Beyond the DJ Booth
Brian B and Joe Bunn tackle questions about the private event DJ industry, share music, gear/gadgets, and stories from their gigs.
Beyond the DJ Booth
Museum Galas, Faith-Based Proms, and YouTube Sales Strategy
Picture this: you're DJing a museum gala, trying to keep the energy high, but you have to pause for painting unveilings. Sounds like a nightmare, doesn't it? Join Joe Bunn and Brian i as they share their wild rides through the unpredictable world of private event DJing. Joe recounts his recent streak of challenging gigs, including a lackluster rehearsal dinner and that unforgettable museum gala. Meanwhile, Brian offers insights from DJing a Tim Tebow Foundation event, where he faced the unique task of spinning tunes for a diverse, faith-based crowd at a "prom" for those who never got the chance to attend one. Together, they explore how each event's quirks challenge them and what they learn from these experiences.
But that's not all! We're also sharing some DJ essentials and savvy marketing tips. Discover why a simple short edit of a song can evoke nostalgia and explore the versatility of a super fast charging cable that's a travel must-have. We tackle a listener's query about setting up a YouTube store and reveal how integrating Google and Shopify can create a seamless online experience. Join us as we reflect on lessons learned and our dedication to providing valuable content to our audience.
RESOURCES & LINKS
Our website. Please leave a review! - https://www.beyondthedjbooth.com/
To book Joe Bunn: https://bunndjcompany.com/
To book Brian B: https://djbrianbofficial.com/
Joe’s Gear Finds on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/djjoebunn
Brian’s Gear Finds on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/djbrianbofficial
DJ Event Planner free demo: https://www.djeventplanner.com/signup.php
Brian B's Coaching Options: Https://www.thdjscreativeedge.com
what's up, friends, family, everybody. It is time for another episode of beyond the dj booth podcast, with me, joe bunn and my boy, brian bonacici what's up remind me your middle name again charles or something?
Brian B:no, edgar keith, keith keith a good name, brian keith entertainment bk yes, sir anyway, welcome back everybody.
Joe Bunn:welcome podcast for private event djs brought to you by dj event planner dj event plannercom and that's our favorite crm and what we use. We've been using for a long time.
Brian B:We both use it it's february as we're recording this. Yes, and we just did some gigs this weekend and as we were recounting them, yeah, you said you're on an interesting streak. What's going on? What's going on with the Joe Bunn gig?
Joe Bunn:calendar. I think I'm on a doo-doo streak.
Brian B:How deep.
Joe Bunn:How deep does this doo-doo run? How deep does it?
Brian B:do One to ten. How many have you done where you felt like it's just because you said you were on a streak? So it's like four, six like six or seven okay where it just didn't hit amazing from the get or just didn't sustain what was like your latest one?
Joe Bunn:tell us yeah we had friday night.
Joe Bunn:Uh, we were at a rehearsal dinner, which is very rare. We rarely play rehearsal dinners and the problem with those are, you know, they don't really want to turn up or get too crooked before the night. You know, before a big wedding, this wedding, this was going to be a big wedding. It looked like it was fine. I mean, it was just average at best. Very late start to the dancing. I think maybe they danced 30 minutes and then the museum basically has a hard 10 o'clock stop, so it wouldn't matter if they chanted one more song or not. It was like the lights were up.
Brian B:How many people? 150. For a rehearsal dinner, that's a lot.
Joe Bunn:I know, I think they were terming it more as a welcome party. Just a very late start to the dancing, I guess. That was my main problem with it.
Brian B:Was Bunn DJ Company doing the wedding too the next day?
Joe Bunn:We were not, I think they had a band and then, fifth or sixth year in a row, we've gone to Hickory, western North Carolina, about three hours from here, museum of art, for their big gala. This is where they raise a bunch of their money. Sell tickets to this dance. I've always done it, for as you know, as long as they've been doing, yeah it's in the museum which used to be an old school, so it's basically in a gym bouncing all over the place, all over the place literally like a, like a basketball, but it's kind of a cool room, super high ceiling, hardwood floors, right, it was fine.
Joe Bunn:Too many stops. They had a bunch of painting unveilings got it where they literally would stop, like I'd start people dancing. 20 minutes later they would stop it right and she would talk about the painting and then two people would lift off the black veil and then just restart yeah, it just too many, so you never kind of grew for they tell people it's over at 11, but tell me to keep going to 11.
Joe Bunn:30, so at 11 they would just in their brain think it's over and start calling Ubers or getting their coats or whatever. And here I was for the last 30 minutes, instead of 300 people playing to, 30 people got it and trying to sustain the, the momentum. Where have you been? Didn't you go to some tim tebow thing?
