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 events.
Beyond the DJ Booth
The Five-Hour Dance Set Problem (and How to Fix It)
What’s the hardest event you’ve ever played? And how did your body feel the next day? In this episode, we unpack the reality of five-hour dance sets: why they happen, how to design them smarter, and the recovery hacks that keep you in the game. Along the way we cover everything from music strategy (yes, even September), gear hacks, a Patreon announcement and a $69 foot massager that might just change your post-gig routine.
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, everybody, and welcome back to another episode, another edition of Beyond the DJ Booth podcast with one of your co-hosts, Joe Bunn, and that is the one, the only Brian Bonacisi Smith Jr.
SPEAKER_04:What's up, dude? Man, I was uh listening back to the playback of the episode that dropped this week, which will be last week when this one comes out. Right, right. And we were talking about Katy Perry hits. Yeah. And you were kind of bashing her about like after her little ride, but then you went on a little concert run last minute. I did. You were even dogging on her props and all of her stuff. So give us the real story. Was it good? Was it bad? Were you wrong? Were you right?
SPEAKER_02:Ashley hits me on like a Monday or whatever, like less than a week before this Katy Perry show. I was like, I feel like we should go see Katy Perry. She's coming to Raleigh. I mean, and it is when I'm telling you people, it is 10 minutes from the house. Am I lying, Brian? I mean, Lenovo Center, I don't know, hosts 20,000, 25,000. And I think it was a weekday night. So it wasn't sold out, clearly. It was close. Okay. I mean, there were 18 or 20,000 people. Yes. Wow. Okay. On a Tuesday or something. It was definitely not a weekend.
SPEAKER_04:Dude, I enjoyed it. But you were saying that like early on in this episode, last episode, that her props are weak or whatever, but they were good.
SPEAKER_02:There were so many videos that went viral early on that same tour of her doing like these super weird dance moves and like really bad choreography. But then you gotta remember it's Katie Perry. Like she's not really a dancer, she's not sexy in my eyes by any means. Right. She's just kind of quirky and corny. Yeah. And some of the stuff was kind of quirky and corny, but then you're just like, it's kind of part of the shtick. Like it's part of the songs. It's pop. I mean, it is true pop music at its rawest form.
SPEAKER_04:And it's crazy because we were talking on the last episode about how many hits she has.
SPEAKER_02:I mean full catalog, right? Hit, hit, hit, hit. And then it would go to like probably from a new record or a newer record that I didn't know. And you could tell people didn't really know. And then it would go hit, hit, hit, and then she'd throw in another kind of random or a ballad or something. But dude, for the most part, it was everybody's singing. Everybody's singing. Everybody's dressed up. Interesting. Oh, very diverse crowd. Tons of Hispanic. Like I literally had to Google is Katy Perry having Spanish? Like immigration? It was. Oh, immigration. Okay. She's from LA. She's very big on speaking out against like ice and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Got it. I mean, then there was a whole segment bringing people up on the stage. There was a girl that was deaf and was holding up a sign. She got pulled up there and two hours? Two hours, probably close to it. So yes. Am I glad I went? 100%. Is Katie Perry still corny to me? Yes. Do I still play her songs? Yes. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I still, to this day, am not sure of which one goes over the best. After watching that even Steve video. Hot and Cold, Teen A's Dream, you know, Firework. I posted that reel just a minute ago. So we're going to see what people say.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. Yeah. I uh played hot and cold this weekend. It went over? No. Dookie. Dookie. I think my mistake was I went right to the chorus. Uh-huh. And I feel like that song needs the verse first. It was like jolting all of a sudden we're in the chorus of this like hot and cold. And it was like, ah, that's probably not the right edit. I need to play it with the verse first. Kind of walk into it a little bit. Right, right. But no, I didn't get the reaction that I was anticipating by any stretch. Yeah, there was like two of them like that. There was another song.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you told me uh you went through with like a rock set and you played Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Dear Maria Count Me In.
SPEAKER_02:Fail. Big turd. Fail.
SPEAKER_04:Big turd. And I thought it would work because it was like a good rock crowd. They were into it.
SPEAKER_02:Do you remember the lead-in songs?
SPEAKER_04:Like, where were you? So I went from sugar, we're going down. Yes. Into, which is a drop in tempo here. So it's just kind of weird, but it does work. I went into all the small things. Okay. Clap. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. All the and then I went into higher. Wow. Creed. Okay. Chorus only. Okay. And then I let that one kind of ring out. Uh-huh. And then I dropped it cold, like you told me. You're like, drop a cold. And people are like, what? And I was like, oh man, they aren't as rock heads as I thought. I mean, those other ones are more mainstream, right? Like all-time low, it wasn't really like No. I mean. I feel like they were kind of big, right? Or no? Am I am I mistaken?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, in that pop punk era, I think maybe the order could have been wrong. I think you could have gotten away with it after Blink. Because you know, like you jumped almost like a decade. Yeah, you decreed through people off and they were already out of the pop punk mode. Got it. Or you could have gone one more pop punk, like um my own worst enemy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Car was in the front. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I and then I got to do with me.
