Well, it started bad anyways because they were like, listen, um, you can't use our sound system. And I I looked them up online, I'm like, they have way better stuff than I'm gonna be bringing. So eventually they talked to the right person and they said, No, we'll we'll provide sound lighting. Thank God they did, because it actually helped, yeah, and everything. But um I walk in and I'm like, wait a minute, I'm way over there, and this whole thing, I go, are people gonna trickle in? Because they have to give wristbands, I'm sorry, drink tickets because they don't wanna they only get they get the first two drinks are free. So they have to check everybody in. Yeah, that holds up the line. So it's a trickle in, right? Yeah, this room could have held 2,000 people easily. So even if we got all 500 people, which all 500 people didn't show, it was probably, if I had to guess, 300. And I got probably 200 at some point out there. Oh, that's but it took two hours. They booked me for four hours, bro. Yeah, that's a long corporate event. First two hours is just like, I mean, pulling.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

And so I'm just trying to think. Finally, the owner comes in and he goes, Man, we set you up wrong, didn't we? And I go, Yeah, you kind of did. Yeah, buddy. I mean, I wish I would have known because I expected them to go. Okay, well, well. I would have been set, I would have suggested me in the middle. Okay. I was gonna say, you were way too far. Way too far. No one wants to jump out there, and when it's you know, made for 2,000 people on a massive state.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

A massive state. We had your bung. I think that's what I said. Yeah, you had the command center up there, and I go, where is the rest of the entertainment? Yeah, like you needed dancers and like lighting was great, but that was about it.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

So for three hours, I'm just like, this is brutal. Yeah, and I can't I can't tell. I'm like, do we have everybody in here? I can't tell if I need to make an announcement and say, yo, let's get this thing starting center or anything. Oh, I know I had Brandon. Brandon Alley showed up helping me out in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I don't think I've ever been there.

SPEAKER_04 20:07

Yeah, me neither.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Check that one off the list. Yep. Um, and so anyway, I took a video of the room. You can kind of see it here if you're watching. There's no sound to it. Just but look how massive. I feel like I'm at a prom, bro. That's what it looks like. I mean, the lighting is like A plus. Yeah. But I mean, look how deep this goes.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Good lord, dog.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

And I'm not even to the back, I'm in the middle of the space right now.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

So we had all the bars in the far back. That's the other problem. Terrible, bro.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

They set you up nasty. So then the uh the the owner goes, Um, I mean, I'm trying everything to get them out there. I finally get them out there, and I probably had maybe 30 minutes worth of dancing, maybe 45 if I'm being honest. And then it kind of started, people were like, let's trickle out, you know. And so then some guy goes, Hey, can you play um some embers?

SPEAKER_01 20:54

I'm like Embers?

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Beach music? Beach music?

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

I'm like, why not? I close it out. I'm like, let's play two beach music tracks for the two. The four people that were still gonna come out there for it. Yeah, those four people, older people. Wow. I'm like, should I start it with that? Because I'm trying to be like kind of cool with it a little bit. Not not crazy cool, but I'm just trying to like play well rounded.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

You did it right, I'm sure, man.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Paycheck gig. But yeah, yeah. Let me go ahead and go ahead. Let me go ahead and uh make it known. Did I do it? Pause.

SPEAKER_05 21:26

We got a sink.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Wow. Yikes. One of those. Yikes. So they got another one of these back at the Duke Inn at the end of the year. And I said, let me get involved with the planning because they don't have it. This is this is the problem with this stuff. They get corporate people, they don't bring in a planner. I know. And you get hosed. Yep. Even if you're getting paid well, this

