Ammo Forever, How To Promote Your Events Like A Pro, Influencer DJs Are Ruining Nightlife 🚫

On this episode of the Grow My DJ Business Podcast Cream & Gary W Discuss: 

• DJ Ammo was a significant mentor and connector in the DJ community.
• Social media engagement should be consistent and creative.
• DJs should not underestimate the importance of promoting their events.
• Building relationships with venue staff can enhance promotional efforts.
• The DJ industry is facing challenges with influencer DJs overshadowing talent.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Remembering DJ Ammo: A Tribute
• 10:40 The Importance of Promotion in DJing
• 26:23 Creating a Marketing Plan for DJs
• 29:36 The Impact of Influencer DJs on the Industry
• 33:06 The Challenge of Booking Talent in a Competitive Market
• 37:51 The Value of Open Format DJs
• 41:33 The Importance of Passionate Staff in Nightlife Venues

Transcript

0:42

What's up guys, welcome to the 182nd episode of the Grow My DJ Business Podcast. My name is Kareem. Gary W here. Let's just get right into it, man. We're starting this pod with heavy hearts for sure. uh It's been a rough July, to say the least. um We just lost NYC legend DJ Ammo this week, unfortunately. And along with some personal family stuff, it's just really, uh it's really affected me greatly, you know? Yeah, mean, you just lost your uncle and condolences obviously to your family and your cousin who's close to a lot of our DJs. then, unfortunately, right after all the services with your family, we go into Tuesday and we get hit with this news like first thing in the morning was absolutely shocking, obviously. I think it hit us hard. Obviously, we've been working closer. uh with Ammo uh as a company. mean, obviously, know, as we'll get into, he was always there to reach out to for advice and direction. And because he's just a veteran of the game, even though he's our age, uh just a veteran of the game on a high level. And but we were starting to work with him more closely. He was working at two of our venues more more often. And I think he was starting to use you again. And we'll go into how you guys started off together and how you started your career. um But um so it was just shocking. I kind of like look back at our text messages and we had just talked to him like a week and a half ago and right before he traveled to Japan and then this awful news. So let's kind of go ahead. I'm sorry. He's got a family, he's married, he has a young kid. And honestly, like, Ammo changed a lot once he became a family man and like, was doing everything for them. And, you when I think about that, it really hurts a lot because, you know, it sucks. I've lost a dad older and, you know, his daughter's not gonna have him around. And it just really, really sucks. And yeah, I don't... It just hurts, you know? Yeah, for sure. I think that this will be an interesting conversation to hear, of like, because I know that you... He really gave you a lot of breaks as a really young DJ in the New York City circuit. I didn't really work with him at all as a young DJ. So I know that you have some stories and you could kind of... be a testament for you know all that he's done for a lot of these other DJs from then on. mean, you know, right up until very recently. Yeah, it's been, you know, I've just sort of sat back. I haven't really been very active on social to begin with. And, you know, I've been on there and reading all the tributes and all the stories. And what really stands out for me is just like how many people Ammo has helped or mentored or connected. He was a connector of people, you know, he connected young DJs. He gave he broke young DJs. He gave so many people an opportunity. And I'm sure many of you who are listening have similar stories where like, Ammo broke you in New York, right? Ammo broke me in New York. First person to ever book me in New York City and continue to book me in New York City and was a big part of helping me grow my DJ brand and my name to a point where I didn't need Ammo anymore, which was kind of cool, you know? um So, I mean, that's what's really stood out to me and it's been, I haven't been able to put... that into words, I really wanted to do this podcast and just see what came out of my mouth because like I said, it's been really hard and and it's been cool to read all the stories and just see how many people that he's really helped. And that's what I'll really always think about when I think about ammo is just the number of people that he's touched, he's mentored, he's affected in some way, all from Camillo all the way down to the baby DJ who's just starting right now, you know, he He's helped and had conversations and worked with all those people. It's interesting because our business has very similar parallels to what Ammo did for younger DJs, right? And I didn't have a mentor or somebody to show me the ropes or should give me any kind of advice when I was coming up. But I feel like Ammo was kind of that person for you. so my question is, how much of an effect ah did that have on the way that you run uh Get Down DJ Group and the way you mentor young DJs. Yeah, Ammo really helped me as far as on the business side of things and understanding how to show value and how to make an impact even if you're just the opener, even if you're just the closer. And, you know, he was a mentor. I didn't have a ton of mentors, but Ammo early on was one of my DJ mentors where a venue owner or someone would hit me up and ask me for something and I'd say, hey, what do think I should do here? Because I just didn't know, you know? So he helped me work through a lot of that stuff. um mean, honestly, him and Carlos Melange were the two when I was a baby DJ that just really helped me in those situations. I could really remember like long conversations with each of those guys about situations and what do I do