SPEAKER_01:And then just hit Maria Gun.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you just echoed out of it and just and just started. I I had to let it roll for a while.
SPEAKER_04:I let it roll for a while just trying to see if there's any juice. And there wasn't. There wasn't.
SPEAKER_02:I was like, all right, I'll take the beating. No, it's all good.
SPEAKER_04:I I hadn't dropped it before. And I was like, well, I'm gonna give this a shot. This is a good crowd to try.
SPEAKER_02:I love the riskiness. You are the king of risk.
SPEAKER_04:So we've been on some trips since we last recorded, at least. Yeah, we do. So you went to DJX. You want to do a little recap of it wasn't there, but yeah, DJX was good.
SPEAKER_02:That's in Atlantic City every August. Listen, man, I probably sat in at least six or eight seminars. I know you're gonna say there's a standout, but eight eight more than I than I sat in last year because last year we were exhibiting on the showroom floor. So I did go to some seminars this year. I definitely walked the show floor once or twice. I did buy that DDJ uh Flex 10 the White edition. Okay. Because I needed a new controller, anyways. But all in all, man, at the end of the day, I get to see my friends. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And hang out. Was it bigger or smaller than the years previously? Seemed seemed about the same.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I'm sure they'll say it was bigger, and that's always going to be based on the registration numbers. How many people showed up? Seemed about the same. I don't know. I mean, it was a good show. I mean they do a great job. People that are on the East Coast or in Philly, New York, New Jersey, they're all there. Cool. Then what? We went together. Yeah, we did. We went to Dallas. Yeah. Dallas.
SPEAKER_04:Podcast conference.
SPEAKER_02:Dallas podcast movement. I thought was great.
SPEAKER_04:What was your biggest takeaway? Not necessarily podcast necessarily, but anything from just going to a different convention or industry show than the DJ stuff that you've been to like all? Yes.
SPEAKER_02:I think this was probably the smartest, most well laid out convention in a giant room with basically six things going on at once because everybody was wearing silent disco headphones. Right. They had six speakers going in the same giant convention center space, and all you were listening to was the person you were staring at because everybody in there was wearing silent disco headphones. And I know so little, and even though I've had two podcasts now about podcasting, that I genuinely, you and I divided and conquered it, and I felt like I learned so much in those two days. Right. Yeah. And you and I took crazy amounts of notes. We came back, and not only did we take notes, we activated. Yes. And I was very proud of like the changes that we made and really just behind the scenes stuff that they don't really see. Right. You know what I mean? But I think we've done a good job of taking those notes from that and implementing them into the back end of this podcast.
SPEAKER_04:Was it weird going to something that no one knew who the hell you were?
SPEAKER_02:One guy came up to me. One guy, and he was like, I'm a DJ, and I'm also I work for so-and-so radio or so-and-so podcasts. But it was like, it was very strange. Like nobody knew who we were there. I guess people knew some of those kind of big name speakers and whatnot. We saw that one guy from the the podcast where they were their Patreon was like hundreds of thousands a month or something.
SPEAKER_04:Was that like your biggest shock of the industry in general that it can be something that people monetize like that? Or was there something else that was a big takeaway?
SPEAKER_02:I think that the big takeaway was number one, that there are so many podcasts. And some so niche. So niche. I mean crazy, just left wing or right wing, or you know, political or religion, or that one lady sitting at our table is like, I have a podcast for people that homeschool their kids. Like, we think this is niche. Like, I'm like, damn, that is super niche. Some guy had some remember he was talking about like studying the future, or I'm like, what conspiracy theories. Yeah, conspiracy theories. I mean, there were two things that were kind of shocking. Over the last couple years, podcasts have hit a plateau. It was growing, growing, growing, and more podcasts, more podcasts, and then it kind of hit this plateau. And then the other thing was how few people make it past episode 10, let's say. Here we are at 52, 53, and then how few downloads people really get. Anything over a thousand downloads, which we get, you're in the top five percent of podcasters. Think about that. So I was pretty proud of that.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, I was too, yeah. The the analytics I learned so much about which I didn't really fully grasp previously, because it's the one platform that isn't standardized. Like the music industry has at least now gotten to a place with streaming where they've figured out how they can measure how well a song is doing and whatever. But podcasts, because of the fact that it's on various platforms with YouTube and you know, audio and video stuff going on, the the stats are all over the place. It's not in one location.
