It's sometimes hard to keep in sight what you're worth, especially in the face of sleazy tricks by insalubrious club operators.
We’re always telling you to get out there and get gigs, but whether you just get a booking at a local bar, lounge or club, or you decide to go all the way and actually put on an event of your own, there are always people out there who won’t play fair when it comes to paying you what was agreed.
Let’s get one thing clear here: Running a club is hard work. You have to deal with the rough end of, at times, the law, the local gangsters, licensing, drunken punters, ego-fuelled promoters and DJs, doormen… No wonder some club managers get so frazzled and cynical.
But that doesn’t make it right to play these sneaky tricks on local up-and-coming DJs who want to perform or throw parties in their neighbourhood venues.
Four tricks clubs play on DJs
So if you’re thinking of booking your local club to give you a chance to DJ in front of your friends (good on you!), here’s a few age-old tricks to watch out for..
- The magical lowering wage – The classic. “Sorry, we weren’t very busy”. Well, if you as a DJ have been booked to play a DJ set, that’s not your problem. The bar staff will still have been paid, the doormen (if they have them) will still have been paid, you can rest assured the manager will still get paid… so why not you? DJing is NOT free – you spend time learning (time is money), you buy your gear, your tunes, you have to transport yourself and your kit, and you put time, effort and possibly money into promoting yourself. So you taking a “haircut” on your fee is unacceptable.
The solution? Get a contract or get paid upfront. - The arbitrary extra costs wheeze – You’ve negotiated a set fee for the night, either for DJing or to rent a venue. So why at the end of the night have extra fees mysteriously appeared before you get your meagre profits? Top candidates are a “catering budget” when all you got was two dishes of crisps, “promotional costs” when all you saw was a scraggy poster in the entrance, and my personal favourite, “light bulbs” (I kid you not) for lights that had blown while our club night was on! (You know who you are, Colin at the Boardwalk…)
The solution? Make sure you ask for any costs you’re liable for to be identified upfront, and negotiate them.
- The mysterious expanding guest list – The night seems really busy, you’re DJing away, happily looking forward to getting paid and maybe having a bit of cash left over after costs. Yet when it comes to money counting time, things literally don’t add up. When pushed, the club admits they let a load of people in for free. Friends, or (more likely) doormen’s friends, girls the manager fancies, whoever… that’s money that should be in your pocket.
The solution? Always, always have your own person on the door, and count numbers. I prefer running the guest list myself too. It’s hard, but it’s your cash. - The “pay to play” scam – This has another variant, the “sell tickets to play” ruse, and plays hard on enthusiastic young DJs’ wishes to get gigs in public. In both examples, you either pay cash to get a DJ set, or you have to sell 25, 50, 100 tickets for the same. You’re told that if the event is a success, you’ll get paid too. Trouble is, the club and/or promoter already have their money, so chances are nobody will do any work to get anyone else to turn up. Bottom line? You do all the work, and either end with nothing, or worse, out of pocket.
The solution? Much, much better to take control of the night yourself and negotiate a flat fee, then work your balls off to make it work. After all, if you can sell 50 tickets, why not sell 100, promote it well, get the same in walk-up, and make a profit on the event? You’ll have a busy club to play in then, too.
What to do if things go wrong…
If things do go wrong for you, my advice is to learn from it, walk away and take the positives. One big positive is to promote yourself at all opportunities (including on the night, gathering email addresses and so on) and so walk alway with a pile of email addresses that are worth money to you in the long run.
Why? The bigger the fan base you can build, the most clout you’ll have in negotiating with owners, managers and promoters, and the less you’ll need any one of them. If you have a crowd you can take with you, you’re in a much stronger position that pay-to-play rookies.
Have you come out on the losing side with club owners or managers? What tricks have you had puled on you? Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments.
7 Ways to Stop Being a Freejay & Start Being a DJ
How To Promote Events & Throw Your Own Parties: Part 1
How To Succeed At DJing Part 7: Market Yourself Like A Pro
Look! How To Digital DJ Fast - Video Course
From Digital DJ Tips, four hours of online video to get you from beginner to first gig in just four weeks. Join the 1000s of DJs who've already benefited from this training. Click here!
Learn to DJ Free - email course plus bonus PDF book
Sign up for our weekly email course for beginners now...
Trouble choosing a controller? Get your free 162-page guide!
Grab "DJ Controllers: The Ultimate Buyer's Guide" at our Facebook Page.
