Talking about a change in business.

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MIXMASTERMACHOM

DJ Extraordinaire
ODJT Supporter
Oct 16, 2011
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I was on my way home and decided to go down a street that I hadn't been down in a while. It's Brookdale Avenue in Newark, NJ. There used to be a Lounge called Brookdale. It actually was on Lindsey Avenue. Very nice place back in the day. Eventually it got sold and the name got changed.

The new owner named it Passions Sports Bar. The new owner charged the insides of the place. He put in a great system! I know because I was in there one day about playing there. The system consists of JBL tops and subs, 2 Pioneer CDJ 800's. I don't remember the mixer. The amps were QSC, with a EQ and I believe a compressor.

That system was unheard of in a local bar. It was awesome. Never got to play there because the owner was playing games. I gave him a starting price for me to play there of $100. He tells me he would pay me $200 but his liquor got to move. I left after that and passed up on the place. My issue was I couldn't give a damn what moved in the place! I needed the amount of money we agreed on. I know he was going to make an excuse why he couldn't pay me all the money.

In a way it was a good thing I never played there. The place turned into a rough spot with a questionable crowd coming in. So long story short the place eventually closed down with the owner trying to sale it. He did have a sign saying you could rent it out.

So passing by I noticed a different name on the place. I rode back through the block and saw now it's a chicken and pizza restaurant. Go figure. I don't know if it's open or not because it was after 9pm and the way the doors were designed you couldn't tell if it was open or not.

I remember another place that a guy where I worked at at the time tried to get me to be the DJ in that bar. I turned them down because the money wasn't enough for me to play there in that hole in the wall. I was in there and 2 females started fighting knocking against the DJ booth. At that time DJs were only using records. That place eventually got turned into a Church.
 
Based on the thread title, I thought you finally realized being a mobile DJ wasn't the business for you.
 
So, you asked for $100 and he offered you $200, telling you that he needs you to help move liquor and you turned him down? That is asinine.
You missed the thing. He was telling me that he needed a certain amount of money to be made or he wouldn't be able to pay me the $200. He was planning on saying he only made enough money to pay me $50. I knew that was coming. I had a plan for Thursday and Sunday playing there since Friday and Saturday were not open. It was going to take time to build things up. This place was on a side street and the name was changed.

He was looking for what a lot of owners are looking for around here. They want you to do all the work getting people to come in the place and they do nothing but collect the money. I don't mind doing some of the work getting people in a place, but not all of it unless the pay is a guaranteed $500 or more a night. Most owners won't pay anywhere near that much. They are looking for someone that is good while getting them to work there as little as possible.
 
If you are working in a bar, you should be concerned about the sales. That's why they hired you.

We had a few bars that we got paid based on sales. I had no problem doing that if the high end is worth while.

We had one bar that couldn't be honest about the sales so we stopped working with them. But for others it worked well.
 
I'm into having a set price to get paid working in a bar, Lounge or club. Obviously if I'm unable to bring in enough drinking customers then you get rid of me and find someone else.

One of the big things I loved about the Private Place Lounge was you always got paid all the money that you agreed to. Never had 1 issue with the money not being right. I found out from the manager that what they did at times was to take money from a good night and make sure that money went to a bad night. That's how everybody's pay came out right. Too bad a lot of places don't do that and just try to play a DJ out.

My friend just called me and told me he got a job to do today. He also told me the difficulties he was having in the place that he plays at on Thursday night. The crowd was coming but stopped coming. So not as many people are coming now.

The guy running the place said he was supposed to bring in the crowd. My friend tried to tell him you got to give people something besides the DJ to get people to come there and keep them coming back. He suggested some food. Finally after listening to the barmaid and my friend he did go out and buy a couple of buckets of chicken and the crowd stayed.
 
I'm into having a set price to get paid working in a bar, Lounge or club.

