Favours...do You Do Them?

Wednesday night I was at my local hotel which I do for £200, it was £180 for ages and it was a real battle to get it up to £200, thing is its so close to home, easy drop and generally a nice atmosphere. This place is an old Coaching House so its listed and as its too difficult for the owner to install a lift and do much else in the way of modernising it isn't star rated but it has a good rep locally and the food especially is excellent. The owner is an Asian chap and he is a real smooth character. I have worked there on a semi-regular basis for about 6 or 7 years and am on first name terms with most of the staff, when we have friends visiting and no room at home they stay there and when we want to go for a special Sunday lunch...like next Sunday we always go there.

When I saw the owner on Wednesday he asked me to do a prom for the local private school on Wednesday 31 March...thing is he said there were 110 16-17 year old kids with 5 members of staff, it finishes at 11.30pm and they have negotiated a soft drinks deal for them so there will be no alcahol...lol, yeh right. I knew this was all leading up to him wanting a cheapo...Thing is I have done lots of functions for both the kids and staff of this school and TBH the staff are pizz heads anyway, he is saying that its a private school so the parents are respectable folk and are mostly good customers of the hotel and its catholic so the kids are well behaved. I reminded him of a couple of parties for the teachers when we had a fight, broken toilet door, the music master completely stripping off to Leave Your Hat On and numerous glasses smashed on the dance floor etc. I told him that kids will be kids and they will be mostly pizzed before they arrive and it will be like a game to see if they can smuggle drink in past the staff, I mean there is a fire door straight onto the car park and openning windows that are on a footpath of a main road...as if they aren't going to get anything in.

In the end I was banging my head against a brick wall with him and I agreed to do it for the old price, just wondering would you have done that or held your ground.

I'm on the fence with this one..... partly because I know the venue and owner that you're talking about. It's a nice easy venue close to you......and the owner is an absolute charmer (give him my love next time you see him...lol)...and the ones I've been to with you have really good ones.

Normally I would advocate that you have a pricing structure and stick to it.
There are several reasons for this:
1. If you pick up a referral from a 'reduced fee' gig....that person will expect their fee to be at the lower price and before you know where you are your fee could be spiralling in the wrong direction.
2. You set your fee at what you're worth (based on overheads and prep time etc that you put in)..... doing cheaper gigs is almost admitting that you're not worth the higher fee that you charge some clients. If people aren't willing to pay your normal rate, I think its important to be able to say that they aren't really your client. Admittedly, you can only adopt this mentality if you have sufficient enquiries to not lose sleep over those that you know will be looking for a cheaper alternative. I hate price wars and refuse to be goaded by a client into reducing my fee to secure the booking. On several occasions they have still come back to me and booked.
3. People talk! The jungle telegraph is rife out here in NI. If you charge different rates for different people in the same area, you could get caught out. I know some people that quote depending on the status of the venue. Also....if you have a solid pricing structure its easy to remember what you quoted when a client comes back to you.
4. Its easy for me to have a solid pricing structure. I charge one price for an evening wedding reception, one for a party, one for all day and one for the ceremony. I add a set fee when having to travel across the province to another county to cover diesel. I sell my self on service, so they are paying for me to be there, so no addon fees for an extra light, karaoke, smile, etc.....................simples!

He always asks after you.

I know what you are saying and normally that is the way I would work but I will not leave till 6.30pm and be in for midnight and will do absolutely no preparation for this one, I have all the up to date and cheesy music they will want and if they start getting out of hand they will be told to wind their necks in or I switch off.

When I look at the big picture and go out about 4.30pm to travel to Chester where I do a lot of work, have preparation and meeting prior to the event and have to be on my toes till 1am and then strip down and be home for about 3am and don't forget the extra fuel...especially when I see them for a pre event meeting too and of course with travel the meeting is anything between 3-4 hours too so the money isn't that bad.

So you see a good paying £400 Wedding can be about 15 hours out of the house + extra fuel + extra time at home doing prep work...don't forget dealing with bridezilla So is 5 1/2 hours with practically no fuel and no other time other than maybe a quick phone call or email really cheap for £180-£200? I also know 100% for a fact that another DJ does nights at this venue that I can't do and he is charging £130 and he is regularly phoning them asking why he only gets some of the work. On Monday he was in the local DJ shop and he shut up when I walked in and after he had gone I was told that he says who the hell do I think I am to charge £70 more than him...my reply is that I am always the first one to be offered the work and he is an emergency stop gap for only if I am booked because he is just about better than nothing.

The other thing is that most of my work is Fri, Sat or Sun and mid-week is a bit more scarce. So far this year I have done all the Saturdays, 7 Fridays, 5 Sundays and only 8 other nights....so out of 29 jobs only 8 off nights; whats that...about 40%? I know for sure that I wouldn't get some of them if I stuck round the £400 mark, there is the odd exception like the job last night as I know they will pay and I have worked for them before but they are few and far between as everyone wants mid-week work, trouble with our friend is that he will cut off his nose to spite his face if I push him too hard.

TBH I'm looking forward to it, it will be a nice change to pump up the bass and rattle some windows with some up to date crap and if they get pizzed and rip each others heads off so what...I'm just the DJ and not the baby sitter.

