This is a weird business

No holiday parties again this year.
Not to brag, I haven't a date booked till I come back from Florida in May.
Injoying winding down over the last Three years.

sonic-vision said:

No holiday parties again this year.
Not to brag, I haven't a date booked till I come back from Florida in May.
Injoying winding down over the last Three years.

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You’re not missing anything except the money, I’ve really limited myself the last 3 years as well I did 9 gigs this year with one left, all gigs I wanted to do at the money I wanted to make my biggest year every as a solo op was 232 events bar gigs 3-4 nights a week plus private parties lots of times doubled up on a saturday

I have 2 events left for 2024 both holiday parties, and at this point not planning to book anything else. I honestly HATE loading the car up, and loading into and out of the venues in the winter time when it is below 45 degrees out. I have two weddings in January this year which is unusual as I am usually only have 1 event or zero in January.

When I do choose to lower the amount of events I do per year, I will not bother booking events between December 1st and February 28th. Blocking those 3 months should eliminate having to deal with the real cold, and potential for winter storms.
I know March, cold wintery weather can still happen, but it's less frequent and it's still a real slow month for me any way.

DJ Ricky B said:

I have 2 events left for 2024 both holiday parties, and at this point not planning to book anything else. I honestly HATE loading the car up, and loading into and out of the venues in the winter time when it is below 45 degrees out. I have two weddings in January this year which is unusual as I am usually only have 1 event or zero in January.

When I do choose to lower the amount of events I do per year, I will not bother booking events between December 1st and February 28th. Blocking those 3 months should eliminate having to deal with the real cold, and potential for winter storms.
I know March, cold wintery weather can still happen, but it's less frequent and it's still a real slow month for me any way.

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Depending on where you live during the winter months thighs can be slow. That's be the weather can be tricky. One day it might be a cold day with no snow and the next day a blizzard. So some people will wait to have an event once the weather breaks.

MIXMASTERMACHOM said:

Depending on where you live during the winter months thighs can be slow. That's be the weather can be tricky. One day it might be a cold day with no snow and the next day a blizzard. So some people will wait to have an event once the weather breaks.

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Last 6 years have been very mild for winters, but this year December started out pretty cold and windy which I have not seen in a while. We are due for having a blizzard or at least a winter storm with 10+ inches of snow in the DMV. We haven't had one in many years. I believe February 2017 was the last time. I think because we have shifted into El Nino from La Nina for the last few years that we are in for some Nor Easter storms occurring in the coming years and we cycle back. The one thing I truly don't want to bother with is having to deal with a snow storm and an event not cancelling, and having to get to it. It isn't worth the money for me to deal with that any more. I don't have enough perseverance in me to care enough about it like I had back in my 20s. We can't just "call out" from doing an event. We can call out from a regular job if they choose not to close, but event industry isn't like that.

So for me, it makes sense in my mind to simply not bother with booking any events in the winter where we are most likely to get a snow storm, and it is cold, and no fun to deal with. I am strongly considering only booking March 1st through December 15th starting 2026 now that I am really thinking about it. I ran it by my wife, and she thinks I should just not bother with December all together and forget holiday parties lol...My car will be paid off, and my credit cards this time next year so I won't need the money from deejaying like I did in the past so I do feel like deejaying events will be more optional than ever.

I remember in 1994 we got 18" of snow around here and I had a day job that it was mandatory for you to come to work to remove the snow so they could have school after the snow storm. I made it to work only because I lived 4 blocks away from my job. There was nothing moving at the time. No cars, trucks or busses were able to go anywhere.

The normal time for snow removal was 4 hours. There was so much snow that they gave you as much time as it took. It took us 8 hours and there was so much snow we didn't know where to put the snow. The whole tri-state area was shut down for about a week. So if you had an event to do it was canceled because there was no way you could get there to do the event. If you did make it to the venue it wasn't open because of the super blizzard. Anybody here have a situation where the weather prevented you from doing an event?

MIXMASTERMACHOM said:

Anybody here have a situation where the weather prevented you from doing an event?

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Yes.

Bad snow storm on December 22nd 2010 into December 23rd 2010. That Saturday before Christmas. There was a state of emergency, and we had like 18" of snow on the ground that day, and I couldn't drive my van down there, or my Cobalt SS I had at the time. The lady from the catering company was worried I wasn't coming down...I wasn't, but told her I believe my sister could do the job. It took me over 5 hours just to get home from Northern VA the night before! Luckily, my sister with her 4x4 Explorer was willing to drive down. She lived closer than I do. It took her 1.75 hours to get to this house down in Great Falls, VA for their holiday party. They were rich people, and not thinking about the weather. My sister had to set up outside on their 2nd level deck. They had a heater out there, but it was still frigid. Load in was awful, and the drive way to the house was barely plowed as it was still snowing as the party was starting. Only about 30 people showed up to the house party that originally was supposed to have 80. The caterer and her both said it was the worst event they had done. It should have been cancelled.