Come and meet other DJs just like you!
The long-awaited Digital DJ Tips forums are now open. Come and chat!
Tags: business of djing, promoting, promotion
I’m pretty blessed I don’t have any of these problems these days. I get paid x amount for each night, and that’s that.
[ link ]Rule of Thumb: When working as a DJ with a venue, Negotiate a guaranteed flat fee. Regardless if the night was busy or not, You get your guaranteed rate at the end of the night. Work with reputable promoters and venues. You will encounter a lot of pitfalls along the way but if you are a great DJ and know your scene very well, You will know who and who not to deal with in your scene.
[ link ]ALWAYS GET PAID UPFRONT AFTER YOU NEGOTIATE YOUR FEE AND YOU WONT HAVE THESE PROBLEMS, ANYONE WHO’S LOOKING TO MAKE ALL THEIR MONEY ON THE DOOR PROBABLY CANT AFFORD TO EVEN BE IN THE GAME AND IS NOT WORTH YOUR TIME. (using Caps for a reason)
[ link ]Agreed, the only way to avoid these problems is to be paid up front!
[ link ]it’s a little strange for a club owner to pay people up front… first work then money like with everybody else
[ link ]Not sure about the “with everything else”. Try to get an artist to show up to an event and perform without paying them anything. Chances are they won’t perform until they are paid. However with other service industries its a little different, your clientele is MUCH more professional. Owners don’t want to sign agreements verifying payment amount so when they don’t want to pay you there is little to nothing you can do
[ link ]I think another great piece of advice is to do your research and know roughly what the going rate for DJs in that area are. Sometimes you will get low-balled on the rate because they know that your not established yet. On the flip side, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to take a cut in the money department if it will get your foot in the door, a trial run of sorts. Just be wary that this doesn’t become a regular thing at the same venue.
[ link ]This is what drives many to get into promotion. You get toyed with enough by promoters and you end up wanting to jump up one level to try to rid yourself of the garbage…despite if the venue owner/manager suddenly becomes the problem.
This is why you as a DJ need to be aware of the scams and decide if not getting paid is still worth your time. If this guy is going to put you in front of 1000 people who you know will love your set and scream your name over and over…then it’s worth it. If you’re going to end up being a human jukebox for a bunch of annoying trixies and not end up with a decent pay for your time…then walk away.
Whenever you see any promoter trying to hand you a set that’s less than an hour, you should honestly decline. I don’t care what you believe…he’s booking loads of cheap/free DJs in the hopes you’ll promote his thing for him. It’s a waste of your time. You won’t get noticed because the crowd will be spotty.
[ link ]Excellent comment!
[ link ]Either way, who can play anything under a hour. It takes hour and a half form me just to “warm up”.
[ link ]Same. I like to flow from house & techno upto trance. You can’t get that kind of progression with less than two hours. My preference is around three as that way I get to go on a musical journey without it getting tedious.
[ link ]good words,,, totally agree.
[ link ]Check the technique in club before playing that is fine.
[ link ]Sign protocol with the manager about the state of technique in club and next protocol after played your set.
Sorry thought this was an english speaking site lol
[ link ]I did a random Friday night in a pub once. Show up with all my gear 9pm to 2:30am €150 standard. No one in the pub.
Sure you want me to play? I can go home if it’s not going to be busy.
No start playing.
People didn’t start showing up till around 11
The busiest it got was 15 people all over 50 by the end of the night.
Packed my gear up, wasn’t even offered a glass of water all night by the staff. Go to the manager to get paid and she doesn’t want to pay because people weren’t dancing.
At the end of the day some people don’t want to dance when they go out. Especially a group of old farmers that want to drink pints and talk about football and cattle.
I got €90 after a debate and learned a valuable lesson, any time I play now I get paid up front before I start to unpack my gear
[ link ]Personally I play for exposure, not for money.I don’t want to be a DJ hooker, but an Executive DJ Call Girl. So what if I am giving out blowjobs for free when nest year i’ll be getting flown to Amsterdam for a little sheet time and collecting a fat check.
I guess it helps when you make your money as a professional and can treat music as ‘fun’.
[ link ]Well that metaphor would make sense if you actually knew anything about the hooker industry (sad to say, but my mother is literally an escort so I know all about it, and some I don’t want to know). But you have a point. Exposure is good, but making money while you do it is better. Besides, people try to pull fast ones EVEN on world famous escorts.