and how do I get into this place? um So yeah, Ammo was always there and Ammo really looked out for me. He actually worked with my mom at Richfield High School. He was like a teacher's aide. And my mom really liked Amal a lot. And Amal really liked my mom. He used to call her Mama Kareem. He'd be, how's Mama Kareem? Like every time I talked to him, tell Mama Kareem I said what's up. Like every time. And I think their relationship uh and working together kind of like motivated him to help me on the DJ side of things because they just really got along. So. ah talks about that and he talks about going to work every day and working with those kids and working with special needs kids. That's a passion. You have to absolutely love to do that. But going to work with special needs kids is exhausting in itself. And then he would go out four or five nights a week, whether it be DJing and or networking. talks about it on, if you go to our cover page, right on our YouTube page here, for those of you who are watching this on YouTube, We have a recap video from a 2020 meetup that we had. And there's some really good advice that Ammo gives on that recap video. It's like a little documentary of the meetup. And he actually opens up the panel with some really great advice. And then there's a one-on-one interview that we posted a portion of that on our social media page as a tribute. I would tell you guys to go listen to that. There's some really good great, uh, information there that he had shared. It's just a nice thing to say. Yeah, man. mean, Ammo started super young and he was ran in a lot of the same circles with some of my friends who would go out. I met him, I think initially at like Veranda or Greenhouse or like one of those places because he was the DJ. And my friends who were going out used to go hang out with Ammo all the time. uh you know, that was like... Yo, get in, we have a bottle, come hang out. And like, that was my first real experience in nightlife was just going to hang out and hear Ammo DJ. He used to have a fucking dreadlock, like long ass hair and like, he had braids, he had braids and dread, not dreads, had braids. And that's how I met him, which is crazy, but. Yeah, I mean when we were when we were like just trying to break it and like level up it was like, you know, it was ammo and it was, you know, herb at the time G kid and who else was running the right kind of running this Yanni right on the Jersey side. Yeah. So like it was it just kind of flooded back a lot of memories of us trying to kind of level up in on the Jersey side. uh man. Even more recently, like, Ammo fought to get me to go play Nebula. Like, he knows that's the lane that I'm going down. And he literally text me and the booker at least seven times. At least. Like, yo, let's lock cream. Let's lock cream. Let's get him on this date. They wanted to book me for Memorial Day weekend. He's like, no, not on a holiday. That's gonna be a whack Saturday. Whatever. Like, book him on a regular night. Like, he even to this day, Ammo was fighting for me. So... Yeah. I'm gonna miss the guy a lot. Yeah, yeah, huge loss, huge loss. know, if anybody who opened social media that was part of the nightlife industry uh in New Jersey or New York or anywhere pretty much in the general vicinity could tell the impact that he had on the industry. Wild. I think uh what I really like to think about is like, we came full circle where I kind of came into the industry and he was booking me and he helped me and he gave me a shot. And now as we've grown Get Down, we've been able to book ammo more regularly here. you know, we were putting them on some gigs here in the last year or two years or so. uh You know, that always feels good to return a favor for somebody who I looked up to and who helped me so much in my career to be able to then help book that person, you know? Like that meant, means a lot. a surreal experience to really have him be like, want to work with you guys a little more. And I was like, that's kind of awesome. It's really nice to hear that. And you get to look at your business in a different way. I don't know, it was awesome. oh too was for him to finally sort of recognize me as a peer was like really cool thing too. Where you know we had talked about like yo, Kream I know we sort of run in different lanes but how can we utilize our relationships when we bring DJs into this market where we can like use our venues to really like show somebody a great time and come to New York and play for a weekend. and that could potentially open up other markets for us. like, that was like the level that we were talking on here in the last couple months. you know. uh Yeah, yeah, it's been a rough week, that's for sure, but I'm glad we got to come on here and tell some stories and tell our experiences and just say how great it was to work with him and just to have him as a friend. Yeah, man. Ammo forever, right? That's what uh, that's what you got going on right now. All right, let's jump into, not an easy transition, but let's jump into our next... uh Into our next topic here. I mean, speaking of Ammo's great promoter and we like to try to tell our DJs as much as we can that like... You know, we, gotta promote and we talk at the end of every year. Like this is what you gotta, this is how you gotta attack your social media. And you know, you're very good at this. And we, don't think we're seeing DJs promote enough at all. Right? Like I think there's like a, okay, I'm going to put my, my post up and I'm guilty of this. I'm going to put my post up day of the event or like two days before the event. And it's just not enough, but it's not just your events. It's also your music. Like I say, I've said this time and again when Nico and Sway put out that everybody wants a real world remix and they were just pounding the internet, hammering it. It had to be like 15 to 18 main