Here is my story. The day started at 9am, with setting up and generally getting organized. I played my first track at around 10 am, and played the final 114th track at 5pm. I was smack bang in amongst traders stalls and had a passing crowd of at least 40 thousand people throughout the day. I played a huge variety of music from rock n roll to rock, to 80’s, 90’s, top 40 to better known commercial club tracks and back. I ended up doing ‘blocks’ of genres and it worked really well. I found out the day before that there was a ‘dj stage’ of sorts with these guys playing only doof. It didn’t go down well with the crowd at all as the feedback I was getting was I was playing ‘great’ music and people were vociferously complaining about the dj stage down the other end of the fair. I handed out heaps of business cards that passersby asked me for, and have four confirmed and 2 maybes for future gigs. I think getting around a gig an hour that I would not have got otherwise is pretty good for a promo job. Did I get paid? Kind of. I got paid in promotional advertising (worth around $800 from the fair organizers that others didn’t get, (NOTE I had the option of money or advertising and chose the latter) and also got three more gigs (besides the crowd gigs) from them as well that are paid (they are having a foreshore market once a month on a Friday night over summer) and it’s in a prime location and will attract a few thousand people. They also supplied my marquee and power. What did I learn from yesterday that I didn’t know before? Firstly, I am no longer a DJ that plays what I want, I am there to entertain the crowd and give them what THEY like! I have a huge target audience that has been largely neglected by DJs in my town/city so much so that I now have an established niche being a ‘jukebox’ DJ. Do not underestimate the old music of 50/60/70/80/s and the cheese and commercial top 40. There is a huge demand for it and there is a huge amount of cashed up people out there that are prepared to part with their coin to have me play it for them.