Only time I ever couldn't do an event.

DJ Ricky B said:

Yes.

Bad snow storm on December 22nd 2010 into December 23rd 2010. That Saturday before Christmas. There was a state of emergency, and we had like 18" of snow on the ground that day, and I couldn't drive my van down there, or my Cobalt SS I had at the time. The lady from the catering company was worried I wasn't coming down...I wasn't, but told her I believe my sister could do the job. It took me over 5 hours just to get home from Northern VA the night before! Luckily, my sister with her 4x4 Explorer was willing to drive down. She lived closer than I do. It took her 1.75 hours to get to this house down in Great Falls, VA for their holiday party. They were rich people, and not thinking about the weather. My sister had to set up outside on their 2nd level deck. They had a heater out there, but it was still frigid. Load in was awful, and the drive way to the house was barely plowed as it was still snowing as the party was starting. Only about 30 people showed up to the house party that originally was supposed to have 80. The caterer and her both said it was the worst event they had done. It should have been cancelled.

Only time I ever couldn't do an event.

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Why are some people stubborn? That event should have been canceled and scheduled for another day if possible. If it were me I would have told them I'm not coming and wouldn't have looked to see if I could find a replacement. On top of that being outside in a blizzard doing an event to me is craz. I don't care if they had a heater. No amount of money is worth me risking getting sick. Besides I hate winter time. I know there are times I have to go outside when it's winter. Just like I got a meeting to go to today. If I didn't have to go I would stay in today. My business has a job to do tonight at a hotel on Frontage Road in Newark, NJ. It's a $100 fundraising event. I believe it starts at 7PM. My plan is to come home after the meeting and chill in the house.

Here is Wisconsin, when I was doing a lot of bar gigs any large snow event made the bar incredibly busy, snowmobiling is big here, plus people just seemed to want to prove the could still get out and about,

Jeff Romard said:

We had almost 5 feet over 3 days last February

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How long did it take for things to clear up and get back to being normal? It took about a week when it happened. Snow plows couldn't do anything at the time till things cleared up a bit.

Jeff Romard said:

I was snowed in completely for 5 days. The road was open in about 4 took another day for my plow guy to get to me. Schools were closed for 8 days I think. It's not as congested in this area as it is where you are 5 feet is bad anywhere but in more congested areas it would be a disaster

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a 5 foot snow fall blizzard would decimate the DC/MD/VA area really bad. Especially if the power went out. We can't handle it anywhere near as well as Buffalo, NY or Canada.

If something like this occurred down south like say Georgia or South Carolina or Alabama...you would be looking at a mass death event likely with power down for weeks. They don't have the snow removal equipment that areas north of Richmond, VA has.

Jeff Romard said:

It was the largest snowfall in over 100 years here

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8dx8ORDNJw#:~:text=Around%20five%20feet%20of%20snow,to%20document%20the%20snowstorm%2C%20however
.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4TevW9kQ54

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All I can say is I'm thankful we've never had anything that horrible.

DJ Ricky B said:

a 5 foot snow fall blizzard would decimate the DC/MD/VA area really bad. Especially if the power went out. We can't handle it anywhere near as well as Buffalo, NY or Canada.

If something like this occurred down south like say Georgia or South Carolina or Alabama...you would be looking at a mass death event likely with power down for weeks. They don't have the snow removal equipment that areas north of Richmond, VA has.

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I was in Atlanta once when they got like 4 inches of snow , basically shut the city down, people thought I was insane to be out traveling in it

Jeff Romard said:

It was the largest snowfall in over 100 years here

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8dx8ORDNJw#:~:text=Around%20five%20feet%20of%20snow,to%20document%20the%20snowstorm%2C%20however
.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4TevW9kQ54

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How long have you remained inside your house? Or have you broken the law, but avoided the temporary fine for being caught outside?

Jeff Romard said:

This was last year I was home for 5 days only because I couldn't get out of my yard. I have doubts anyone was fined it was more a suggestion and anyone outside the city probably was in the same boat as me. It was impossible to shovel by hand my buddy who regularly plows me out in the winter showed up with his big machine scooped it and towed me out of a bank. This is the same as what he cleared it with

View attachment 55721

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That is what I have seen used to load dump trucks during the blizzard of 2010 to haul snow from areas away. The Stage Highway administration will bring out this big snow blower about that size to blow all the snow off of the shoulders of the highways into the woods or grass areas to clear off the highways after a blizzard has passed.

How long would you estimate it took for all of the snow to finally melt away? Over 60 days?