feed posts on their Instagram. And of course it blew up. And of course it took off because they were really hammering. They were believed in that song. like when you're just, if you're going to work on a song for a month or whatever it might be, you're to put all this work and all these hours in. How are you not going to hammer people with that song? Story after story, post after post on everything, people should be sick of it before it comes out. And we don't see that. We don't see that enough with music. That blows my mind the most because you're putting your heart and soul into songs that you're creating and then you're gonna do this lackluster social media push on it. It's pathetic. And then from a booker's standpoint, The fact that you're getting fed gigs and you're going to put something up two hours before you go to your gig is fucking ridiculous. It's absolutely crazy. you know, and especially with us, like we have 60 guys that we book regularly. I can't tell you if X person is in Philadelphia or Y person is up in Boston or somebody's down in Florida. I love that. I love when something rolls across my social media and it's like, one of our close DJs, it's like, I'm in Tampa. Or it's like somebody I know, I'm like, I'm 45 minutes away. Like I didn't know that. You never posted anything about that. You know? So like, I think the moral of what my beef is, that like, promote more. Like if you're trying to, if you're trying to be on the come up and you're trying to advance your career, you really need to promote more everywhere. constantly. It's a full-time job. We know that. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think we could sort of break it down for the various different things you touched on. The first one being just promoting big shows, promoting any show, honestly, especially if you're a younger DJ, it's important that other people see that you're working, right? So a rundown weekly like, hey, this is where I'm to be this week. Put it your in your bio and Instagram. There's so many ways that you can promote what you're doing. Because right now, And forever, it's always been important for you to help push a party and get more people out, right? If you're getting your friends to come out, managers, owners, venue people will see it because they're using your guest list, they're buying a ticket with your name. And those people are going to want to book you more if you're really supporting and pushing the party and helping make it a successful night. Venues want to work with people that want to make it successful and want to put as much time as energy as they hopefully are putting into making it successful. So whether it's just promoting your local stuff or if you're booking bigger shows or especially travel shows. Just because you post it one time, like, I don't even see it. I say to you all, I didn't even know you were DJing there or I didn't know this party was this weekend. I sent messages to some of our DJs who have been traveling lately and be like, yo, I didn't even know you were going there. Like, you need to do a better job of making it aware to your... followers that you're traveling because as bookers see you're traveling, they'll be more likely to think of you to book you from another market. You know what I mean? Oh, creams traveling more like, let's book them for this gig that's upcoming. Like people, it's a what have you done for me lately? Or what have I seen lately? So if you're really active on social and you're hammering, hey, like I'm playing Barstool Nashville this summer, right? It's about the second I get that flyer. And even before that, I'm going to be hammering that. That's a huge show for me. The first time I'm playing there. I want everybody in the country to know that I'm playing Barstool Nashville. Because hopefully, other bookers in places in markets I haven't played yet see that and say, damn, Kareem is booked at Nashville Barstool. Like, we should book him in my city or my big venue. And it goes for in market as well, guys. you're playing more bars and you're starting to book the bigger bottle service club or high end uh venue club in your your city make sure other people know that you're getting booked there because then the other bookers are gonna say damn number one club in my market is booking XYZ DJ maybe we should book him or her too so hammer the big shows hammer the monthly flyers it's not you're not doing too much guys and you don't have to just use the flyer get creative talk in a video use a photo Use something, a video of you DJing somewhere else that is just fun. There's a million ways. You could literally be cooking in your kitchen and promote your show. However the fuck you wanna do it, just do it. Just do it. It doesn't matter. You don't have to overthink it. saw Marty rock yesterday, uh, promote his weekend and he was just standing behind his turntables, like a front shot and just ran, did his rundown and like talked a little bit about each gig and it was phenomenal. And I'm like, what, this is so simple. Why does everybody not do this? This caught my attention. Right. could be in your car in traffic and you shoot a quick video like it could be so simple. It's a lack of I think people sort of are sick of posting and seeing and promoting flyers and I think so instead of getting creative and doing other things people just don't promote as much anymore and that's contributing to less people going out I'm sure. I'm gonna spin this on a Ted a little bit because I had a complaint from one of our DJs. It does a good job at promoting every single gig that he plays. uh He was disgruntled that he makes the flyer, he puts it out, he tags the bar staff, he tags the place and nobody reposts it, nobody comments on it, nobody's engaging from the venue and he was just completely disgruntled and I was like, don't. Don't stop doing it because you're upset that