Must admit, all my work is for private clients. I don't do any work directly for venues, although some pass my details on. I think its a different ball game when you work directly for a venue in that they expect a reduction for repeat bookings.

As for the amount of gigs you're out on....I'd rather do two a week at my price than five a week at a lower price....and still bring in the same revenue.

Hang on a min Sandy, what do you mean by 2 a week at your price? If travel is an average of an hour each way and if you have a meeting which could be an hour that's 5 hours to start with then if the job itself is 7.30-1.00 and you allow an hour and a half for setting and stripping down that's 12 hours and if you charge £500 its no different.

these local jobs are suiting me at the moment because I am acting as a carer and also have animals that need attending to and can't be out of the house for too long at once and I also need to be up resonable in the mornings to attend to things. Also, if I am out at 6.30, hardly any travel and an easy drop and stress free job I feel much brighter when I really have to be on top form which is generally for the last hour or so when I have to keep the party going and keep the room packed right up until the end.

I'm not saying your way is wrong, just that its swings and roundabouts, I have 14 £500+ job so far this year but they all involve a bit more work than the cheaper ones and at the end of the day its like any other business in so much as you price a job according to its merits like how much work involved and how long it will take to complete from beginning to end.

My gripe really was that I got talked into it again...ok, the fee isn't bad but you've met the chap and know how he works...he's not easy to say no to.

point taken.

Well TBH I have done mostly local stuff lately and mostly been home the right side of 1am but still knackered

I've been home for ages and replying to emails, copying a disc for Dave...woops forget I said that...lol. My lad has a mate at the TV studios where he is working in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and I have been putting some pics and visuals together as he is going to make a personalised DVD for me and I have to send it all off to him. Off for a coffee and off to bed...might give you a quicky just to wind you up

For me, I look at the hassle factor. I still issue T&C and booking form. If I agree to 3hrs and they want to change to 4, my Terms do specify that this will require payment.
I run all my bookings this way - so a little £140 kids party last weekend got the same paperwork a good 40th did a few weeks ago.

I've just taken a wedding booking where they asked for 3hrs music (budget is tight). On the returned booking form, they have added "appox hours" to our agreed start time. It doesn't make too much difference to me, they can start at mid-day, but will only get 3hrs music.



I can totally understand where you're coming from Andy. The odd easy, local gig for "ok" money is fine. If the owner is always haggling on price - perhaps you can come to an agreement over a free meal (so reduced rate+sunday lunch)
Not much loss to him, and you get a nice meal.

He should be agreeable to this if he's asking you to reduce your rates for certain gigs.

I guess the trick is, not to take on too many "favours" when you could be losing proper gigs. So peak wedding season would be tricky to justify a low priced gig, and Jan/Feb/March could be seen as a nice "top-up".

I get the same problems when doing web development. Some people think its a 10mins fix- but it takes over 1hr of emails and set-up, so I have to charge at least 1hrs time!

Jason

He's not too bad, a few weeks ago we all went for a meal and there were 8 of us and I forget what the bill was...think it was £114 or might have been £124 and he rounded it down to £100, I had Creamed potato soup with smoked haddock dumpling for my starter and I got an extra dumpling...gorgeous! Last time my Dad and Step-Mother were here they stayed and it should have been £39 each for B&B and he charged £50 for both of them. When I organised the NADJ meetings he did the room free and food for 80 of us for £50...ok it was only chips and sandwiches but it was nice and plenty of it.

You see the problem is I love doing it but previously he hasn't booked so far in advance so the summer and Christmas has taken care of itself so when he has asked me for a prime Saturday in the Wedding season I have said no sorry I'm booked but now he's pushing them all at me way in advance so me being me and not liking to refuse work I take them and then its sods law that next thing is I get a proper full on Wedding enquiry that could have been double money.

Last night he gave me Sunday 2 May and said there were 15 people having a family meal and then being joined by 45 friends and work colleagues for drinks and disco so could I set up at about 4 o'clock and then come back at about 8 o'clock, I don't mind that as its so close to home but if it was a few miles away it wouldn't be any good to me unless I was getting paid more money.

I always price according to merit...i.e. a typical example is one in June not far from the NEC which is an hour for me, I arrive at 2.30pm and set for 3.30, the guests arrive from the church at about 4pm depending on photographer etc. I play background and help the photographer sort out groupings for pictures and also entertain the kids in-between photo calls, at 6pm I call the guests to their seats and MC the speeches and then pllay back-ground during the meal and at about 8pm I start off with 'first dance' and play till midnight with a back-ground music break at about 9.45 for the buffet. We haven't had a meeting and they said its not necessary but we have had a few phone conversations and I have a short play list which is actually quite a good one and they are paying £525. But, there you go...out of the house for about 13-14 hours and about 1-2 hours spent at home on prep and phone calls and paperwork.

Another thing is...and maybe I shouldn't say this, but I think the stress factor is a bit higher when you are getting paid top wack. I do tend to relax more when I am getting £200 for arriving, setting up and doing the business and collecting cash on the night.Some people appear to be happy getting pizzed and just having any old loud music and flashing lights...I always say its the difference between punters and clients...Sorry that's maybe a bit deep for a Sunday

Yep...totally agree.