Why Are Dj's Afraid To Put Their City Location

[Jim Casey]

Originally posted by JX2 Productions@Feb 9 2004, 10:01 PM
Hi to all.

Here is my statement for this topic. Both sides (pos and neg) will be explained.

First off, I agree on some things that John Daniels has mentioned. Why would you want to travel so far, even if you are going to get paid an umptene amount, will it in fact cover all your traveling costs, be sure to include in lodging if the person(s) booking won't be providing it. Don't forget about gas, and if you can't fit all of your equipment in the vehicle then you may be renting a vehicle or a trailer to haul it with. So, in the end you really have to do all this math out to figure out if you are going to really be making enough to cover it and if it is going to be worht your time, also, almost forgot, what if you have to make one or two trips out to the person(s) place to do all the planning with them. Again, it adds up. So now you've booked this wedding for lets say 1600 bucks and you originally would have only have charged 1100 to 1200 (thats the average price on DJMaine's website when he had his prices up there. . .) . So now you have charged your 1600 and essentially brought in 400.00 more. Gas prices as we all know are sky high once again. About 1.64 9/10 around here and of course more and less depending on location. So now you have to fuel up your that nice gas tank of yours to go 200 miles. Suppose you are driving a truck with a V8 in it. That type of vehicle averages a whopping 14 miles to the gallon. (You may have a van with a V6 which averages about 18 miles or so to the gallon, this agian is a rough estimate [including towing a trailer behind on either vehicle will up the gas expense immensly]) So lets see you have a vehicle averaging 14 mpg with a 25 gal tank. That means you get 350 miles per tank. Estimate that with pulling the trailer if you have one or that you are idiling etc. and that you have more weight than normal that you will use a tank of gas getting there and a tank getting back. That comes out to 41 bucks a tank. So thats 82 dollars in gas. Be sure to include in at least one trip to set up the wedding/event. Thats another 82 bucks. That makes 164.00 so far just in gas. If you are in a nice hotel (bc you will probably be staying overnight and driving down the day before the event to set up etc.), the average hotel room is about 65.00 a night. So that is 65.00 more dollars. Total so far: 230 bucks. Now, what most people forget is to add in your 'labor' at home for all of this, yes it is included in the price already, but, you must be sure to add in your labor during driving, that counts as well (hell, it will cuase you enough stress trying to find the place etc.) Most dj's will probalby average at least 75.00 per hour -100.00. Rought est. taken at 80.00 for this calc. So now you have to average in two hours each way drive time to go 200 miles. 160.00 per trip. 320 dollars for two trips. Now you are up to 550.00 in expenses. You only charge 1600 figuring that was going to cover you. Now you are essentially in the hole by 100.00.

On Jim Casey's ( and professors jam's reply) note about limiting your market. I would highly doubt you would ever really limit your market. To me, you would also have to think about your expense again, who you are going to be playing to, the type of area you are accustomed to. Remember, that a lot of areas have different tastes in music. You can go from here in Agawam and go to Springfield and at one end of Springfield, the downtown there are clubs who are just techno and trance and at another part its all hip/hop and rap. If you were having a party in Pembroke, Mass (my cousins are from there. . .) would you want to hire a DJ from the North End of Springfield who primarily plays hip/hop and rap ? No. It wouldnt make sense. Yes he may say he is good with this type of crowd and that type. But in the grand scheme his main focus would be on hip/hop and rap and when he goes to play other music he may be dumbfounded on what to play. So he would travel roughly 225 miles to go play at something that would like lets say, 80's music. He probably wouldn't be a big hit. So his/her market is essentially already limited to within I would say 75-100 miles will generally like the same type of music. So you're market is already pre-established for you essentially.

On the note that John Daniels made about why he would want to have someone from Florida contact him. Why would you want to be taking unnecassery calls? I am personally all about the customers. Now that customer just spent hours and hours out on the web trying to find the perfect DJ. He comes across you and doesn't know where you are but loves the way you presented yourself online. The person gets your number and calls you, now if that person doesnt have long distance,woot, to call out to colorado to only find out that he is 2000 miles away is an unecnecassery phone charge and that person now has to go back on the search. I would be very upset if that happened to me, thankfully we have free long distance. Also, John is right, why wouldn't you be putting your service area on the website as well ? That would only make sense. Also take a look at what DJ Iron Mike wrote: "I have my town on my site, but funny how my next gigs are in GA, MD, & WV. I'm in VA! " Take a look at everything.

Overall, My opinion on all of this. Putting your location is never a bad thing. Think about this also, If you put your location on your website you are more likely to be recommended to someone else by the person who saw your website. There ya go, you have a better chance of making even more money.


Erik

sorry if some of this doesnt flow. . . my mind kept getting sidetracked.

Hi Erik,
Trust me when I say I take all of these things into account when coming up with a price for a particular area.