they're not posting it, but maybe next time you're in the venue, approach the manager, ask who the social media manager is, ask who's taking care of the socials, go talk to the bartenders and be like, hey, it be much appreciated when I tag you in this that you throw it in your story, at least like it, engage a little bit. Let's kind of create a little buzz behind the nights that I'm promoting. It'd be greatly appreciated. You don't have to like, don't come at them disgruntled, don't come at them. mad or anything like that, but you just let them know that you're aware that they're not contributing. And if they're not going to contribute, well, they're not going to put dollars in their pocket. And that goes for the owner, the manager, and the bar staff. So I think if that's happening to you, that's the way to approach that situation. Don't just shut it down. I'm gonna kick some free game to you guys right now. Use this as a way to show value to your venues, especially if you're creating marketing content for the venue. This is also especially for DJs that are in the same venue over and over. And if they're not creating flyers or not doing a ton of marketing, approach the owner or the manager and say, hey, I have this idea. I've been creating a lot of content for social. It would be great if when I created that content, you know, the venue shared and some of the staff shared. Can you get me a list of all the venues, the staff members, their Instagram handles. And I'll create an engagement group on Instagram. So every time I create a marketing piece, I will post in that engagement group, hey guys, I just created a new piece of content for this Saturday. I'm really hyped to be there. Let's blow it up. Let's share, let's comment, whatever. And then you have 10 people reposting and tagging and commenting and pushing this piece of content. hopefully in a better place in the algorithm. Does that actually work? Who knows? I don't know. You know, we do it for Get Down and for Parari, but I've seen success with it. And I think it's a way to show value to your venue. It's a way for your, you know, for your manager or owner to think of ways to, that they don't have to do a whole lot, right? Especially if you're doing all this stuff, just like, hey, can you make me this list? And I will help you promote your venue, you know? simple. It's taking something off their plate. It's showing value. Maybe they never even thought about doing something like this, you know? Yeah, no, I guarantee that, that a lot of, you know, a lot of older ownership and, and, and if you have older management, they're not thinking about this because it's just not, it's just not something that they knew. It's not something they're used to. then we, especially if they're not forward thinking within the business. same place every week, make a group chat and use the group chat. You know, you should take you take the lead, take, take a little initiative and step up. Right. Again, just showing ways to show more value and also promote and have the people in the venue promote at the same time. So it's a win win for everybody. Hope it's a win for you. You hopefully get more people in the venue. You show more value. It's a win for the venue and for the staff because hopefully more people show up and they make more money. We all want the nights to be good, right? right. We used to have text groups, remember that? Back in the day, before Instagram, you text groups and you would have to put like a promo text together and then those people would send it out to their regulars and we'd send it out to our regulars. Yeah, it just, you know, but that's the stuff that doesn't translate to some of these managers that like they've been around since those things were a thing. Like, but they just didn't translate that into the social media world, unfortunately. Yeah. But yeah, no, that's great advice. I like that. I mean, we have our engagement group. great. to bring up before we move on to the music part of it. I think there's been such a negative connotation about like selling tickets or selling bottles or... Now listen, if that's how you're going to get paid, maybe that's not something that makes sense for you depending on where you are in your DJ career. If you're just starting out and you're a young DJ and you have a lot of friends that come out, sure, take all those deals. Why not? Again, if you're bringing a lot of people, you're selling tickets and you could also DJ, they're just going to keep booking you. So don't be like completely turned off by that. Do you want to get a flat rate and get paid what you're worth? Of course. But sometimes you have to go sell a bunch of tickets or sell a table to show some value to give you an opportunity to then show what you can do as a DJ. I think there's such a negative connotation out there. It's okay to do that sometimes. It's okay to do that sometimes. And... Your business is your business and what makes sense for you makes sense for you and maybe that doesn't make sense and that's okay. For someone like me, does it make sense to go book something where I get paid based off of ticket sales? No, it doesn't because I'm playing a lot of big shows and getting paid what I want to get paid already. And I want to keep that level in the market, right? I want to keep my value at a certain place. but we've had guys that were half established but wanted to break into a venue, were able to sell tickets. They knew that their friends would come, not tickets, I'm sorry, they were able to sell tables. Their friends would show up for them and that person wound up going from an opener to a headliner in that venue in a short period of time because they knew, the venue knew that he can bring people. So on certain days that they knew that they might be a little slow, well guess who was going to headline that night? It was gonna be that person that