I've greatly reduced my rates to get work, and to crush my competition out of existance. People around here shop "cheapest only", quality isn't a concern, onlt cheap.

Let's put it this way, on average, I should be charging at LEAST 5 times more for my services. Really, I shouldn't be walking in a door without getting at least $2200 a night. Crew, gas, expendables, cost of the gear, travel, load-in, set-up, strike, load-out, travel, pay crew, fuel, food. It's expensive.

I do this because I love it. But, if there's no money in it, I won't even move. No contact, truck no roll. Period. I had some guy refuse to sign a contract, so I refused to answer his calls. Sucks that he decided to pull this crap on the day of his big show, but without a contract, my hands are tied. A second trend around here is to get them to show(the sound or entertainment), get the work out of them, then shaft them by not paying them.

You don't have to be the cheapest, you don't have to be the most expensive(I should be the most expensive short of the big boys in town, which I am starting to compete with). What you do need to ensure is that you are being compensated for your work and guaranteed payment.

Rule #1 in full effect and at all times. However, I haven given events away. The nearby elementary school: Whatever they want, whenever they want it and I have availability, they get it all free. The only questions I ask are "when can I get in, when does it start and when does it end" and then I'm off and going down the road.

If you charge that much, then you need a contract. you need a crew? damn kid... how much stuff do you take? 2200 a night? now you cought my attention. let me see... serato (not sure spelling), mixer, four apms, eight cabinets (bass, mids, tweeters), light stand, and eight scanners, one laser, 2 foggers, am i missing something?

LOL chris isnt a dj. he is a live sound and lights and a lot more production company. check out his site and his gear list.
sincerely,

Serato? Oh, sorry, not into those things.

13,200 watts. 8 bass cabinets(4 single 18's, 2 double 15's, all active driven, and 2 double 15's that are active), 4 3-way active driven tops, making a fully active driven 4-way system. Covers 2000 people indoors and outdoors and doesn't even break a sweat. KV2 Audio has smoked everything they have come up against.

76 chanels of input, over 100 microphones, 6-7 channels of wireless(expanding to 8-9), lighting, video switching/router, photographer, it's a big production.

I specialize in bands, concerts and live performance events, or events involving live performance. When people want top of the line but can't afford the big BIG boys, they come to me.

Two tons of gear at last count and growing.

Let's not forget the video production and media transfer services(including film) as well as computer and data consulting. With a multi-faced approach, theoretically, I should have a continious stream of income because when one is slow, the others can fill in the gaps.

Consider that I get in the door at 6AM to start setting up, and I ain't leaving until 2AM the enxt day(on average), I need to be properly compensated for my time. And with 25 years of experience, I have a lifetime of hard earned skill from the best in the business. You can't put a price on that, but I have to or I don't get paid at the middle of the night.(required so I don't get shafted, if the pay is late, the event stops, so, pay early!)

While DJ's may not be making that kind of money and your work is much more resticted and limited than what my gear is capable of, the same concept applies.

Take for example a wedding or party, events often known to be cheap. They say "we only need you for 2-3 hours", which is somewhat true. They need you to be ON and active and running for 2-3 hours. Let's take out that they might run long and you need to stay longer as a result. But, this is the part you have to take into consideration: It takes time to load in, set, strike and load out. This is all billable. Since you're not on another job, it's part of what you need to charge.

In my case, it IS possible to safely completely unload my truck in 20 minutes with the right number of people working properly(4 at least). But, typically speaking, it's a 2.5 to 3-hour set. Strike can be done in as little as 2 hours. And trust me, moving a 400-pound console into the truck at 1:30AM after moving some 135-pound active double 15's, thats when you really start to question "Did I charge enough?".

So, I recommend all of you to properly evaluate what you're dong, what you're charging and pay attention to the time you are working just to be able to work.

A wedding ain't like a concert, even with the entertainment being a live band. The bride and groom doesn't see me having to have the same repetitive arguments with the same restaurants and halls over and over agian. I'm there 4 hours before the start of the reception, loading in and setting. I'm expected to provide power to the decorators/decorations, heck even the cake, video and photographer. My cables, my breakers, my having to cover for them NOT being prepared. Every single time, without exception. Who gets the accolades? Video and photo. Me? I'm the scourge that nobody wants to deal with. And all those guys show up an hour before doors.

I see this while they enjoy their sawdust cake that cost them $5000 and the toilet-paper-looking streamers that cost them another $2000. Photo runs them another $2000 and video is at least that as well. I gotta book the band, deal with their crap, additional contracts MONTHS ahead of time. Not saying cake and photo and video don't need to be booked in advanced, they do, but they don't have the same technical issues.

So what if a DJ needs 2 hours to set up? So what if it takes a DJ an hour to get out afterwards? That's 3 BILLABLE hours that people don't want to take into consideration.

Also, take into consideration regional issues. Since I don't live in certain areas, I'm not taking certain jobs right now. Here, where I live, they want cheap. Elsewhere, they want quality over cost, but they also want quality at a good cost.