Brian B:I did. I did the night. He was not okay, so I didn't know the structure of this. I thought it was I wanted to see a picture of you and tim t. No, I definitely didn't see that. I was under the impression that this was raising money for the organization, which it does do that okay, but I was actually playing essentially a prom, for kids as well. This happens literally all over the country.
Joe Bunn:Right One night, right, so I.
Brian B:I did it kind of as a in-kind donation.
Joe Bunn:Okay, they did cover my travel and all that kind of stuff, cause it was in Florida, okay.
Brian B:However, the thing that got me was that it was inside what used to be a nightclub that has been converted to a church. That's cool. Tim Tebow, if you don't know, he's very faith-based. I didn't realize that was going to be coming into play with the music selection. I mean, I knew it was going to be kids, so I was like, okay, or at least I thought it was, but this was kids and adults that never went to a prom, so it's not necessarily just kids. So they had about.
Joe Bunn:I mean, when you're saying kid, are you saying 12 or are you saying five?
Brian B:No, no, no, not five, like 13 to 55, was the oldest person, right? I forgot. There's an actual term that they give to these folks that I haven't had a prom guest of honor or something like that.
Brian B:It was kind of cool in the sense that, like, at some point they do a crowning and they crown all of these folks to call them up one by one, and you know your heart is just kind of in your chest, because these kids, or I keep calling them kids, but they just they've never had this kind of recognition before, but they're so pumped and it's cool to see that kind of stuff. But, programming wise, I don't think of music anymore in terms of, like lyrical content right, right I mean obviously, if it's a completely off the radar?
Brian B:I have an idea, but like little things like pitbull has stuff, kesha has stuff, anyway, those songs that aren't necessarily blatantly right, right, terrible. As far as local content, they're just kind of off, and so then I'm like freaking out that they notice, right, I'm in my own head, right. So I'm like mixing out like mid-verse just to get out of it, because I'm like are these people gonna want to fire me here in a second?
Joe Bunn:right. Who knows right?
Brian B:tough gig riding on the rails pretty much and I also found was like I'm playing a lot of party classics because all the current music it's 50-50 chance it's going to be good or not. Even if it's clean, it could be suggestive, right, and technically I'm in this church, right, so I'm like these people are watching me. So it was a lot of throwbacks that I haven't played in a long time. Like what your style of music.
Joe Bunn:So Casey and the Sunshine Band. Oh, here we go. You know, we got the Love Shack. You hit the Love Shack. Oh, I did hit the.
Brian B:Love Shack. Song of the.
Joe Bunn:Night. What Quad City DJs? Come on, ride that train.
Brian B:No no.
Joe Bunn:What was it?
Brian B:It's big right now. If you're not massive. It's not massive in joe bunn's world.
Joe Bunn:I'm not going back, I'm telling you is on every request list I think if you're watching and you're getting married this year and you're using me, don't put it on the list.
Brian B:I'm not playing, I hate it, I am shocked, that is, and like you, look at all the ufc people doing it yeah, it's become cool again. It's not, it's just coming back, baby, I'm telling you I'm not playing it I wore power to you. I mean, if I didn't have it, this gig, it would have lost its luster. I mean, that was the song of the night and I was like, well, I'm in the south, it's gonna go off. And it did. It did went off, oh man I'm not doing it watch.
Brian B:I'll be curious in another month or two if it's gonna hit your playlists or request list.
Joe Bunn:Oh, young man, young man, oh, trust me, I played a super short edit of it.
Brian B:I wasn't going long. I'm like I'm in and out of this, the original was forever Right.
Joe Bunn:It's like a 96-bar intro.
Brian B:It goes ram ram, and then it goes to the horns. Bam, bam, bam.
Joe Bunn:I mean this has got to light it back hard. Mike Walter was around the first time.
Brian B:Yeah, he's going to bring it back the second. This is going to light him up. He's got to love it. Interactive.
Joe Bunn:Shout out, mike.
Brian B:Walter. Well, let's talk about the gear corner, as I'm going to call this segment. Oh, everyone told me I should have this every time.
Joe Bunn:I which segmented it, the gear corner. I feel like somebody's already maybe patented that or trademarked it or whatever. But go ahead and steal it. Brian, this little, I don't want to say what that looks like, but go on what the hell.
Brian B:This is a super charging cable, but what makes this one so good, okay, is that it actually has multiple ends to it.
Joe Bunn:So basically this holds it oh is this TikTok shop?
Brian B:No, this is Amazon baby. Okay, okay, okay. So like this is what is this one considered? Lightning, lightning. But if you want to swap it, ooh, I've seen this, but the same thing with these Ooh, that's clean. And I think this is going to come in handy, because anytime you're in a hotel, or you're in right, so you don't have to carry all the adapters, all the different power things. Let me peep that and it's 100 watt charging extra fast cable braided cable, that's nice.
