Dj Looking For Work

S1234

TheOldHand wrote: »

What paying gigs have you got? Playing deep house?

2 Garage parties hopefully more in the future if the manager gets money again.

TheOldHand

S1234 wrote: »

That is exactly what i was looking for good advice so thank you .. I have done garage parties and house parties, this is a stupid question but what is the main difference between them and dj'ing in a night club?

What is a garage party?
You won't get any gigs in Dublin if you demand wages. Its a hobby to nearly every one. There are thousands of decent djs who reckon they could be warming up some place and they will do it for free.

S1234

No i was paid twice by an event manager for doing the garage parties which were over 18 events.. If you read back i said i would work for free and then someone mentioned not to do that.

TheOldHand

I think you need to grow up a bit and wait for college. WHat usually happens then is you meet likeminded people at sessions and put on parties for friends, djing away. After a few years of that you might decide to put on gigs in the city or work with another promoter. Its all about playing music that you're into and having a party. The commercial bar work/ club end of it of it is completely different.

S1234

Thanks for that advice but when you mention growing up and going to college that isn't going to happen for me as i wont be able to get into college and this is one of the main reasons i am looking for work but thanks.

TheOldHand

House DJ and paid work. Those words are rarely ever seen together. Sorry to burst your bubble but if you were living in Dublin and giving it a shot from there then you would have a miniscule chance of getting a paid gig maybe in a year. But not living in Dublin or knowing people in the "scene" then you have no chance.
I did some mobile and bar work for a few years. Completely unsuitable to a 16 year old girl or a young woman. You won't be playing house music either.
I wouldn't go near it now myself even if I needed to.

http://www.donedeal.ie/for-sale/weddingmusic/3870276

ianuss

S1234 wrote: »

Thanks for that advice but when you mention growing up and going to college that isn't going to happen for me as i wont be able to get into college and this is one of the main reasons i am looking for work but thanks.

Well you should just cross out 'college' and replace it with 'adulthood' then because the advice he gave you was spot on.

If you are hoping to make it as a successful dj in Ireland playing house or techno, good luck to you. There are hundreds, if not thousands of djs with similar aspirations and there aren't many success stories out there.

Do it because you love it and keep your fingers crossed and your expectations very, very low.

S1234

I actually stay in Dublin on the weekends and i'm hopefully moving there in September so hopefully that will help me. But im still going to keep trying even though the chances are low.

frankspencer

NEVER WORK FOR FREE AND NEVER NEVER SAY YOU WILL DO A GIG FOR LESS to get experience. Club owners etc will pin you that price or crap money forever. Example a club in a venue in the west, told me I was too expensive (which I wasn't same price as other djs in club)
The guy thought at 21 in college i could be pushed around. I said I charge that price and refuse to lower it, two years later I am resident DJ on more money in that club.

You might not like the tone of these posts but the other posters are DJS and this is a business so its taken very seriously. I would take these guys advice on board, they have helped me out with certain questions I had over the years.

im invisible

frankspencer wrote: »

NEVER WORK FOR FREE AND NEVER NEVER SAY YOU WILL DO A GIG FOR LESS to get experience..

.

TheOldHand wrote: »

There are thousands of decent djs who reckon they could be warming up some place and they will do it for free.

TheOldHand

Cheese djs playing music for ***** = get paid

Frank there isn't hammering out techno to a discerning crowd.

Hidden Agenda Club

My advice is to abandon djing and start producing your own music if you want to get gigs.

VinylJunkie

Hidden Agenda Club wrote: »

My advice is to abandon djing and start producing your own music if you want to get gigs.

This

WasterEx

Unless you're as good as this guy, it's gonna be tough for you to get exciting gigs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJfpVzLN90U&t=11m0s

Dno how he does it.

If you're serious about it though, just keep practicing and dedicate time to it. Eventually you'll get there.

ironclaw

S1234 wrote: »

That is exactly what i was looking for good advice so thank you .. I have done garage parties and house parties, this is a stupid question but what is the main difference between them and dj'ing in a night club?

There is no comparison between the two. To name a few:

1) Your the main act and the anchor holding everyone in the club. If you blow it or are just plain terrible, people will leave. Most clubs offer 'free in' before 12 and that is a large percentage of the crowd in my experience. These people won't stay if the music is terrible.

2) Following on from the above, the bar needs people to stay so they drink and make money. If they start leaving or just arn't in a fun mood because the music is terrible, it reflects badly on you. Proper nightclub owners know good music and they know exactly what the bar should be doing revenue wise. They'll attribute any losses to you and you'll quickly have a bad name. Get a bad name and you'll never work in that city again.

3) Your being paid and watched. Both of which add hugely to the pressure. Couple this with the 'stage fright' feeling and you could be the best DJ the bedroom world has ever seen and completely blow even a basic set. And you need your set to be pristine. Especially in the beginning.

Flipside of all this is house parties where there is no pressure if you mess up (Bar maybe a sarcastic boo) and no business at stake. You could probably get away with being an utterly rubbish DJ for years on the mobile circuit if you could advertise well (As many have)

My personal advice to you given your age is to try get in with some promoters and 'watch and learn' in clubs. Proper clubs. You have no experience of them to the extent that would allow you to DJ in them. Clubs in Ireland are completely different to clubs in Ibiza etc. Chaulk & Cheese. And I can testify that having visited and worked in both. Same applies to major festivals.

The bottom line is, Irish 'clubbers' want to hear Charts. Or house-y mash ups. End of. There are maybe three 'niche' nights that I know of in Dublin and they play Funk, Deep House & DubStep. That ain't a big market if you ask me!

My best advice to you is:

• Download any official BBC1 Radio Essential Mix to get an ear for what the top dogs do (https://soundcloud.com/search?q=BBC1%20Essential%20Mix)
  
• Get some real experience in the club scene.
  