You are into you, that is the problem. You are there to do a service and you need to realize it's your responsibility to set the atmosphere, promote your own show and help the establishment sell as much liquor as possible. If you're unwilling (or unable) to do that then the house cannot afford to keep hiring you. You are of no use to them. If you did your job you wouldn't have to worry about getting your little bit of pay. The owner would be falling all over himself to keep you happy.
 
You missed the thing. He was telling me that he needed a certain amount of money to be made or he wouldn't be able to pay me the $200. He was planning on saying he only made enough money to pay me $50. I knew that was coming. I had a plan for Thursday and Sunday playing there since Friday and Saturday were not open. It was going to take time to build things up. This place was on a side street and the name was changed.

He was looking for what a lot of owners are looking for around here. They want you to do all the work getting people to come in the place and they do nothing but collect the money. I don't mind doing some of the work getting people in a place, but not all of it unless the pay is a guaranteed $500 or more a night. Most owners won't pay anywhere near that much. They are looking for someone that is good while getting them to work there as little as possible.
We've covered this before when you talked about similar gigs.

A bar has to bring in more than TWICE what they pay you, JUST TO BREAK EVEN ... so if they pay you $100, they have to have at least $200+ worth of drinks ABOVE AND BEYOND what they would have gotten anyway .. and they still don't MAKE money unless they bring in more than that. That's probably 40 additional drinks being bought and that needs 15-25 more people being brought in. Bars aren't interested in losing money just to pay YOU.

So, "How you would help them bring in more than 20 NEW people each night" is what you need to tell them.
 
So in other threads, you understand and promote bars hiring you because of the crowds you bring - and agree that unless they make money, they can't pay you .. but in this thread, you refuse to understand that same logic. Hmmmmm.

Regardless, if a bar doesn't have enough sales, they can't afford to pay you.
 
You are into you, that is the problem. You are there to do a service and you need to realize it's your responsibility to set the atmosphere, promote your own show and help the establishment sell as much liquor as possible. If you're unwilling (or unable) to do that then the house cannot afford to keep hiring you. You are of no use to them. If you did your job you wouldn't have to worry about getting your little bit of pay. The owner would be falling all over himself to keep you happy.
I hear you. I never said I wouldn't be willing to do some work to get people to come to a place so I can stay there. I'm just not willing to do all the work and the owner do nothing. This is their business not mine. All I'm asking for is some assistance. Not asking for a whole lot. Just some.

Then the other factor that some don't want to do is to give people something other than just a DJ. There are a ton of DJs out here. That means people have a lot of choices to choose from. So if the owner doesn't want to give back something to the people coming in there and just want them to spend their money at the bar, then you have another place they can go to where they get something other than just to spend their money drinking, guess which place they are going to go to?
 
So in other threads, you understand and promote bars hiring you because of the crowds you bring - and agree that unless they make money, they can't pay you .. but in this thread, you refuse to understand that same logic. Hmmmmm.

Regardless, if a bar doesn't have enough sales, they can't afford to pay you.
They can carry their ass to the bank to get what they owe me. I'm surprised nobody mentioned having a contract with the bar. Places around here hardly would do that. I know after that they won't want me back and I don't care because I don't like working for shady owners like that.
 
i spent 15 years djing niteclubs and bars... rotating a crowd from dancefloor to bar and back became my superpower... if he booked you and you had the dancefloor packed all nite and nobody drank...you are worthless to him.... he was explaining that to you in so many words...offering you an incentive

let me ask you....what do you bring to the table in this scenario? When i got hired on at a new bar...i brought with me 5 to 700 patrons....6 bouncers....djs...and we even brought bartenders.... we promised a full change in clientele and we rescued around a dozen failing bars in my area over a 10 year span... we made bar owners a lot of money...and we ...in turn made a lot of money...and if that bar owner didnt pay us... we not only left his establishment with all their patrons...we also insured that we sunk them....so yeah...they paid...