[ link ]Never had any payments issue.
Smaller events who booked me told me upfront, this is what we can pay, is that OK for you. If you are OK with it, you play for exposure, if your not, you decline.
Playing for exposure is fine, only you have to be pretty confident to tell it will lead to something. Next thing you know you’ll be known as the local playing for free.
If you dj without proper business status there isn’t much you can do against people not paying you. Even with a small business next to your regular job, you can send invoices to your customers.
[ link ]With this professionalism you are more likely to get paid, … even take next steps.
A bit dangerous article this is IMO
Now all clubowners know how to rip us off
[ link ]Great article! Im fairly sure a majority of the others who have been down this road will agree that it’s your job to watch your own back… Unfortunatly in this industry if given the chance people WILL more often than not take advantage of you. I started following Phils advice from his site a little over a year ago when I was still a “bedroom DJ.” This article really builds on alot of previous posts from earlier this year and if you were fortunate enough to have read them already you have a good idea of what I mean. If you are newer to djing or are still a bedroom DJ reading this now I cannot stress enough how much doing your homework helps. Phil and the rest of the DDTs crew have done a amazing job covering what you need to know. I have come to realize that there are two ways to go about being a paid DJ. If you havent played out live yet your most likely more concerned with doing what you love, rather than the fact it is indeed WORK! I started out this way and would even play some parties for free just to get the name out there. It only takes a handful of gigs bringing your own equiptment and setting up & tearing down before it becomes a chore. This is where you decide if your the human jukebox or not. I followed Phils advice and was better prepared. My friend plays two 8pm-2am slots at a bar playing music strictly by request for $50 A NIGHT! When you talk business with the owners of an establishment do not let them call the shots. I simply declined a weekly bar offer I felt wasn’t worth my time. I made sure to explain how much money I had invested in my equiptment and the liability on my end to play in a bar as opposed to any other event. Thats all it took was standing my ground……..same bar twice the offerered amount every week and another in the making. Sorry for the rant/inspirational story at this point you should probably go spin some records/turn on the controller. Keep it real and Phil & Team DDT keep up the good work. This site is the thin line between the “button pushers” & the creative artists. #Truth
[ link ]Awesome, the same rip off technique anywhere on Earth !
[ link ]I have seen these done many times in the State of Connecticut where I live, among other questionable practices. That is why any work I do with anyone in any of the entertainment industries is with my own contract and no other agreements. That instantly eliminates the people you don’t want to deal with as they will will step away from contracts that prevent them from scamming you. If your gut tells you something is wrong, believe it.
[ link ]Well said!
Any professional, regardless if you are the prop rental company or the balloon decorators will require a contract. Especially the first time. Once you have a relationship established, than it’s your own call, but definitely the first time.
[ link ]CYA!
Great article
[ link ]Sometimes it’s better to just walk away…
I’m DJing in Brussels, Belgium, and was thrilled to land a gig in a very busy pub near the European Quarter for a regular 6 hr set every Thursday night. It was back in the summer and the pub has a huge terrace out front, with literally hundreds of customers every Thursday.
When we negotiated the price, I agreed with the owner (an ex-cop who decided to go into bar management; first impression: very polite, reasonable guy) to get paid in CASH and that I would drop my usual rates. I reasoned that 1) it could turn into something regular and 2) would give me great exposure to a new audience, that was 3) guaranteed to be there every week, given the prime location of the pub.
We agreed on 250 EUR for a 6 hrs set – 6pm til midnight; I would play soul, funk, jazz earlier on while people were chilling out after work, moving to disco and house later as the bevvies kicked in. “Start next Thursday”, the owner said, “but I’m not sure yet if we’ll have the soundsystem installed.” “No problem”, I reassure him, “I can bring my own sound system for the first gig, and set it all up, but that’s an extra 100 EUR.” He agrees that’s fine.
The following Thursday goes well. I get great feedback from many customers and the owner assures me he’s getting good feedback too. He seems very happy and pays what we agreed (350 EUR), and says he’ll probably want me back the following Thursday but will confirm later, cos he’d promised to give another DJ a chance.
The first warning signs that this “residency” was maybe not so great came the following week. After many follow up calls and txt messages, on Wednesday evening (the day before the gig) the owner finally agreed that I should come back and play. He added that the soundsystem was installed, so no need for me to bring mine, but then at the very end of the conversation, just before hanging up, he said: “Oh, and by the way, the rate will be 230 EUR” and hung up. 20 EUR less than what we’d originally agreed. I was kind of taken on the hop, totally unexpected. Thought about calling him right back and insisting on the 250, but decided that, given the positive long-term benefits in the deal, I was prepared to do the job anyway.