• If you really want to make a career of this, look at the mobile business for quick money (Hard earned mind you!) However given your age, I cannot see this being an option. I'm not sure if you mentioned money being a factor in going to college but a proper mobile set up will set you back at least €1.5k to €2k. If it was me, I'd spend that on college first.
  
• Start to produce tracks. If you produce even one great track you'll be billed on festivals in no time.
  
• If you want some mobile advice, PM me or start a new thread. And I'll give you the run down.
  
• Keep your expectations, in Ireland at least, very low.

Hidden Agenda Club

Im not sure what proper clubs Iron Claw is on about but the likes of Button Factory, Twisted Pepper, Grand Social which are home to good music and there is a market for it.

If you really want to be a dj, I would suggest putting on your own under 18 party in a small venue around 100 capacity and charge a fiver in and get some of your mates to dj as well. But I would still advise you to spend more time producing. Here is a video of Irish producers New Jackson playing in the Button Factory last week http://vimeo.com/60942801

ghostdancer

ironclaw wrote: »

The bottom line is, Irish 'clubbers' want to hear Charts. Or house-y mash ups. End of. There are maybe three 'niche' nights that I know of in Dublin and they play Funk, Deep House & DubStep. That ain't a big market if you ask me!

while i agree with the rest of ironclaw's post, this part is complete nonsense.

most nightclubs in Ireland play chart stuff, or pop-house, but there are plenty more other proper clubnights that are packed, as mentioned by Hidden Agenda above.

Twisted Pepper on a Saturday is generally techno, and very busy. Fridays would often be house and can sell out weeks in advance depending on the act. Thursdays are popular too, and don't fall into those 3 categories really, although occasionally there might be an act booked that does.
The Button Factory has been selling out plenty of Wednesday/Saturday nights recently and has a broad mix of house/techno/electronica.
Kennedys is generally straight techno.


as for your situation, i'd give up thinking that 16/17 year olds are getting booked in Dublin, or infact any clubs in Ireland really. while you might know of someone who has managed to get a few bookings in a few places while being underage (although i'd be sceptical), the people DJing in the clubs I've mentioned are in their 20s/30s, and older, and presumably it's the same around the country.
i can't think of anyone involved in the Bodytonic lot and their various linked promoters or the ones centered around the Button Factory/POD that have people underage, let alone actual DJs.

as mentioned earlier, start making mixes and put them online to showcase your abilities and what you play. many of the regulars in clubs I go to got there by being mates with a DJ who was already there, or with the promoters (with the DJ ability to back it up obviously), so I would spend the next couple of years networking, and if you have the time/interest, produce some of your own stuff.
you need to either stand out from the crowd, or be very friendly with people already involved in clubnights, as there's hundreds, if not thousands of house DJs in Ireland who are perfectly good who will never get near a paying gig, let alone regular paid work.

if you want to do "night clubs, parties, special occasions etc.. (anything really!) ", then that's a different matter, as there's nightclubs in towns up and down the country who play the same chart crap and it would be far easier to get work with them, or in the corner of a disco-bar some night. can't really offer much advice on that as it probably depends on the place/manager/night, but I don't think a house/deep house mix would go down well in many of those places, and you'd be expected to play Rihanna, Calvin Harris, Example, etc.

ironclaw

Hidden Agenda Club wrote: »

Im not sure what proper clubs Iron Claw is on about but the likes of Button Factory, Twisted Pepper, Grand Social which are home to good music and there is a market for it.

Sorry folks, didn't wish to offend anyone with an exact number. I just recalled 3 off the top of my head. I know there are a lot of smaller (Yet excellent) niche nights in Dublin. However if you took the grand total of people who go out, I'd say significantly less than a third would be interested in such nights. This in comparison to other countries i.e. Holland, England where the followings would be a lot larger. Thats not taking away from the fact they are packed on the nights in question.

No offence intended and most of the alternative nights I've been too, on the whole, have been excellent.

digitalfunk

My advice is to play at local 18ths/21sts etc at the weekends at local function rooms/GAA halls. They're great for earning a few hundred quid per month and will train your ear and build confidence. During the week, do podcasts and produce tracks. Test them out at gigs and on podcasts. See where it takes you. Good luck.

leggo

Play the U18's club nights. If you can convince the people promoting them (basically mail the Facebook page behind it) that you can get people to come (you'd need to sell anywhere between 80-100 tickets though) you'll get an opening slot. For free, that is. You won't get paid, end of.

If you do: be sound and accommodating, do what the main DJ tells you, learn the difference between being a warm-up act and a main act and be a GOOD warm-up act (i.e. don't play all your 'banging tracks' while the crowd are coming in and wear them out before the night even gets properly started), don't annoy the promoters by mailing them constantly about your set etc and keep friendly with everyone you meet along the way. Don't expect instant results, just do what you do well and be happy you're playing in front of people. Focus on the craft not the end results or your progress. Progress is a slow process, so just worry about the process now and being good. The rest will follow.

Make a Facebook page, Soundcloud, Mixcloud etc and use them; play every house party/mobile disco that you can (you're gonna need to buy a good mixer, amp, speakers & lights for the latter); record every set and listen back to it to see how you can improve it; take pictures of you at work in different venues and build up a CV. Get to know EVERYONE in the scene you can and get them to like you.

IF you do all of that, by the time you turn 18 and can start playing real club nights, you'll have played everywhere in Dublin and will know a ton of people so you'll get work.

Getting DJ-ing work isn't impossible if you're under 18...as long as you know all of the above, you're good and have a good attitude. It's a young man's, or woman's in your case, game. I wish I could be starting over again knowing what I do now.

Problem solved. That's everything you need to know. Doing it all is the hard part, though.