Joe Bunn:Yeah, how much was this?
Brian B:here's the the case, for I'll let you kind of hold that, you know um.
Joe Bunn:What do you think? Oh, I think it was 29.83 close 34.99.
Brian B:Okay, on amazon. And, by the way, everyone's asked us every time we show one of these pieces, like where do I find the link? Right if you go into the description we have our on youtube right. We have our amazon store links. That's right. Click on that. You'll find this. I think it's a game changer to have in your backpack man, it's super cool. For whatever reason you might need it, I'm definitely going to get one of these, yeah I bought that last thing.
Joe Bunn:You remember you showed me that power bank on one of these.
Brian B:Yeah so did our boy Squirrel. He did that too, as well, yeah, he did. So I just think it's a good one. Shout out Squirrel.
Joe Bunn:Love it.
Brian B:This is a six, and one is what they call this.
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Brian B:Question time. Yeah, and this one. We pulled from YouTube Our comment section. Yeah, this is for you, right?
Joe Bunn:I think yeah, I don't really. We have a picture, we'll put the picture up as well about what he's talking about.
Brian B:I think I knew what he's asking.
Joe Bunn:DJ Access.
Brian B:Where is he? Do you remember? No idea. You know him Probably do, if I saw him Probably do.
Joe Bunn:He plays a lot of stadiums, I mean sports team stuff. Okay, he's a cool cat. He came on the vault one time. He's cool. He says hey, joe, I noticed you have this cool YouTube store for Bun DJ gear. Can you talk about how you set that up Basically? If you go and look at see how on this video this is a clip from my newest video See how you got these items underneath it.
Joe Bunn:It was basically set up by the company that does all of my marketing. I tried to email them this morning when we were getting ready to prep for the show. I'll reach out to him individually. It has something to do with Google. There's like a Google shop. I have a feeling also that it is integrated with Shopify my Shopify for one year, because those pictures are pulled directly from Shopify. I can tell.
Brian B:And do you have to pay extra to get your YouTube set up like this? Or they take a percentage.
Joe Bunn:I don't think so, because Google and YouTube are basically the same thing. Could you use this for your DJ business? It would only make sense if you were comfortable with literally people trying to check out on the spot For enhancements, maybe, maybe, yeah, up lights, cold sparks, whatever. Yeah, they could technically do that.
Brian B:And this is only on the homepage. That's what I was about to say Like if.
Joe Bunn:If you go on YouTube right now like, say one like if you go to my YouTube channel on your phone, did those icons show up or is it only?
Brian B:Is this showing on what appears to be a video, the screen grab? I'm just kind of curious, like if it actually shows up, are you at all tracking this?
Joe Bunn:do you know if this is working as of whatever three months ago? I have a marketing company that I have two calls a month with, so we'll go through. Okay, here is how the facebook ads are doing. How are the google ads doing? How are the email newsletters being responded to? Are we getting you getting sales from those? And I think this is basically just part of.
Brian B:Google and they take a cut. Obviously the marketing company.
Joe Bunn:No, they just get paid a flat rate. Flat rate, yeah, flat rate every month.
Brian B:And how did you find these people?
Joe Bunn:They're local, they have multiple divisions so they do all my bookkeeping but they also have a marketing division. So they've helped me with the vault in the past and now they're helping with Blung Gear. So they set this up. I wish I had a little more detail, like I had set it up personally. I'd give you more. If you have like super detailed questions, I'm sure I can put you in touch with somebody over at Sherpa about it.
Brian B:Since you know DJ Access, how do you think he was thinking that maybe this might integrate with his stuff?
Joe Bunn:I have a feeling, either based on, like we were saying, enhancements, upsells, or maybe even merch, like he might have merch or something like that. You know what I mean, because I think he's known Right, especially in the sports kind of world, got it. That's kind of how I was thinking. Or somebody like Eric Rhodes that has millions of followers, right, you know, he might have one on his page because he was selling that DJ Life stuff for a while, those t-shirts and hats and whatnot.
Brian B:So stores would really benefit from this like retailers.
Joe Bunn:Yes, 100%, or a related store-type product. Right, it's tough for service industry. Right, I mean for a service-based business Like I would never do something like that. It's probably under like if one DJ company had a channel.
Brian B:Interesting. I didn't know this existed. Yeah, always learning. Well, let's close it out.
Joe Bunn:All right, nice little short episode, short to the point. I feel like we delivered, I think. So Shout out DJ Event Planner. Again y'all for sponsoring the show. We appreciate you greatly and thanks everybody for watching new episodes every single Wednesday morning on YouTube and wherever you stream. Thanks, brian. Thank you Joseph.
Brian B:See y'all. See you soon, you.