First, just so you know, I have actually booked a wedding in Tyngsboro for August at $1299 plus one night lodging. I always include one night lodging at the client's expense.

I'm sure you are asking why would I do this wedding and why would I travel 110 miles one way. Simple. This couple saw me at a wedding here in Maine that I totally rocked at. It was easily the best wedding I had done all season and they wanted to have that for their wedding.

You also need to remember that unlike Massachusetts, Maine is not truly littered with wedding venues everywhere. It is nearly impossible to do doubles due to how spread out everything is. My average travel one-way to a wedding is 47 miles (2003 stats). For the Tyngsboro wedding, I will use about 1/2 tank of gas costing me about $20. I charge $300 above my normal price when I travel to Massachusetts for weddings.

I budget about $100 for a day when I have to travel out of town and stay overnight (which I do about 3-6 times a year). This covers much more than everything I need.

And...as for the musical taste differences. Most weddings I do are Destination weddings, meaning that my clients come from out of state to Maine. I see a diverse variety of musical tastes all year. Plus, a good wedding DJ consults with their couple(s) to find out their particualr musical tastes. Trust me that most weddings from even the "hippest couples" do not consist predominantly of rap, techno, etc. My guess is that you either have done either very few eddings or none at all.

Experience is the best teacher to help you figure out your worth to ant event. My clients have told me consistemtly they are getting their money's worth and more.

[Johnny Dee]

As mentioned earlier, we do not show where we are located on our web site.

So far, as a result of leads obtained through our web site, we have worked in the following States and Countries.

NY, NJ, CT, PA, RI, MA, OH, NH, VT, DE, FL, Holland and Canada. If the client is willing to pay the premium for us we will go. Travel, Lodging, Meals, Rentals etc. are always in addition to our normal fees.

[DJMC]

My 2003 Dodge Caravan V-6 gets 23-24 mpg (highway)

[JX2 Productions]

Again to all, I was just using rought estimates. As far as DJMC goes, My fathers old van used to get that gas mileage [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif[/img] . . . I was just using estimates again. Just putting my input in and my comments.


Erik

[DJ Iron Mike]

Originally posted by John Daniels@Feb 9 2004, 01:42 PM
Iron Mike . . .

Are you close to the borders of all of those states?

Or at least a short distance away?

I know that Virginia is not a very large state, so traveling to those others is probably not that far of a drive!

Nebraska is a 3 1/2 hour drive from here . . . I will not gig there!

New Mexico is at least a six hour drive from here . . . I definately will not gig there!

Kansas is over five hours from here . . . I'll let Dorothy DJ there!

Utah is on the other side of the Continental Divide . . . I won't gig there, either!

I just believe that all websites should provide some sort of area in plain site so that visitors know that they have found a DJ that is at least a DJ that will actually be providing services in the locale that the viewer is interested in!

Again . . . what good is a DJ website from Florida, for example, to a bride searching for a DJ in Colorado!

And how much time should we expect a visitor to our site to spend digging through the pages just trying to find out where we are from . . . or at least what our service area is?

on contrare my friend John,
Virginia is a HUGE State. Although it doesn't border Georgia, it does border Maryland and West Virginia. If I were to drive to Bristol where they do all of that NASCAR stuff it would be an 8 hour drive from here not ever leaving the state. Virginia Beach is a 4 hour drive from here. Virginia Tech in Blacksburg is 5 hours away. and I have had inquiries from those places. Charlottesville is 60 miles away
Washington DC is 50 miles away. Richmond is 50 miles away. Roanoke is 250 miles away. Newport News/Norfolk is 175 miles away. Each of those towns are going in opposite directions. Steve Miller is an hour and a 1/2 away from me. But Steve takes gigs as far away as Williamsburg, which from just north of Charlottesville is a little bit of a hike.

Now a good DJ website from Florida is only good if the DJ has a link posted on it from his site to one in another state that ultimately leads the searcher to you. That's networking.

[stlouisdj]

The reason why my company name is St. Louis DJ is because I only want to serve the metro St. Louis area. There are plenty of gigs in my service area and I really don't want to cater to those more than 50 miles away. I like sleeping in my own bed at night and frankly I don't want to end a gig at 11, load for an hour and then drive more than an hour. If I were half my age, I wouldn't mind some adventure...now I'm just old, crabby and wanna get home. LOL :giggle

[DJMC]

Ah Jimmie---that is because you are in the Plains.

Here in California there is some beautiful scenery (some of the most breathtaking in the world).

If someone wants to hire me for a wedding in Yosemite (a 3 hour drive each way for me), I'll gladly do it for $300 extra on top of my $699 base!

Especially because Allie gets to see another part of California, and I get paid to travel!

[Jim Casey]

New England is the same way...

We have the nountains and ocean within 100 miles of each other. While we don;t have the 10,000-20,000 foot mountains of the Rocky Mountains, its still amazing.

Of course it always makes for interesting weather as well.