could bring. people because they were solid DJs and they could bring a crowd because they were of that age that had had pull like that. Now, also, just because I've reached a certain level and other DJs listening, you've reached a certain level doesn't mean you shouldn't promote the party. You shouldn't try to sell tickets and you shouldn't try to get people to buy bottles. Like that's part of our job at this point. It's been part of our job for pretty much my whole career. So anyone complaining about that, that's just part of what you've signed up for. And if you get good at that, you're going to get booked more. So. I just want to talk about that part of it too, because there is such a negative, negative connotation around that part of our business. And I think there's a way to think positively about it and use it to your advantage. Music. Now you said it earlier, drives me nuts also, right? As Gary said, if you're spending months and months to create some piece of content musically, whether it's an edit pack, a mix, especially remixes and originals, You should spend about the same amount of time promoting that, promoting that, leading up to the release. And then after the release, there have been so many times where DJs in our group, Thursday or Friday, Hey guys, I have a release coming out today. Like what? Like we have a discord wall, all these DJs use it, right? Get the pre saves, like promote your shit. That part is crazy to me. Go look at what, uh, flash, shout to flash. He came out with a remix or a track recently and every time I open TikTok, all I see is his song and he's done such, he does an amazing job marketing. And his stuff is this. It's not fancy camera, it's not microphone, it's literally him in front of the camera, very simple and easy. And he's like, he's crushing right now. So go check out what Flash does. I think he does an amazing job. Yeah. I don't wanna see. My track came out today and this is the first time I ever heard that a song was coming out. Especially if you work for Get Down. Hahaha Crazy. Manny and Zay's track is coming out and I thought it was out already. They had promoted it a bunch initially, it got signed. It went quiet a little bit and then, uh who played it on there? Somebody played it on uh their mix show recently and then they're starting to promote it again because it's about to come out. But they've been doing a pretty good job at it as well in different ways. It does help that there's two of them being able to push this. But. You know, that's a great example by you is like, go find people that you, you know, look up to, go find people that are doing a good job at promoting their music. And, know, you can kind of emulate, you don't have to copy, but you can emulate what they're doing, get ideas from people. We say this all the time when it comes to marketing and promotion. all the various people that you think are doing a good job or that you think you want to sort of tailor your your marketing towards and create your own thing. Come up with a plan. You have to have a plan. Even I if I don't have a plan, I just don't post anything. And I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way. So come up with a plan, create, spend a day creating whatever need to create. And then you have it and you could post it. I've been so out I've been out of it for two weeks. So I haven't really seen a whole lot about recent releases and what's going on, but I will catch up here in the near future. So, all right, so we talked about like the positive side and promoting and promoting your events and promoting your music. I wanna talk a little bit about the industry right now. And this is gonna be sort of against everything I've just said, but what I've said is with the idea that you have DJ skills and you can do a good job as a DJ, right? I think what is really hurting our industry right now is... influencer DJs and even and promoter DJs who are getting booked simply because of their marketability and their marketing. And then when those people actually get into the venue, they don't do a great job. And the customers who paid money, waited in line, bought a table, they don't get the best experience because the music was like, it was just okay. How was it? I had a waiting line, I spent a lot of money and the music was just okay. If that's the experience that a customer is getting, how likely are they to go back and spend that money and do that all over again? I think way less likely. And I think that's a big contributor to why we've seen a downturn in our industry as a whole. Not the only reason, but one of the contributing factors. was going to say it's a factor. It's a factor for sure. And especially for those people that are like on the cusp of like, do I really want to spend my money here? Or would I rather go out? Like I'm talking like, as you get a little older and like, do I want to go out to dinner? Right? Like I still want to go clubbing, but if I have to choose between the two and I go out one night and the, and the night's terrible, the music's terrible. And I spent more money than I would have at the restaurant. Well, guess what I'm doing next week. I ain't going back to that place and I'm probably not going back to that place anytime soon. Right. it's, I, venues are often short-sighted because they're trying to bring in people while also trying to save money in the entertainment, because what is the biggest cost of the night? Entertainment, whether that be a band, whether that be a DJ, whether that be any extra entertainment that you have in the room, that's your biggest cost of the entire night. And it's by far, uh it's by far your biggest, biggest expense. And that person's making more money than every person in the room. Even though the bartender's not an expense to the venue itself, oftentimes these days, the entertainment's making more money than the bartender. That