SPEAKER_02:It's confusing, man. We have all these tools and installs and things that we're looking at every week to see how we can be better. That's a goddamn Roachabug over there, man. I hate roaches.
SPEAKER_04:God, they're bringing the rent up.
SPEAKER_02:They can afford a clear. Yeah, they just tried to raise my rent, and here we are with a Roachabug infestation. Anyway. Anyway, all in all, man, 100% worth it. Would you go back? I was about to ask you, do you think we need to go back 2026? I do. Recalibrate.
SPEAKER_04:Didn't they say it was gonna be in New York City as well? Oh, I think so, yeah. So I don't mind.
SPEAKER_02:To me, that's even better because I you know I'm not a big New York fan, but when I go with people like you that have lived there and know the city, yeah, yeah. I'll totally differ.
SPEAKER_04:And I'll say the other big surprise for me was the fact that they had mentioned that most people only have like three podcasts in their library. Right.
SPEAKER_02:So we'll pause there. So for the people that actually have this in their top three, right? Thank you. Thank you. Seriously, I mean, if if you're taking the time to spend 20 or 30 minutes to watch this or to listen to this every week, or even to binge and catch up, thank you. Because it does seem that there's a very small wallet of podcasts people are carrying around.
SPEAKER_04:And they were saying that your favorite, your number one, you're rarely going to replace that. That's always gonna be there. So you're vying for like literally two other podcasts that they might have in their library if you're brand new and you're trying to break onto someone's radar.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, Saquon can speak on it because I feel like he's a true consumer. I mean, the only time it seems he jumps off of something or if the hosts kind of jump the shark or start to if the hosts start to kind of get jaded, yeah, um, and kind of lose their authenticity.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you can kind of tell sometimes.
SPEAKER_02:Or if they lose a co-host or something, you know, we go on a road trip and he'll go, listen to this podcast or whatever, and we'll listen, we'll be crying, laughing, and then you know, whatever, six months later I'll be like, yo, dial up, whatever we were listening to. And he's like, Man, I had to give up on those dudes. They they just lost their way, or they started saying like yeah, weird shit, or they started acting like rich.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, or they get too political. You know, that wasn't even their main focus. Right. You know, a lot of podcasts have shifted.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know what I mean. Because he's a he's a real consumer, so well, that's a good segue.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, uh, we got a new segment. Let's play the audio of this new segment and then I'll set it up for you, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Um, off the record, let me talk my sugar honey icy. They throw a shade while I'm sipping on this icy. Don't care if you hate on it like me. You know why, cause that's just how life is. I'm gonna say what I want to say. It's great time to rant and rent, get out the way.
SPEAKER_04:So that's a new segment. It's kind of like where you can just go off on something. Like, you know, whatever's been pissing you off. Yeah, off the railroad. A rant. We just made this up. Yeah, made it up. Just telling me. Yeah. Okay. So speaking of podcasts going off the rails. Oh boy. You were in some comments this week.
SPEAKER_02:Do you want to kind of elaborate on your uh I'm I'm not gonna give this a lot of time because I'm I'm I'm tired of giving them time.
SPEAKER_04:We discussed it on this podcast a couple episodes ago.
SPEAKER_02:We we did, right. And they and they heard that, by the way. We did, yeah, yeah. I could tell he goes, Oh, you don't have to create a whole podcast about it. Oh, wait, you already did. And I go, at least you're listening. The issue was there uh there are two photographers that have a podcast, and they were basically shitting on the song September and just made this video rolling their eyes. Everybody plays it, everybody opens their set with it. Maybe I took it the wrong way, but I take it as shitting on the DJ or shitting on the band, right? And I will just say this I don't pull that song just arbitrarily, and I don't start the set with it, which is what they were basically saying that everybody does up in, I don't know where they are.
SPEAKER_04:New York, New York, New York Northeast for sure.