Those DJ's working in Southern California work in an environment where people DO pay for quality, and the better ones do deserve to charge MORE for services. So be it, that is how it should be. Too bad that mindset doesn't exist where I live. But I do travel. All I need is a transmission repair and a better seat in my truck(and maybe a working CD player and a stereo that doesn't suck) and with falling diesel prices, I'm ready to roll.

Money talks, and male bovine excrement finds a typical bipedal form of locomotion.

You can either do pubs/clubs or private functions.

For pubs and clubs you don't get as much cash as they have to make a profit so can only afford to pay a set amount. There is also always someone that will undercut, pubs range from £70 - £150, i do a regular pub on a thursday and 2 regular sats a month in pubs, for which I get £80 a night, bottom end of the scale but gauranteed every month, been doing them for years and its bread and butter money.

The real money is in private functions because it's someones special event, not about them maing a profit so they are prepared to pay for it.

Private functions range from £120 - £250 round my local area, I used to charge £120 + fuel for functions and £150 + fuel for weddings, but it's £150+ for everything now, whatever the eventit's the same unloading, setup, dj'ing, strip down, loading, driving home, unloading etc so they should all pay the same.

In terms of lighting go for LED or Lasers, halogen bulbs are best part of £10 a time, if your running lots of lights you will be spending £40/month easy on bulbs.

I get most of my work from the internet or by giving out cards at gigs. A well designed website with good pictures of your gear etc.. will bring in the enquiries. I wouldn't bother with directories like yell etc.. they cost £100s / year and its a secondary search, by that i mean people will search in their fav search engine eg google, so getting good search engine presence is best way to go. people dont bother with yell, and yell aint very well indexed in google either. That's why all these companies ring up all the while trying to sell advertising, its cause they are a sinking ship and desperate.

That's cool Chris that you use an up and coming speaker company. We also use a lesser known company known as McCauley. Some of the PAs we use are 3 SA422s a side with SA288s for subs, smaller stuff sometimes one SA422 with one CSM88 a side. Next up from that we go 4 box line array, 3 M90s and one M120 with either 2 SA288s or 1 or 2 CSM88s a side. Then after that would be an 8 or 10 box a side hang. 6 M90s with 2 M120s, 4 SA288s or 4 CSM88s with the possibility of 2 MS1s a side as well. The MS1s are also great for when we are ground stacking and need to get the boxes higher or in instances when nothing can be on the ground. A lot of political stuff is that way. Processing is all DBX and everything is amped with Crown Macro techs.

Sorry, think I just went sound geek a little . Back to topic.

Some of what I do, I do for fun or to keep sharp. So the club/bar stuff when I do it, its for fun. I generally make $250 a night for just myself, not including gear. I also just designed a high school production of Bye Bye Birdie for a grand for fun/keeping sharp.

A typical prom setup (Myself and 2 helpers, Road Hog, 4 truss towers, one up and over truss, 4 PS575s, 4 Track Spots, 2 strobes, all cabling, a splitter, and delivery) is about 2-2500 a show. Setup, show, and tear down all the same day. Bigger I would rather not get into for a number of reasons.

Well, right now I'm doing shows for mega cheap, just trying to survive. I've got other irons in the fire, so I may be leaving the "mobile production" (ob)scene for a bit, which is fine.

Last event I did, I did three growler bands with little musical talent. First band stole 2 SM58's, so much for me making a profit(that cost me a guaranteed $50 loss, those little f*ck.. I mean darlings.........)

I've heard of McCauley. What, they've been around like 30 years or so. No newbie to the scene. Better sounding that Martins, that's for sure. But everything I put my KV2 Audio rig up against, as far a sound quality, nothing touches it, even Meyers, in my opinion(and of those using some big Meyer, EAW, Vertec and VDOSC systems). I gave McCauley some serious consideration, but I don't like ground stacking line arrays and I generally have to deal with places that hanging/flying is NOT an option.

I'm shooting for the 2500-peeps and under market. Don't want to go bigger, I can't afford to expand. I can't afford to stay in business anymore. Just paid $270 to get my truck fixed, drove it home, gotta pay another $120 or so for a fuel filter issue. Then I got about another grand or so for light replacements and front end work.

Doing shows for $150 is killing me. Got shafted on a $200 job as they refused to return a signed contract then didn't honor any terms on site, so I split because they refused to honor terms AND refused to procure the contract. At $300 I don't make crap, and at $500 I can start hiring a guy to help.

I keep getting the "we'd like you to volunteer an hour of your services", to which I usually have to say "no". This one hour costs me a half hour to drive, 3 hours to set and baby sit the helpers, 1 hour for the event, 3 hours to strike and babysit the helpers and another 30 minutes to drive back. So, this 1 hour costs me a full 8 hours. Wow, what a bargain. No, sorry, I got other things to do. Then they expect me to pay for parking as well. Lovely. No thank you. I'm all for charity, but I'd rather work a HIGH profile event for a full day for FREE(well, give me some diesel money). I'd rather rock long and hard for zilch at an event where they'll actually appreciate it.