was not the case 10 years ago, right? And 15 and 20 years ago. Bartenders had been making four and $500 for 20 years. And the DJs were still making 350 back in the 80s. But things have shifted and now more is expected of the DJ. But in lean times, see management, see not management, you see ownership trying to cut corners. How can I bring people in? how can I pay them less? How can I pay the entertainment less? And the industry as a whole hurts for it. Oftentimes the ownership's not looking at this as a long play. And it is a long play. can affect your, for example, We saw this happen at one of our venues on a specific night and all of a sudden, three months into that, that night was gone. That night still doesn't exist and it's not coming back. Because the DJ that they had put on because they wanted to save a couple bucks was bad. Straight up. Right? Took us out of there and put a bad DJ on. And that night doesn't exist. And that night had existed for a very long time. I get it. Times change. I understand that. But you know what? You put good talent. in a place and at least you'd still have a night. You'd be making money at least. it can go sour quick. And I think it's completely overlooked. I think on a smaller scale, when we play the promoter DJ game, Sure, a promoter DJ maybe could bring 25 people, let's say, which is great, but if that person can't DJ, you're gonna lose the 150 people that walk in and hear that DJ for an hour. And at that point, would you rather have kept that 150 and the DJ brought zero? It's a math game here. It's simple math. On a local, smaller scale, like, that part of it I'll never understand, right? Because, who cares? If the DJ can't keep your room of all the people that show up, what's the point if they could bring 25 or 30 people? Because nobody's bringing more than 25 or 30 people. Like, I don't care what anybody says. That's like a max. Yeah, it's probably unless you're like college. Now are you seeing this? or it's your first time DJing and how does that help a venue you know? Like I brought a shit ton of people the first time I DJ but I was terrible. Yeah, so question, are you seeing this uh when you travel or like when you're traveling your headlining and the the the residents like opening? No, I'm not seeing that necessarily. You know, there are certain places that are like, your DJ slot is based on how many tickets you sell. Like, I've heard that in New York recently. I've heard, you know, you get paid based on how many people you bring kind of thing. Like, it's happening for sure. it's going to continue to happen because people are really cutting corners everywhere. You know, as, rent rises and it is because we have friends and we, when we know people that are, that are, that were owners of bars and nightlife spots that have had to close down because rents are just rising and rising and rising. It's becoming ridiculous. So what, what has to get cut first is what is your biggest expense? Like I said, and that's where you look to cut corners. And then unfortunately the overall uh product. suffers for it. with the influencer DJs, think like because they can sell a lot of tickets and bring a lot of people out, I understand the allure, right? It's a big social media opportunity and whatever. like that person DJs for an hour and you better make sure the book ends, whoever you have booked to DJ is like Rick Wonder level, local DJ or you know, regional DJ, national DJ, whatever you want to call it. Like it's got to be somebody really good that can pick up the slack and really set the tone before that person goes on and then really pick it up the second they're done because we can't expect most of these DJs to be as good as the best open format or EDM DJs that are playing all of the place right now. Yeah, those are just appearances and they just so happen to kind of loosely know how to DJ, right? They're just appearances. instead of hosting, those people are now also DJing and making 10k or 20k or whatever crazy number they're making right now. Well, that was like, you know, when Paris Sultan and whatever AM's girlfriend's name was at the time, I forget. And they were making 30,000 in appearance to just sit there and do nothing, you know? like, so at least they're doing something at this point. They're taking up an hour of the DJ slot and they can make their 15,000. But I understand booking those people. I understand wanting to pack your place out because otherwise maybe your place isn't packed. Right. you pay that person $10,000, $15,000 and you fill your room full of girls. And then that's obviously going to bring guys to the place. And then like you said, bookend the DJ book and that social media star or whatever with decent talent. And this way you can make money after that person's off of set. like that portion of it is important, but the, I, I don't like it, but I understand it in the, especially with the state of kind of nightlife and where everything is. You just have to be really selective and you have to know who you're bringing in. And like I said, you have to be really smart about who you book around that person. I think because the prices of these higher end DJs, all the DJs that actually like really sell hard tickets are so fucking expensive. They are so expensive that it's just gotten to a point where like, They're they're sort of like blowing out the market because they're so expensive it makes it so hard to to make money or or for Maybe be market see marketplaces to bring in higher-end talent because the prices are so crazy It's just really hard to do and have a successful night there is such a gap between like your A tier and then like your even your like your B tier, I feel like in the DJ world. ah You have to catch artists on the come up and get them on the cheap. That's what you have to you have to be smart and you have to get lucky. And that's how you