SPEAKER_02:I never start a set with that, to be honest with you, but I'm gonna tell you this, and I'll say this with a hundred percent fact-driven data. We probably do 400 weddings a year just here in Raleigh. I can assure you, I'll promise you, I can pull it right now that 95% of our couples have that on their playlist. Yeah. Would you say that? I agree.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So it's not like I'm just pulling it, it's not like I'm just playing it because I'm used to playing it. It is on the list. And, you know, people are in the comments, oh man, calm down. Are you having a bad day? Are you having an aneurysm? I'm not. But if anybody ever comes for the DJs, you know, or or really tries to act like they're better than the DJs or act more elite or elitist, I'm coming for your head, man. I mean, based on the number of likes on that comment, which is now in the 200s probably, yeah, I'm not wrong. And basically, my comment just was like, listen, man, you don't pay my bills. The couple that has this on their must-playlist does pay my bills, and we don't give a fuck what songs you like.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I've said that before, I'll say it again. I I just don't care. Right, right. And if you don't like it and you're you're the caterer or the photographer, walk out of the room or don't shoot that section, or whatever. I'm playing for my clients. I'm playing for the audience on the dance floor. And then everybody in the comments that was agreeing with me is like if the bride walks up to you and goes, Hey, we want to do that picture where the bride lays across the Grimsman's arms or the whole wedding party jumps up in the air. Are you not gonna shoot it? You're gonna shoot it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, if they want a first look food photo, even though it's cliche, you're not gonna shoot it. And I'm not, you know, gonna sit here and and name. Maybe I should. Maybe I should sit here and name all the things that photographers do that are crazy as shit. And by the way, these comments are my own. The the comments I leave on social media are my own. I'm actually pissed off that I left the comment because then I had to waste part of Sunday and even early Monday defending myself. Right, right. So I'm almost pissed off I even got into it again. Yeah. I'm even mad I'm talking about it again. But here we are. We're talking about it. So I just don't think that I'm ever gonna let people like act like they're better than we are. Yeah. We are all there to provide a service for the couple.
SPEAKER_03:You don't make videos about what photographers shouldn't do. Well, you you've made a photograph. I mean, I've made you I've made a video. You made comments. I've made comments about it, but not making a whole real I don't love stacking the gear up by uh by the DJ gear.
SPEAKER_02:I don't love or taking pictures of the cake and the I don't love people taking people out in the middle of dancing to take a sunset photo because it's golden hour. I don't I don't like shit like that. I agree. I mean, there are things that we do that they don't like, and there are things that they do that I don't like. But at the end of the day, once that event is moving, the end goal for me and always will be is to put on the best show that I can and to work with everybody to provide a seamless and beautiful experience for this couple. That's it.
SPEAKER_04:So industry podcasters be forewarned. Don't go for the DJ's head.
SPEAKER_02:And these comments are my own. Brian B does not want any beef. He knows these people probably. Trust me, somebody in those comments is probably gonna be calling you, going, calm your boy down. He these are my own comments, not those of Beyond the DJ Booth Podcast or Brian B. Incorporated. Thank you. There's my disclaimer.
SPEAKER_04:Let's move to the next segment. Wow, that's good, man. So we create these little bumpers just to kind of move into different segments. And so this is my gig story for the for you. I don't think I've shared this one with you yet. So I got a call maybe spring for this wedding that just happened in what was it, August. Okay. You know, usually a dead season for me. Yeah. So I was like, you know, this sounds good. It was a good paycheck on top of that. It was in Utah. Couple was in their probably if I had to guess, late 60s. Oh, okay. So older couple. They already had kids, they're getting remarried, sure, you know, whole new things. But this is one of those brides that like wants to be cool, like with the music selections, wants to feel young. And I say that, and then they send me the request list, and it's not old stuff, but it's like be maybe, even uh that's a high rating. Megan Trainers type stuff, Andy Grammar, you know, for like dancing. And I'm looking at this list, and like she's got the whole album, like hits. I don't even know. Like, I didn't even say don't even use the word hits. That's been gracious. So they're also doing like a flash mob, which I'm like, what are we back to 2012? Like that's that's been done. Like, what are we what are we doing? Yeah. And then on top of that, there was a Jewish element that they wanted, which was the horror. Okay, sure. These people are like 60 years old. I'm like, we're not doing a bar mitzvah here.
SPEAKER_02:You know, like what are we doing? So I mean they wanted to go up in the chairs.
SPEAKER_04:In the chairs. Uh-huh. And there was only 100 people. That's on top of everything else. Right, right. And my set was pretty long. I had to go from seven to midnight. The dance set. The dance set, seven to midnight.
SPEAKER_02:I'm gonna tell anybody watching this that happens to come across this that's an actual client. If you have a five-hour dance set, please don't call me. Especially for 100 people. Uh uh don't call me regardless. Three-hour dance set is max for me.
SPEAKER_04:So I get there, I didn't even play cocktail hour. No ceremony, no cocktail hour. I'm literally playing the reception. So people are walking in around six, basically. We do one dance, and there's no parent dances, they're 60 years old. Their parents are no longer here with us. So we literally go into dinner. Like it's just it's grand entrance, first dance, dinner. So within by 6.15, we're into dinner. Okay. It's a three-course meal. So we're talking 6 45, 7-ish is when I start the dancing. And then we're there till midnight, basically. So that was kind of how the night unfolded. However, when people were walking in to the reception, I've never seen so many walking canes walk into the room.