Practical AI Uses For DJ Life

SPEAKER_02 21:49

is still painful to go through. Painful.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yep. And especially Washington Duke, you can be like, I can do a site visit. Right. Let's meet over. Totally. Let's meet. I need to be here. Barr should be there. Like nobody knows. Better than you. Right. And me. Right. I mean, like totally.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Totally agree. Um, so that's all I got for this segment. Um, I brought out two topics for us today, and I just wanted to get your opinion because I know we're gonna be talking about the DJ Collective in a month or two from here, but AI, besides chat, because that's the easiest low-hanging fruit. But yeah, what are you using on an AI basis? Are you doing anything? And if so, how is it moving your workflow if you're trying it at all? Yeah. I got some ideas, but I just was curious what you're using.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Um I use chat more just like for research, anything, everything from health stuff to um I mean yesterday I was asking about like bath mats for the bathroom. I need a new bath mat. Like more like research. Okay. More how I used to use Google. Okay. That would like and I know that's probably not the best use, but true. Um sometimes I use um just AI in general with scripts. Yeah. So I'll have like a basis of what I want to say or a or a pain point I want to touch on. Um, sometimes I'll even give it like a reference video, sometimes of mine, sometimes somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Have you created, with since you're talking about chat, anything like within projects or are these just running lists?

SPEAKER_01 23:22

They're just running lists. I don't I haven't really used the work feature, I think is what they call it. And then the claw is claud. There's clawed code and then clawed work or something like that. AI assistant or something. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, where I've connected up like other apps like Google Docs, Google Sheets, your Dropbox, like all that stuff. I haven't. There is a four-hour academy on anthropic that owns Claude. And Eric Massingale and Dom and everybody's like, if you can, and again, you can watch it in pieces, but if you can get through those videos, I think you will be much better set up than we are now. Right. It's called Anthropic Academy. Like, I think if you Google that, and it's just it's broken into chapters and sections, easy to digest. And I only got through the first couple. I I kind of had my intention was to be to do it on the plane, like to Asia or Australia, but I never did. Um over the ocean, you have no Wi-Fi, by the way, just Wi-Fi on those travels. Um, so I I would say I'm I am at the very lowest end of an AI use. Okay. I don't use it for graphics. I don't want my virtual assistant to use it for graphics. No. Everybody's flyers now look the same. Yeah. In fact, when I did that thing for throwback Thursday that I'm playing this week, I said, I, you know, I need you to make me two versions of this. Do not even think about AI. Right. And she even sent me like the proof that she wasn't from um either Photoshop or Cap Cut or whatever. And I was like, even the picture looked a little off. And I go, Did you alter this photo? She goes, Nope. And she sent me like the screenshot of her, like um placing it in the graph in the graphic or whatever. But I'm like, everybody's shit starting to look the same.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Collins said he and his friend went to the mall the other day, that that broke down mall that's um Triangle Town Center, the one that's got all that vacancy in it. They love to go out there and just like make fun of all the stores and stuff. Yeah. He said between one end of the mall and the other that they walked, they counted 19 AI slop like posters in the window of these shop. I was like kidding. He was like, even some of them were like national brands. He was like, God damn, these are terrible. Like just on a design, you know, yeah, standpoint. I don't know. What about you?

SPEAKER_02 25:42

I mean, uh I So I'm I'm gonna I'm making a committed effort to buy the collective have some things in place. So one of the ones I started using it for, I never I'm like you, I was using it for research, never put it into projects or any of the different things. I finally decided to look into it a little bit more because one of the things where I've felt like I need was falling off was just food, especially traveling or even at home. Like I feel like I'm eating the same thing, my weight isn't changing, it's like stayed the same pretty much. And I'm like, I just want to lose a little bit and also make better choices when I'm on the road. So I one of the projects that it defaults to that you can use is health. So I went in there, yeah, uploaded all my function health stuff to it.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Is it on chat or Claude?

SPEAKER_02 26:26

On chat. Then I started uh a food log. The difference is because I had function health like in my normal chats. It never, if it references it, it always says, Can you upload it again? It doesn't remember that stuff. Yeah, that's weird. But the projects, you can put stuff in there. The part that makes it weird to me is like, but yeah, you know who I am. Yeah, I know. Like, how do you not reference a chat that we've already had? Right. I gotta post it again. Like, I don't understand how it knows so much, but it doesn't, right? I think, yeah. So anyway, I've been logging my food every day in there. Say, hey, this is where I'm at. What do I need to do to get this down a bit? Also just to eat healthier where I'm not feeling like crap at the end of the day. And I'm also wanting not, I'm wanting to get rid of hunger pains, which is for me more protein. Gotta have more protein. So, as an example, I was on the road. I said, Hey, I'm in this town. Yeah, I need a lunch idea. It's told me to go to Publix. Yeah. And it said, get the pub sub extra turkey for the protein. Dude, I couldn't even eat the whole thing in two days. Yeah. Half a sub. I'm like, and I'm full. Publix subs hits, by the way. I was like, wow. I had no idea. And then it recommended a place that I'm like, I'm in this town. Where do I go to eat that's going to be healthy? Whatever.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