can be a BMC market or be Birch, right? Because we talked about doing stuff at Birch where like, we have to catch somebody on the way up. Because people guys and girls will go from being a 2500 $3500 act to 10 grand real quick, you know. Do we have, is there a place that stands out in your mind that curates that type of DJ really well week after week, where they're like the go-to spot to see the next big DJ? Where like, so like, I'm thinking about it from like an indie rock uh point of view back in the day where I'd be like, I can hit the Bowery Ballroom almost every other weekend and see the next big band. Yeah. I think Eric and Angelo at Trio do a good job of that. but they're also like, they're bringing in that that talent, that level talent, but then also bringing in like, Cascade and Deadmau5 and you know, the biggest of big DJs as well. So Which would you get have that once in a while and that's fine because you're not blow, you're not going to blow out your, your budget, you know, once a month, they might do that every quarter or half, you know, because I feel like bad, like I'm just doing like a one-to-one with Bowery ballroom because they, like I said, they did such a good job with it. And like every once in a while you'd get like this sneak show, like vampire weekend, we do an album release in there. And that was like a huge deal. Right. And then that kept them on the map and relevant to the more, um, how would you say like mainstream fan? So I feel like we can use a trio type place in our market to where you can see up and coming DJs and upcoming DJs are being brought in. The only problem with that is we'll go back to what we said before is that rents are so high that it becomes very difficult to do that and then do your dead mouse thing and still maintain a profit at the end of the day. It's almost impossible. And that's kind of why we don't really see that all that often. It's a shame. it's just the pricing is getting crazy. And like I'm all for free open market and like DJs should make as much money as they can possibly make like absolutely. But the high prices are also contributing to making it a lot tougher to to bring talent in and make it business wise make sense. Do you I almost think that like the high end, best of the best open format read the room. been through it a long time, DJs are where the best value is. Like if you book all those guys, you can keep your place humming, you know? I agree. I agree. We have a lot of that in our market. We're really lucky to have that guys that do travel, but that are from our market that are still able to do the open format thing. ah Encore, Rick Wonder, Chachi, like, you can book all those guys every week, you're gonna be all right. Right. And I'm thinking about, what's obscene's group with, what's his name? Conflict obscene fan, fantastic, you know, Miami and then, you know, the Boston circuits got a nice group like that as well. And yes, those are three, those are three really good markets that have really great open format DJs that can also lean into Like you lean into a base house and Rick has his style. I think that it's super important, um especially with the, just kind of the, just how the industry is and how people like to go out. You need to read a room still, right? It's in some capacity. You could still do. a room is the ultra most important thing right now. Because the slower places, those DJs will make you more money every single time. They will keep your room. They'll start a party. They'll finish a party. Those DJs will make you the most money. They're the most value for your dollar, for sure. So what you're saying is like when those guys are home in market, those guys are 100 % book them, I don't care, they want to get paid to an extent, book them. Book them at an in market rate. Encore for market rate or Encore for double market rate, let's say out of market or the$3,000 soft ticket act? Yeah, no, me, yeah, give me, give me Encore, pay him a little bit more money and I could save money on the other end. That's fine. Because that $3,000 DJ unfortunately doesn't draw. Just doesn't. And that's why I said before, there's such a gap between the A list and even that being a C list, let's say, right? Cause you have like maybe a three to 5,000, then you maybe have a 10 to 15,000, then you have like your whatever, 50 to 100, right? there's such a huge gap into recognition by the layman person, right? Like, yeah, sure, everybody knows Martin Garrix and everybody knows John Summit, but like not everybody knows that three to $5,000 DJ. So was he really moving the needle? So give me that encore at double market rate and I'll save the money and I'm gonna have a great night. I'm gonna probably turn. I don't know, 30 % more in profit at the bar. Give me that all day. Right, I just think that is, from a business standpoint, the best way to book talent right now. Now, can you go do a hard ticket show every two weeks, every three weeks, every month? Absolutely, I think you need to do that to keep things interesting and keep your customers coming back and do something new and fun and exciting. I think that's important too. 100%. Having a talent booker that knows this stuff in and out is so important. we bring up Eric so much on this show, it's funny. But that's why, like we sat at dinner with him and he had somebody working for him at the time, I forget her name. But like they were just talking about all types of DJs that I had never heard of that were on the come up. They did do their homework and make sure they connect with people like an Angelo who can be the resident and be the glue and be an amazing uh at home in market DJ and hold that room together when they don't have bigger acts in. So like they have that the whole the art of booking down so nicely. It's so important. Their biggest thing is they hire staff that loves EDM. And I thought that's so