SPEAKER_02:Man, hold on a damn second, man. As somebody that's turning 54 tomorrow, you're adding like 60 is 80. I don't know, but I don't like the way you're like, now you're shitting on friends.
SPEAKER_03:Like, think about the friends are walking around the fucking cane.
SPEAKER_02:Like, what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_04:These guests were older than the couple. You know, I feel like they were the younger in their friend group, basically. Okay. All right.
SPEAKER_03:But they were giving the cool ones.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So I'm they're walking in and I'm like, oh my God. Like, how are we gonna do the dancing? Who's picking up the chairs? You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, for the horror.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And I'm like, we got a hundred people, and I'm struggling to find six that are like 25, 30 years old. You know what I mean? So, anyways, they do the flash mob, which was whatever. You know what I mean? They get out there and I'm just like, okay, we're doing it. And I, you know, had to go back to like blurred lines, like that kind of stuff that I haven't played in a long time. Okay. Or don't play often, hardly ever, to kind of just make it feel cool, right? Yeah. So we get to the horror. I'm like, we need to knock this out early because uh I don't want anybody to be too toasted. I mean, we don't have yeah, you know, whatever. A lot of able body. Yeah. And the next thing I know, like we just do two turns up and that's it. Yeah, two turns. And we're done. Right. We're done with that. And it was going okay. Like it was actually full. And the room felt. Sorry, real quick. Was it was either person Jewish?
SPEAKER_02:I didn't catch that.
SPEAKER_04:I'm guessing one of them was. All right.
SPEAKER_02:Anyway.
SPEAKER_04:So the room was super small and fit the crowd perfectly, right? So it felt full, which was great. So for two hours we're dancing, seven to nine, banging. It's just going great. And then it was almost like they all had an alarm clock that was like time to go to bed kind of alarm on their phones. Because about nine o'clock, about 60% of the crowd decides to walk out. And it wasn't like a weird song, it was just like, okay, we've we're done. Yeah, we've had enough. And I literally look at the clock and I'm like, it's nine. I got three more hours, and I've got about 20 people left of the hundred that were there. Like they just made a mad dash.
SPEAKER_02:Now, the other problem was which there was no announcement that the bus A bus is. There's no bus.
SPEAKER_04:This is at a nice hotel that they're all staying at. Time for bed. And the other problem was that there was a bar outside. That was the other negative. It wasn't in the room because the room was so small. So that dragged a few people. So it's probably like 9 20, and I've got like four people on the dance floor. And this has been a long time since that's happened to me. And I'm like, 9 20, bro. Like, oh geez. And I don't know that some of them are just hanging out in the bar because I am not out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm not about to go look. So I'm just trying to like keep the smiles and just like, what do we do for these, you know, four people? And so I tell my uh tech guy who was uh not even in the room, he was like just hanging out in the green room. I'm like, dude, we're down to four, and I've got three more hours-ish to go. And then it went down to three, and then all of a sudden it came back to five. So I'm like, oh man, I gotta get some more people out here. And then they finally started to come back in about the 20 that were left. And so at 11 o'clock, no, it was like 11:30 actually. They wanted to redo the flash mob dance again with the 20 people that are there. So I mean, it was just one of those gigs where I'm just like, this is a paycheck gig. You know what I mean? It's not one that's going on the ground. But at the end, she's like, Can you play our second to last song that we asked for at 11:30? I'm like, Oh, thank God. And then early. So I do it. So I play the second to last song. Then I'm thinking naturally that I'm gonna play the last song. Yeah. So I play it, say, let's give it up for the bride and groom. Let's give him a nice round of applause. We're done. And then one of the sons who's like, you know, three sheets to the wind, comes from the bar and goes, I thought he was staying till midnight. Oh. And I'm like, I mean, I can. I don't got anywhere to be. She's like, Do you mind playing for a little bit longer? So the last 30 minutes, everyone's talking, no one's on the dance floor. I'm literally just a Spotify playlist at that point. No uh, no gratuity, of course. Just a nice attaboy. You did great. It was awesome. And and and she sent me a review that was like super nice and everything like that. But it was one of those gigs where I'm just like, yeah, man, that was almost not worth the paycheck. Almost not worth it. You know what I mean? Almost. That was uh my last summer wedding before I headed into the fall.
unknown:Damn.