The following day, I turn up an hour before the gig ready to plug my mixing kit into his sound system, but it’s not ready and I end up setting most of it up myself, since the owner doesn’t know how to… I do the gig, it goes really well, great feedback. But at the end of the night, he hands me a wad of 20 EUR notes and it’s only 220 EUR! 10 EUR short, saying: “that’s the rate. If you don’t like it, there’s plenty of other DJs out there.” I argue that we’ve already gone down from what we agreed at the beginning, but he’s adamant.
Slightly pissed off, I head home, wondering if it’s even worth doing another night there, but over the next few days there’s lots of chatter on my facebook page about how well it’s going and the word is getting out about how good the music is. I decide to continue with the residency for 220 EUR.
The following week, everything seems fine, I arrive earlier to make sure his soundsystem is set up. Again, great feedback, the owner seems very happy with the music, but, shockingly, at the end of the night, he hands me another wad of 20s, and when I count them, it’s down another 10 EUR to 200 EUR. I challenge him on it and he says: “that’s my rate, plenty of other DJs out there, I’m not giving you any more”.
I never called him back and he never called me back, and I haven’t DJd there again and never will. Everyone who’s since asked me “hey, what happened with your residency on Thursdays?”, I explain the story and everyone agrees on how unprofessional this guy is.
Thing is, that pub is so popular it’s very difficult to prove how much value I was adding to his business. I’m convinced my music was keeping people there longer and their bar takings were certainly improved by presence there. But clearly the owner either didn’t care, or didn’t see it the same way. I really got the impression he thought he was just doing ME a huge favour by allowing me to DJ in his pub.
So, here’s what I learned:
1) Even when you’ve negotiated up front, be ready for skeevy owners to rip you off regardless. Like others have mentioned: ideally get paid up front.
2) Don’t back down if you get short-changed. Be tough. The first time he screwed me, I allowed him to call the shots too easily and he got the impression I was a walkover. I should’ve held my ground.
3) Make sure during the negotiations that ALL details are agreed – including setting up the sound system, AND getting fed and watered. Looking back, I’m sure he expected me to set up the soundsystem every week, but I was expecting that to be handled by his staff. The first week he fed and watered me no problem, so I assumed that was the norm, but that stopped the 2nd and 3rd weeks.
At the end of the day, I feel that the gig was never gonna turn into anything solid anyway, BUT I could’ve dealt with the issues much better than I did.
[ link ]The minute he shortchanged you on your original 250 EUR I smelled something fishy. Sometimes owners really don’t care about your well being and will rip you off at the drop of a hat. The fact that you can hold down a busy crowd for 6 hours is impressive. I’m sure you’ve gotten much better gigs since then.
[ link ]Thanks Jose.
I’ve been DJing for a good few years, but mostly private parties, corporate functions and club nights I’ve organized myself. So I’d gotten much better gigs in the past and indeed have had much better gigs since then, BUT that elusive *residency* gig had always been hard to land.
I should probably also mention that this experience is definitely NOT the norm for me. I usually have no problems getting paid fairly. I guess the law of averages means a rip-off merchant had to come along at some point…!
[ link ]“…two dishes of crisps…” love it lol!
[ link ]I never was a DJ, just a lover of music. I spent most of my life in stereo installation (home, pro, & auto). A fellow Marine Corps friend of mine had hooked up a mixer to his stereo system and it brought out the sound a whole lot more. So I got one for my stereo system and everyone thought I was a DJ. It was last year that I got my first experience with digital djing and I was LOST! I thought it was cool but I like feeling the equipment and not using a keyboard and mouse. But anyway I’m djing at this ghetto club in the hood using the owners equipment. He said he’d pay me but we didn’t come to a set price. I did 3 nights then got pneumonia and as time went by, he never paid me. He finally came to me and said “since I had to use his equipment, he felt that he didn’t have to pay me”. It was a bad experience but I did get introduced to Virtual DJ and I’m in the process of upgrading my old equipment. I’m giving myself a year to learn this new form of djing before I do any gigs or if I decide that if this is what I really want to do. But that club owner is on my $#!+ list.
[ link ]