I I will say this. In Tokyo and Australia, it was a fucking godsend. Yeah. Even when I went to New York with you the last time. Yeah. And I and I go, you know what? I'm going to I'm going to tackle the subway by myself. Hey, I'm standing at the corner of X and X. I need to get back to X. They were like, oh, you need to get on the A train, go this way. But never got lost one time. Totally. In Tokyo, hey, we're in this neighborhood. We want some Wagyu beef or whatever. Oh, you want to go to this place. This is and we would walk in and be the only white people in there. Like all Japanese. And that's when you know you're done. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're down. Mexican food too. Yeah. Any of those ethnic. Any any ethnic restaurant, even in even in the States, if I walk in and it's a Mexican restaurant and it's all Hispanic people, I'm like, this is it. Yeah. Like, I like that's how you know it bangs. Right. Asian restaurant. All Asians. This place hits. Right. Like, and but in Tokyo, didn't miss. I'd be like, we're looking for a bar to go to in Australia. We're in this neighborhood before we go. They put us on that bar. It's the coolest bar I've ever been to.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

In my life. Like music, perfect. Drinks, perfect. Vibe, perfect. Bartenders, spot on. I love it. I don't know. So travel, outstanding. I guess that would be my other usage for it.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

The only other thought I was going to bring to you is I'm now having my VA. I've created projects now. And I have one project that's called Unfiled. So I'm having her go through all my threads. If they don't, if she doesn't guess what they should be, like health as an example, or restaurant picks or travel, whatever the case may be, she puts it in the unfiled and then I gotta go through it. But I want to file all those things so it remembers my stuff, like teaching scripts, um topics, podcast stuff, like big levels of projects, because I have hundreds now of threads. Some of them are trash. I just need to get rid of them. But if I'm gonna think I'm gonna use it for anything, I want it in a project. So if you're not doing that, you may want to consider doing that. The other thing I got into was clawed a bit. So now what I had it do is, and I'm gonna have it done by the time that we get to the collective. I had it scan my entire external drive, which has got all my music on it. And I said, here's and it's got my folder structure from Serrato, all these different things. I'm eventually gonna get to the point where, well, first of all, I'm gonna have it go through, and there's already tools that do this, but I'm saying with Claude why, because it reads your stuff and updates quickly. It can go through my external drive. I can tell it, go through up my my drive again, and it'll pick up where it left off and in seconds be able to tell me what songs I've added, what songs I have duplicates of, or whatever the case may be. But I'm having it go through anything I've downloaded and putting it into my Serato for me manually because it can take over your computer if you let it. So all my filing and stuff that is man hours, all my tagging, man hours, I'm gonna be using AI for to do the first pass once I set up the parameters. It's pretty crazy. And that's just a quad project, basically. Yeah, yeah. Now, does it take time to set it up? Absolutely. It took me like five days. I'm still not perfectly taking so long. Because you gotta train it. Hey, open this program, the tag and rename file. Anything in this folder needs to be tagged a certain way so that then when I'm done with it, I'll say, hey, take all those files, move them into Serato. Do you? I'm just telling you, it's gonna make give me no the creativity back.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

I and don't say because you're old, why do I want to just say fuck AI? Like, why? I mean, I know this is a whole nother podcast. I'm not waiting, I'm not trying to extend this out. Say Kwan's gotta go to his other job. Like why do why am I like that? Like, I think I want them all to get in a fight with each other, like Claude and Chat GPT and Gemini, and just kill each other. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:42

I I think it's because it's it's got it's all gonna, I think it's all gonna get regulated to the point because all the slop and all the stuff, people are people are uh like you said, like you're you're even your your children are getting tired of it already. Yeah. It's eventually it's gonna die down and then it's gonna get used for what it was supposed to be used for, right? Like writing scripts and helping out businesses. I think all the slop stuff is gonna come to an end soon. It is, it is.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

It's just it's like getting a new toy, and then everybody's just like, oh, like I mean, because like Eric Mastingale and Dom, I mean, they're calling me Claude, Claude, Claude, Claude, Claude. Jesus.