SPEAKER_02:That was my pits are sweating just listening to the story. And listen, I'm not even gonna sit here and tell you that. I mean, it's happened. That was probably in the last two years. I'm not gonna sit here and act like, oh my God, that's tragic. I've never had that happen. I can tell you for not a good feeling. It's happened. It's a shitty feeling. The dance set is too long. This, I mean, I named 10 things that they did wrong, you know, like putting the bar in the hall, dance sets too long, not letting you play some cocktail, like you didn't even get to set the vibe. It's just like, hey man, you know, dancing clown, do your thing. Like that, like rough. Damn, son. Brutal. All right, booth heads. We made a move, and it's a bold one.
SPEAKER_04:We officially launched a Patreon. We've got two tiers. One for$5.99 and one for$19.99. Basically, the cost of a coffee or a cocktail, depending upon how you roll.
SPEAKER_02:Listen, this isn't some support us or we disappear kind of thing. You actually get some things that are useful that we think that you're gonna need to run your DJ business.
SPEAKER_04:Like early access to batched episodes, bonus episode that we couldn't post publicly, maybe, and our weekly top 10 banger lists, songs that absolutely crushed at our events this week. You know, the stuff that you really want to steal from us anyway. But if you want to go deeper, jump into the booth backroom at$19.99 a month.
SPEAKER_02:That's where the extra love lives. Monthly prize drawings like headphones, merch, coaching calls. We've got Serato exports of our history, discounts on exclusive merch, and record pool hookups.
SPEAKER_04:Backroom members aren't just listening, they're actually shaping what this podcast is going to become and probably making your DJ sets better in the process.
SPEAKER_02:So stop texting us asking what remix was that and get in the booth for real.
SPEAKER_04:Patreon.com forward slash beyond the DJ Booth podcast. Choose a tier, grab your spot, and let's keep building. Booth heads, you know where to go. Well, it's uh going to the gear corner. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:The gear's here. The gear. The gear is here. Is here is here.
SPEAKER_04:What do you have? So I've been trying to save some cash where I can, looking at the budget, personal budget. And one of my big things has been like recovery, going and getting them foot massages after all of the shows at the my little uh acupressure spot. But it's not cheap here in Raleigh. It is or is not? It is not. Like New York is very cheap because there's so many you have to compete.
SPEAKER_02:Give me an example of what a Raleigh foot massage will run you.
SPEAKER_04:So 30 minutes, almost$69. Damn. And they're good, but like$69 is a lot. Right. And honestly, like, I was using it probably weekly in lieu of coffee or whatever else. That was kind of where I was putting my my pleasure money. If you're like, I gotta cut this out. Yeah. It's too much. I'm looking at the Amex bill going, this is ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02:So I got targeted. I love the way he says Amex instead of Amex.
SPEAKER_04:So I get targeted, as course as I'm looking for a foot massager. Uh-huh. I've brought one. I see that. I'm gonna give you a test drive. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Now the cool thing about this of my toes are absolutely black and broken. By the way, let's let's not broke two of my toes. I hit them on the stairs running.
SPEAKER_04:But it's not the bottom of it, right? It's on the top. Yeah, the top. Okay. So the cool thing about this. Am I taking my shoes off? Yeah, you need to. You need to for this. Leave my socks on. Yeah, I'll leave the socks on. Yeah. Uh uh come on. We gotta be sterile. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03:Transferring fungus.
SPEAKER_02:Two of my toes are actually black.
SPEAKER_04:So this thing's cool because you can wash the foot covers the foot covers inside. You can wash those, which is nice. So I've done that for you. Sure. Um, but it has heat or cool. Okay. It's got the kneading, if you call it, I think it's what it's called. The kneading, like, oh, kneading, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Like K-N-E-A-D.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And then they have air pressure. You can go light, medium, or heavy. Okay. And then you also have vibration. Okay. And you put this thing on, dude, it's daily now. And this thing saved me so much money. This thing is amazing. Better than the better than the Asian foot massage parlor.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So I'm a little bit more. Better than the Asian foot massage parlor in New York City. No, no, no, no, not that. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_04:But this definitely is worth it. So just put it right there on there. Put both feet in. Okay. You're gonna hit that power button on the far left. Okay. And then turn the heat off, man. I don't hate, I hate the heat. So hit that uh one on the right twice. Go down to the kneading, whatever pressure you want. Okay, and go heavy on the on the compression. Yep.
SPEAKER_02:I ain't gonna lie. It's premium.
