My view (not the view of anybody else or any Committee I am a part of) is that every slot has its own value. Each DJ has their own value in terms of promotional value and quality of work. Neither DJs nor slots are equal. The prime after hours slot means more than the noon lindy in the park slot. The Name DJ is more valuable than other DJs. It is ok to showcase local DJs at the expense of travelling DJs, etc...Shorty Dave wrote:I completely agree. Similarly, a promoter shouldn't budget for all these other expenses and not budget anything for DJs. So the question once again comes down to what's the middle ground? How much value do you place on a DJ in comparison to the other aspects of what makes an event (price for the event of course being one of those aspects)?Nate Dogg wrote:My point in bringing up all other expenses was to show that there are a lot of expenses out there. To look at every expense and say "That is money out of a DJ's pocket" is too simplistic.
Let's say an exchange is going to cost around $55 for the weekend before you really factor in the DJ expense, and attendance is 300. Do you keep the price of admission the same and pay the DJs a small hourly fee and don't even comp them for the weekend, or do you raise admission $5 per head and fly in 5 DJs, pay for their cabs to and from the airport, buy them dinner one night, and comp them for the whole weekend? Surely a $55 exchange vs a $60 exchange isn't going to make a big difference in terms of attendance (especially if it's sold out to begin with).
Let's say a good DJ generally makes $25 an hour for primetime work. A few hours of work will be the same value as being comped. In some cases, only comping a DJ and expecting him to be available to work 8 hours or so is lowering the DJs hourly rate. On top of adequate rate/comping, paying his airfare greatly increases the compenstion. It sort of makes up for the DJ being on call all weekend.
Certain questions also come up when you factor in bands and regional DJs, how many hours of DJing do you have to offer? Is a DJ worth $300 - $400 for two hours of DJing? Some may be.
Next, you have the local/regular attendee DJ who just wants to DJ an on hour or two in whatever slot you give them. Comping him would be nice. A lot of times, these DJs are not comped at all. It would be nice to do something for them. I favor paying them outright.
As for the $5 cost of taking care of DJs, I just don't look at it that way. The budgets are set up different (see posts above). I can't isolate the DJs expenses that way. There is more to pricing an event than covering costs.
If there is one thing that I disagree with when Exchange planning comes up on Boards like this, it is that budget decisions are often overly simplified. Unless you can see all the relevant data (current and past budgets, past event history, etc...), it is hard to make definitive statements. Paying DJs more could just as easily come from cutting an expense elsewhere. Pricing is a separate but related issue.
Nathan