SPEAKER_06 32:20

But I haven't, I don't, I haven't used a single, I haven't used Chat BGBT one time, bro.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

Oh. You're missing out.

SPEAKER_06 32:27

I I guess I don't know. I mean, I don't think I think if I want to learn how to do something, I can go ask somebody, or I can go read a book, or I can go research for myself. I'm gonna put all this time into making prompts and doing all that. I mean, I don't know. It's a it's a plus and a minus. I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

I mean, I'm I'm not gonna sit here and say I'm not using it. I am, but I mean, I am I any better off than I was two years ago?

SPEAKER_02 32:51

I think you are. Efficiency? That's what I'm thinking about it for. For me, efficiency. Sure. And to raise the bar of where the starting place is. For instance, if I had to start every script that we write for commercials from zero, could I do it? Absolutely, I could totally do it. Well, we did it. I mean, yeah, we did it.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

But those were man hours that I had to revise all this stuff. I at least I can take it before level, edit stuff out,

Why Leaving Weddings Takes Years

SPEAKER_02 33:17

and now I'm moving on. Do you think it really sounds like you? I mean, now, yeah. I mean, I never take it from what they give me. I always have to fix it. Me too. All the time. But some of it's learn me more. So second topic. Let's get off AI. Are you ready? Go ahead. I'm ready, yes. So is it easier getting in or out of the business, meaning the industry? I saw this clip. What industry? DJ? Uh wedding industry, let's call it. Saw this clip. I want to get your opinion.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Hot take, but I will die on the hill. That the hardest part of the wedding industry is not getting into it, it's actually getting out of it. And I feel like nobody talks about this and nobody considers this when they get into the wedding industry. And I am living proof of this because it is 2026, and I have been attempting to strategize my exit from this industry since 2023. Before we get too far into this, I need to preface this by saying I'm literally obsessed with every single one of my clients. I love them all. But there hits a point where you just want to live your own life again without planning your life two years in advance around other people's weddings. In 2023, I had a really hard year, decided I was done with the wedding industry. The problem, I was already fully booked for 2024. So in an industry that typically books a year to a year and a half or more in advance, you're now not looking at putting a two-week notice in to get out of a career. You're pretty much planning for a two-year notice. There's the financial piece of not only what comes next, but also the cut that you take when you stop taking non-refundable retainers for the following year's booking. Then there's a piece of literally what comes next. And if you're already committed for the next year, year and a half to a full-time career, it's really hard to build something new. And it's really hard to try and enter a new career path. And then sometimes you have a moment of weakness where you have a really great season and you say, Maybe I'll keep doing this, I'll book for next year. And then it's 2026 and you're still shooting weddings. So last year I decided the most logical thing I could think of to do was to put a hard end date on when my last wedding would be, because maybe that's the only way to figure it out. It took me two whole months to go full-time in the wedding industry and three years to leave it.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

Interesting. I can see your struggle of why it would be tough because you basically gotta have revenue coming in, you know, right away to sustain you if you're not gonna take somebody's deposit. Yeah. But I think it takes pretty spot on. Like it is tough to leave this industry, wouldn't you say?