SPEAKER_04:And when the pressure already wait until the pressure comes in and like sucks the foot in there.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:$99. Lower?$69.$69. Wow. That was my actually my first guess. I should have said that. Dude, this I mean, I'm not It's working. It's like it's like this circular motion, kind of like slow. The sides of your foot? No, on the the sides are in one of those kind of air um bladder type things. So the foot is squeezed tight, and then the bottom almost has like a kneading circular motion going on. Okay. And then there's a vibration. And then the air just let out.
SPEAKER_04:For a second. Yeah. And then I'll come back.
SPEAKER_02:It reinvigorates.
unknown:Woo!
SPEAKER_02:This thing is nice. So I like the heat, actually. I think I would be hit. No, I don't want to get too sweaty up in your rig, but I feel like I need one. Dude. So are you just like at your desk, click, click, click, click, like typing away?
SPEAKER_04:No, this is Sunday afternoon. So sitting there watching the football games. Yeah. Just letting it go to town. How long? Dude, I redo it like three times in a row. And now up to the point. Like an hour? At least. Oh, yeah. I keep coming back. Tara's like, that's like your new thing.
SPEAKER_02:I'm all about it. So I mean, think about it. The cost of one human foot.
SPEAKER_04:For 30 minutes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right? And you have this for your whole life. And you can reuse the bags, wash them. I mean, it's pretty solid, right? Yeah. I mean, I'm not, I'm not exaggerating. This is this is one of my favorite things you've bought in.
SPEAKER_03:All right. Question. One size fit all or that's a good question. I feel like big ass feet. Do you have a big ass foot?
SPEAKER_04:No, but my wife doesn't either, and it fits both of ours. So she's on the bottom. Yeah, but that would be the opposite. I'm saying like she's a big thing. Oh, big ass. Yeah, I don't think so. I think they actually have a bigger one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:There could be a bigger one.
SPEAKER_04:I think there is actually. But anyway, we'll post the link in the email newsletter if you want to get one. But recovery is important, man. Especially if you got doubles or triples. Like this thing would definitely reset you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we hit that last week. We'll we'll maybe we'll talk about my gig stories on the next one. We'll talk about that on the next one. Good stuff. Question of the day.
SPEAKER_04:Oh boy. Matthew Davy, the bow tie DJ. You know Matthew. Yeah, he's been to a few things of ours. Of course. Out in Richmond, Virginia. Yeah. What's your take on venues charging a percentage to be on their list? You still have that here in Raleigh?
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_04:Was it a thing?
SPEAKER_02:It was never a thing. Oh, it was not. It it never will be a thing. Wow. Because this is the beautiful South. And down here, people are good and wholesome and lovely people, unlike some other parts of the country, I'll just say. It was never a thing. I will say two things. Number one, somebody did mention it, and I'm not going to say who it was. And they never did it. And this place is one of the highest grossing places you can possibly imagine. And he mentioned it one time. And I was like, man, we'll probably do it just because we do so much business, but I don't think it's right. Like I actually said, I don't think that's the move for you. Like I was very honest. And they never did do it. Now, I'm not saying it's because of what I said, but I just was kind of vocal and being like, Man, nobody does that year. Like, I don't think this is going to go over well. The second thing that happened, and they may still be around in your market, and it was called Hawthorne Publications. And Hawthorne Publications would go to a venue and go, hey Brian, beautiful place you got here. We will make you a full color 20-page booklet about your venue. And you don't have to pay for it. Yeah. Here's how we're going to get people to pay for it. And we're we're going to we need a list of every vendor in Raleigh, North Carolina, and we're going to call them all and they can have an ad in this book. And that ad and and that book became how you were on the preferred vendor list. Right. So if I had been at a place for 10 years and would, you know, was one of two DJs, next thing you know, DJ Johnny Dick Rock could could buy an ad and be in this 20-page booklet. And next thing you know, he's now part of this preferred vendor list. Maybe never even played at the place, but he had bought an ad. And man, a bunch of vendors just were like, dude, this is ext this is actual the definition of extortion. So you're telling me now I have to buy an ad to be on the preferred vendor list in this booklet, just so just so you don't have to pay for the printing cost of them? It lasted a few years, but uh they have not been around for a while. My answer, Matthew, is it doesn't really happen here. And if it did, I would probably pay it only if I was doing tens of thousands of dollars in business per year there.
SPEAKER_04:They do it in the in the panhandle. There's two spots. Actually, one's brand new. It just came online.
SPEAKER_02:Now, can I ask a question? Are you having to pay per event? Because I've heard of up in up in Jersey and New New York, January 1, you basically go to this ex-venue and hand them a bag of$10,000 bill.