Somehow i picture you with your crappy equipment...in an empty dirty bar.... staring at the clock waiting to get your 100 dollars and go buy scratch offs...

cc
 
First I never said today I was looking for a place. Especially in my present condition. Now when I get well I do have a place in mine that my friend that plays there was going to look to help me get in there to play.

I know about rotating a bar. The thing is I I know owners like him. I wasn't going to even deal with that from the beginning. I'm glad you did what you did for bars. I don't have an antarage like that. You're probably talking about a place where you took the money from the door and the owner got the bar. Not interested in that because that can fluctuate and we're not talking a big club where they could afford to take a hit occasionally. Just pay me my money and be done with it.
 
Unless whatever facility has a guaranteed amount of people that show up nightly, then every facility (bar) takes a hit occasionally. You're saying that you don't care about that hit - 'just pay me my money and be done with it'. If you don't care about them making money, then why should they care about you making money?
 
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Unless whatever facility has a guaranteed amount of people that show up nightly, then every facility (bar) takes a hit occasionally. You're saying that you don't care about that hit - 'just pay me my money and be done with it'. If you don't care about them making money, then why should they care about you making money?
I never said I don't care if a place makes money or not. Of course I care but my main reason for being there is about me being paid what we agreed upon on a regular basis. Wouldn't that be what you would expect. Now you said it correctly. Every now and then a place is going to have a bad night. Now when this happens regularly then it's time for a place to look at what changes need to be made. Sometimes honestly the change needs to be the DJ and other times it's something else. What I learned the hard way is sometimes you just got to let go and move on..

Also as I have said in the past that you can suggest some things as to how to improve things. Please get out of your head that I'm looking to tell an owner what to do because all I am is a DJ. To me nothing wrong with giving suggestions when things aren't going well. It's up to an owner what they want to do.
 
Now you said it correctly. Every now and then a place is going to have a bad night. Now when this happens regularly then it's time for a place to look at what changes need to be made. Sometimes honestly the change needs to be the DJ and other times it's something else.

When there's money involved, whoever the bar pays will most likely be the first to go, regardless of what the actual changes that need to take place.

Please get out of your head that I'm looking to tell an owner what to do because all I am is a DJ. To me nothing wrong with giving suggestions when things aren't going well. It's up to an owner what they want to do.

Unless you've owned a bar or venue before, then any suggestion you could possibly have is meaningless .. and will put you higher on the list of who is let go of first.
 
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I was on my way home and decided to go down a street that I hadn't been down in a while. It's Brookdale Avenue in Newark, NJ. There used to be a Lounge called Brookdale. It actually was on Lindsey Avenue. Very nice place back in the day. Eventually it got sold and the name got changed.

The new owner named it Passions Sports Bar. The new owner charged the insides of the place. He put in a great system! I know because I was in there one day about playing there. The system consists of JBL tops and subs, 2 Pioneer CDJ 800's. I don't remember the mixer. The amps were QSC, with a EQ and I believe a compressor.

That system was unheard of in a local bar. It was awesome. Never got to play there because the owner was playing games. I gave him a starting price for me to play there of $100. He tells me he would pay me $200 but his liquor got to move. I left after that and passed up on the place. My issue was I couldn't give a damn what moved in the place! I needed the amount of money we agreed on. I know he was going to make an excuse why he couldn't pay me all the money.

In a way it was a good thing I never played there. The place turned into a rough spot with a questionable crowd coming in. So long story short the place eventually closed down with the owner trying to sale it. He did have a sign saying you could rent it out.

So passing by I noticed a different name on the place. I rode back through the block and saw now it's a chicken and pizza restaurant. Go figure. I don't know if it's open or not because it was after 9pm and the way the doors were designed you couldn't tell if it was open or not.

I remember another place that a guy where I worked at at the time tried to get me to be the DJ in that bar. I turned them down because the money wasn't enough for me to play there in that hole in the wall. I was in there and 2 females started fighting knocking against the DJ booth. At that time DJs were only using records. That place eventually got turned into a Church.



Umm. What are you trying to tell us here?