important. If they love the music, they wanna be there, you know? And even when they're working, it's fun because they get to hear DJs that they wanna hear. And that's so, so, important. so smart. It's a great way to hire. mean, you're a music first venue. That's what you're selling. You're selling the music. You have to be on top of it like that all day long. You gotta live it. Yeah, we say that all the time. But you gotta live it as a booker. You can't half ass it or else you're gonna have just a half ass venue. And I feel like that's what happens a lot of the time. It's just a disconnect. It's unfortunate. I think we're at a point at Birch where we're booking a lot of these local traveling DJs, right? But we're trying to figure out like, how can we sort of do both, right? How can you bridge the gap? How can we, it's hard. It's really hard to pinpoint the talent that makes sense to bring in and spend the money on. It's hard. your sound grid party maybe like once a quarter doing like a little bigger act gives good exposure, like keeps, you know, the at home, the big in market DJ there, but then also introduces your sound grid uh patrons to that level up of DJ. And this is, hey, okay, when you get to see a, I don't know, like let's say you had. you get to see a me on and then that $5,000 DJ like, oh, well, that's why that guy gets$5,000. It's hard to see when it's okay. Well, I see an opener and then that $5,000 DJ. It's like, okay, I don't really get it. But when you get to see like the in-market guy, the guy, and then that next level up, you're like, okay, well, that's why he's in the next level up. And I think that exposure to your fan base having that will sell you more tickets next time. Right, you have to sort of lead, you have to lead the customers down a path. can't be like, it can't be like, hey, we opened this new place and no one's ever been here and now we're gonna book $20,000 DJs. And it's like, all right, but nobody even has ever been there or experienced a night there. like, I don't know. It's weird. We're on the opposite end where people, you know, people know our brand and have been there before and we've been around for a little bit. So they know what they're gonna expect. But now how can we elevate that, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's exposing those, but you have to get them in the door first, right? So you have this thing like a sound grid, you get it. That pulls them in and then you show them why they should come back for that next level of DJ. was always sort of the plan is right. Like let's make this like really EDM forward event, really house music forward event and get some customers to know like, hey, when we have Soundgrid, this is the type of vibe that we're gonna get. And we wanna come, we wanna find those fans, right? And then now that we've done five or six of them, now it's like, all right, we can start, let's start bringing in some bigger talent and upping the experience a bit. Yeah. And that's when you get hard ticket sale. And that's how everything levels up. All right, I think this is great place to wrap. um Anything you, we have to promo. know we have, what do we have promo? We have get down, the get down and friends edit pack just dropped. Crazy people on that thing. all too many, too many to list. Go check, go check it out. It's. all your favorite Get Down DJs and a ton of your favorite editors from all over the place. Some great edits on that pack. It's on our SoundCloud. The links are on our Instagram, get them DJ group. ah TikTok, it's being promoted over there. wherever you can find a link in, we can throw it in a link here in the show notes. yeah, we'll put it in the show notes, but you could definitely find it on Get Down Instagram at Get Down DJ Group. Also Get Down Radio. We've been pumping out some Get Down Radios. Big shout to Germ, who just, we released actually today when you're hearing this. It'll be a couple days old. But go check out Get Down Radio. You know, we're trying to put out one or probably closer to two per month of those now and really highlight some of the DJs we're working with, some DJ friends. Shout to Marco from two faces handling that for us. He does a great job for us and he's been really adamant about getting more get down radios out. So guys, if you're not subscribed to that to get down radio, please ah go subscribe to that. Wherever you grab your music or your podcasts, you can find us all over the place. parties next week, have club cafecito and Jersey city. If you guys are local at the Ashford on the roof, we did it last. month. So that's going to be January 19th, January, geez. That's where my head's at. July 19th, Saturday, we're going to start at 3pm. We'll have our free salsa lessons around 4pm. Dramos will be doing a classic salsa all vinyl set, which was super dope last time. We were quickly reminded why we don't do vinyl on Serato anymore. Yeah because that turned into all hell, that was, it was all good, all in good fun. We had a great turnout there. had, cafe aroma provided the espresso, for free. So don't be shy. Go grab some espresso if you stop by. And then we had a local rum company come in and they were mixing amazing, amazing drinks at the bar. I'm not just saying that, like I'm a, I'm a drink junkie when it comes to cocktails. So, good. So come support the event. Aldez and dramas will be DJing. and you have all those other good features. anything else? I think the last thing I'll say is just go show some love to Ammo and his family. ah Anywhere that you could support, comment, like. I think that's the best way until his family lets us know any other ways that we can help support. yeah. Yeah, you can keep an eye out on our pages. We're going to promote everything and anything we can for them. Absolutely. Ammo forever, baby. I'm out forever. Alright guys. Alright, peace. talk to you guys soon. Peace.