SPEAKER_04:The one that's most standard, because we've got three venues that do this. Yeah. You pay an annual fee. So, like I had one that was going to be$5,000 for the year, and then another one that just came online that's$2,500 for the year. Then there's another venue that does 10% of your of your bill for each event you do. So if you charge$5,000, they get$500. Yeah. I'm always like, well, send me an invoice. Yeah. I'll pay it when the invoice comes in. Right. If you're not gonna send the invoice, I'm not doing all the extra work. No, you know. So that's kind of how I handled it.
SPEAKER_02:But but but hold on a second, man. Hold on a second. So you're saying that a shitty DJ could pay$5,000 to this venue and potentially they get shows.
SPEAKER_04:They could potentially do that. Now, the way that both the those venues that do the annual thing, they didn't start off their venue like this. They basically were already had a vendor list. And so this was where it started a mutiny because people were like, I've been on your vendor list for 20 years.
SPEAKER_02:And I was saying with the Hawthorne book.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And so they said, Well, we're starting with, we're gonna ask you guys first, we're giving you the courtesy, and then we're gonna go down the list. To the B tier, C tier.
SPEAKER_02:If you don't pay it, somebody's gonna pay it.
SPEAKER_04:Now, I will say how we've kind of gotten around it because I didn't want to pay the$5,000 one. Because what happened was as soon as people move to this model, they're not incentivized, they've got their money, right? Because it's an annual fee. So they're not trying to. I noticed our inquiries went down. And I'm like, I'm one of the three people paying on the entertainment tier, and I'm not getting half the leads that we were getting before. Why though?
SPEAKER_03:Why? You don't take the money or they got paid. Yeah, they don't have to really promote you. Right. You promote yourself.
SPEAKER_02:How many people do you think are paying that$5,000 if you had to get it?
SPEAKER_04:And by the way, that's just the entertainment tier. The planner tier, the caterer one is way more.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm like what do you think they make a year just off this VIG or whatever? I don't know.
SPEAKER_04:I would say at least 50 to 100. You know? A couple things. One is what I did with the one that was paying$5,000 because it is a nice venue, but I didn't want to pay it. So I hooked up with an agency that does bands there and said, listen, if I pay you a percentage of the ones that actually book that want me, I'll book them under your brand, white label me, and I'll and I'll give you 10% or 20%. And the reason why I felt like that was a fair thing is because I'm doing it on, I'm not doing it across the board. It's only when I'm booked.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I don't mind giving you 20% for that because it's going through your whatever. I'll just make up for it by charging a little bit more.
SPEAKER_02:You think you're gonna come out in the pot in the positive, though? I did do it a couple, I've done it a couple times. No, but you're gonna spend less than$5,000.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. A thousand percent. I mean, I'm there, we're there like three times.
SPEAKER_02:So that's this dude is so slick.
SPEAKER_04:That's one way we did it. Brian B he's nice with it, bro. He's he's good. But the other thing was the new venue that just implemented this, it's$2,500. Yeah. I paid it. Yeah. And the reason why is it's a brand new venue. Yeah. And I'm gonna talk about this at the DJ Collective part of my talk, is about like when you get to a certain level and you own a market, yeah, your whole goal is to protect your perch. You don't want any of these other guys getting in. No. So sometimes you got to pay it just to be able to like lock it down, make sure no one else gets on that list.
SPEAKER_02:And so but but can only one person be on that.
SPEAKER_04:No, that's the problem. I've tried, man. I've tried getting to be the exclusive, even if you're a multi-op, they're not gonna do that. They're gonna want to make their at least three per category kind of thing. But I'm gonna pay it because it's a brand new venue. I know it's gonna get booked a lot, and I know we'll make our money back. And really, if if I have to do one pro bono because just to pay the fee, I'll do it. Sure. But I don't like it. I don't like it at all. I think it's a it's a crappy way to do it, and I think it really speaks to the fact that these venues can't make money doing it their own business, they're running it the right way, and they got to make it off the backs of others, which just sucks.
SPEAKER_02:It's nasty. I hate it. Let's do it.
SPEAKER_04:I would just encourage you, man, to like think about what you just said. If you think that it, if you're already at the top of your market, lock it down. Pay the money, you probably have it anyways. If you are looking to expand, I mean, that's a consideration, but I I mean that's that's a lot of money going out the door every time you if every venue is doing that.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, I hope that helps, Matthew. No, man. It's it's nasty. I don't I don't like that kind of mentality and it's nasty work. Do better venues.
SPEAKER_04:Well, let's thank our sponsor.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, thank you, DJ Event Planner. Uh, this is the CRM that Brian, myself, and many DJs all over the world probably use to run their business. It's DJ Eventplanner.com. All right, we'll see you guys in the next one. Thanks, everybody. See ya.