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Yeah, I mean, especially if you're at her age, which let's call it 30s probably. And you don't have the money to retire. I mean, I don't I don't know who that is, but I can tell you she didn't have the money. I don't have the money to retire. Right. You know, I and I'm 55. Like so, right, what do you do in the interim when you stop taking deposits? Right? You have to have income. Right. Um, you gotta go get a job. Right. You know, it it's when you first posed the question to me, I think I would have answered it the opposite. It's harder to get into, you know, just starting a business in general. We talked about failure of small business in the last episode. Sure. Um, but now that I'm watching this, I mean I guess she's right. You know, you do have to have that finite date of I'm not taking any more bookings after X.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Give an example of Tony T, right? Yeah. Works for J and I for a decade plus, probably. Yeah. Maybe longer. Might have been 15 years or so. And he wanted to go full time into this voiceover business, and he that's what he did. He gave J and I like my last date is X. Right. Don't put me past that. And that's what he did. Yeah. He finished it, he played every show up to that moment, and that last one was truly his last one. And then he went into the voiceover business. Now, keep in mind he had always been doing voiceover, right? But now he had his full attention on it. Yeah. You know, to go out and get these bigger clients and you know, spend more time on the on the edits and tracks and stuff. Right. I don't know. I I I guess it's just as hard to get out of it, but it's also just as hard to I guess my thing is, and yours as well, and probably his as well. I could never work for somebody again. Right. I don't know that I ever worked for anybody in the first place. Yeah. So I I I you at least were in the corporate year before. I hated it. I I don't think I could do it. I know I couldn't do it. And so the real question is how do I how do you get out of it and do something else? Right. If you're not ready to retire or have this inheritance or you know this giant pile of money you've been saving.

SPEAKER_06 38:01

Yeah. Well, I feel like if the if you if your shoots and your your DJ, whatever whatever you are, a DJ, a photographer, planner, your work should speak for itself, right? So I feel like it might be a little bit easier to transcend out because now you have a portfolio, you have a resume that you can bring to people versus trying to get into a business, whatever it is, right, and you don't have nothing. Right. So it is a little bit easier. Yeah. It might be a little harder to like find out what to do next, but that's what I have stuff to build on. Like you have shots.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

But we've also thought about selling. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I don't know that a photography business with a one one principle is gonna be that.

Handling Insecure Planners And Gatekeeping

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Right. But a bun DJ company, as we kind of got to the bottom of, maybe is totally a b-boy productions, maybe is.

SPEAKER_06 38:57

Yeah, but photography, you know, you can go a lot of different directions.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Real estate.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

A lot of different directions. Yeah, you can go anywhere with that. You can go anywhere with that. So what's it? The question of the day and get out of here. Okay. Question of the day. Richie Steadman. Damn. How do you guys deal with planners that are 22 years old? Oh, I feel like this is gonna be a rant. And think that they are the only ones that need to talk to the bride and groom, whether that be in the planning process and you have to plan through them or the night of. It's like they have a high level of anxiety anytime anyone talks to the bride and groom. I had the experience tonight when I where I asked the planner who's gonna be giving the toast. And the planner said, the groom. Then I asked the bride and groom, and it was actually the bride. The planner was pissed that I had talked to the bride, and I was like, listen, he doesn't even know the right information.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Richard Stedman. Listen, what is that? A curse word? That looks like it. Listen, dildo. You didn't even know the right information. It starts with a D. Oh, dickhead, yeah. So is that a guy? Guy planner? Uh listen, dickhead, you didn't even know the right information. I I mean, this is nuts. Like the gatekeeping of information is crazy by a planner just speaks to their inexperience. Or insecurity. Or insecurity. There you go. Inexperience and insecurity are leading to this. Yeah. And there is no way, one, that I ever want to work with them again.

SPEAKER_03 40:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Or two, that I'm going to let them ruin my show or the bride and groom's night over this. If I need to talk to them and get something clarified, you can be damn sure that during you know their first course, I'm going to go over and gay, go, hey, um, guys, real quick on the clarity for the toast. Is it is it Chris and then Kelly or Kelly then Chris? Like, I if I don't have that like in stone or anything, I don't care. I'm just making sure we're short in the first answer. If I have not been act given access to these people and there is something on that planner that is detrimental, I I'm going over there and asking them. And I don't give a shit who the planner is. You know what I mean? I don't I have not run into this since we were um fledgling companies. You know, we were dealing with people whose cousin or that was the planner. Like we're dealing with planners now that we know, like, and trust.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

And we had nothing to do with them being hired. Maybe they had something to do with us getting hired. They want to work with us. We want to work with them. There's no combative nature. I don't feel um attacked when I get there or like unwanted. Every once in a while, I can tell they've brought in people from out of town for whatever reason with peripheral things like um photography, uh, videography. Uh we we ran into a situation at the Bradford recently where we took in a content creator and I could tell they were being shitty to her. And I basically like kind of stepped in and was like, number one, don't even address them. They're not from this market. Like once we had dinner and I found out where that they were from Florida or whatever, I'm like, just ignore them. Yeah. Like it don't even like respect them. Like because I can tell they're being shitty to us and to you. Just do your job and don't and just we don't ever have to work with them again. We'll never see these people again. So don't even bother talking to them.

SPEAKER_03 42:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

You know what I mean? Yeah. Now, if it's people I work with all the time, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my best to work with them or at least try and fix the situation if it does arise.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

But it has been a long time since we've run into something like this. I agree. This is I would want to just say this because I see a lot of threads about planners like this. Yeah, these are typically one-offs. Yeah, right. This is not the norm. Right. I mean, I work with planners every weekend. Me too. And this is not normal. No. Now, I do have one in our uh Florida market uh who is like this. You told me, yeah. And that becomes a question of is the money worth it? Number one. And number two, are you willing to put out a certain amount of risk for that show? Yeah. Because if you don't get a chance to talk to them, that gets around to the professionals that were in the room that you sucked because you didn't, and they don't know that you didn't have a conversation, they just know you didn't do it.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

So that you didn't perform to the level that they've seen you do, or you didn't, you know, you know, you didn't take it in. So to me, this would be a one-and-dunner for me, usually. This kind of a planner. I'm gonna honor whatever is happening right now, but then I'm not working with this planner again, more than likely, you know. Because if they have no problem throwing you under the bus. Right. If they're saying that kind of language and all that kind of stuff, it's like, you know, it doesn't feel great to want to work with it. I want to be in a part where it's like you are feeling part of a team and you're doing this for the greater good. Absolutely. And if you can't feel like you're respected as a professional, then to me, I'm out. And the other thing is, too, is this usually tells me this planner had a bad experience with a bad DJ. Because just as we're saying there's bad planners, yeah, there's also DJs that go rogue. You're right. And in a lot of cases, that's where this came from. They didn't just start out probably doing it this way. They probably trusted people and then got somebody who was went rogue, threw them under the bus in away, and that's why they've decided to put the gatekeeping on.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

I mean, I guess my final statement would be maybe they could have, you know, they don't know each other. She doesn't know him, Richie doesn't know her. Maybe there could have been a conversation leading up to this wedding that on the phone, not day of, they could have alleviated some of this. Yeah. I can tell you this in Salt Lake City, nobody does more shows than Richie, I bet. Oh, I know. Yeah, yeah. Single operator. And I'm talking about I sometimes he'll do uh two or three two or three at a weekend. Yeah. Uh-uh. He'll do two or three in a fucking day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like he'll go and do something for families at a park, right? Do something, and then go do some night late night thing or something at a school or like a that dude works. So if if she doesn't know him in Salt Lake City, she ain't shit. Right. That's the way I feel about it. Right. That dude is out there. He's he works real hard.

SPEAKER_02 45:01

You know, Dan Quinn did something recently, which I appreciated. He he said, he used to say, if on his inquiry form, who's your planner? Uh-huh. And if you don't have one, then it like you, you you he wouldn't even take the inquiry. Wow. Now he's actually even gone

Final Takeaways And Thanks

SPEAKER_02 45:17

more micro with it. It's not just, do you have a plan? It used to say, do you have a planner? That's what it was. Now it says, Do you have a planner? Yes or no? Who is it? Who is it? Wow. If she doesn't, if he doesn't know who that person is, he doesn't want to take the booking. Damn. Wow. So that's hardcore. With that, Richie, hope this helps. Thanks everybody for listening. Yeah, man. Thank you. Started off season nine strong. Started off strong. Thanks, DJ Event Planner. We appreciate you for supporting us. If you're looking for a CRM, give it a shot. Hey, I appreciate you. I appreciate you, buddy. Good batch. Good batch. Good batch. Thanks, y'all. See you next week.