Lighting, like sound, is hard to put a value on. What happens is a company has to say "this is what it's gonna cost" and around here, there's two categories: the screw you into the ground or the "OK, no problem" category. There's really no middle ground.

I'm trying to catch this non-existant middleground. Reasonable rates for fantastic services to give people BIG concert service for a tremendously affordable price. But it ain't there. I'm starting to find the "self-reliant" market, people who are willing to work to save money: help me do the job so I can keep it cheap. With a few skilled backs, it becomes possible.

I regularly give away services to nearby schools. Thye need it, they can't afford it. Why not give it to them? I just think that its for the kids.

just a suggestion, you got all the gear, have you thought of putting on an event, ie providing the gear, hiring the artist and venue and selling tickets?

Yea, ground stacking is a pain when we have to do it. But for larger spaces, the array is much better then boxes on subs. Much more control, which is what line arrays are about. Can also focus the sound where we need it.

The McCauley's sound great. The subs hit insanely low, much lower then our JBLs. The JBLs hit harder, however. The McCauley's are also much more efficient then the JBLs. For smaller gigs we use SM90s or SM92s on sticks with Crown XTis behind them. And they push hard even with that little amount of power.The issue is the boxes all weigh a ton. Each one is made out of 12 ply birch. So they get heavy very fast.

In regards to stardustkaraoke:

Let's put it this way: If I were to write a check for a nickel right now, it would bounce. That's how broke I am.

Let me clue you in on how Sacramento works. Let's say I do just that. Great. Now they(the crowd) has decided "we want it for free". There goes any money.... I'm a tech. I am NOT going to make the time to play the full concert promoter game. I am an audio engineer. I'm not going to change roles. Sorry, but I'm good at what I do, and I'm not going to cloud it with the other stuff.

Putting on a concert requires having SOME money. I have, well, let's see, I had to replace the 2 SM58's and a stand this idiot band stole from me.... so, yes, I'm once again out of money. Hiring the venue. Insurance. Outdoors? Need porta potties if outdoors. Security, wow, I'm over $5-8000 right now and I haven't even hired the artist. Hmm, who am I gonna hire? Hope I have at least $35K to hire someone decent, but probably someone in the $65-130K range would draw better.... Then ticket prices, contracting with a ticketting company so I don't have to deal with it, merchant accounts...

Dealing with riders is no biggie. Dealing with managers/wranglers ain't my cup of whatever I'm drinking(water). Agents, booking agents, all the run-around that I could use that time for something productive. Fun....

Naw, ain't worth it. I do what I am good at. Let the promoter do what they are good at. Sometimes specialization is a good thing.

No money, can't afford any financial risks right now. Just stealing two inexpensive mics kicked my butt hardcore. I mean, it damn near put me out of business and cost me a short term tour becuase they needed 4 and I HAD 4, and now I was down to 2 and I didn't have the money to replace them. So, they said "you don't have what we need" so a month of work is gone. Oh: ask family for money? Right, these people owe me $11,000 and have said for 2 years "we'll pay you back, we'll pay you back". Where are they right now you might ask? Trip to Vietnam. Tickets: Over $2000 for a pair of tickets. They are apparently going to host some big "death anniversary" party, gonna cost them over $5000 in US money over there. Right, I'm gonna get paid back. And maybe monkeys will fly out my butt too.

SerraAva:
The MacCauley line overall has a great reputation. When it comes to line arrays, the Vertec is a good sounding rig, but the VDOSC is a very dull rig, needing what I feel is excessive massaging to make it come alive, or hell, even get to "flat uniform response" before it becomes what I consider acceptable. But Vertec and VDOSC are the go-to line arranys. McCauley overseas does a lot better than they do in the US Domestic market McCauley also hopped onto the "small to mid-sized" enclosure line array market a bit early, seeing the trend of smaller venues needing smaller arrays yet still providing proper sound and proper sound coverage.

Sometimes it is good to not go the well trodden path. Honestly, sometimes the BEST gear is not the gear everyone is using. So, I definately agree in regards to McCauley for that.

When I loaded into a venue, they had a sizable Adamson array flown. They tried to force me to use it, and I flat out refused. I ground stacked my KV2 Audio subs, put up the platform stand, stacked a pair of KV2 Audio ES 1.0s(preconfigured with the horns rotated to save set-up time), put the epacks in place and fired it up. Their staff and their house Adamson rep dude was blown away. They said that was the exact sound they were looking for: clarity, clean, non-distoring, and a small footprint. Well, true, but how much of that is what I bring to the table? Or rather run via the console? I don't know, it's just easy to me. Set it, RTA it, and then dive in. And yeah, those KV2's are heavy. Same 12 or 13-ply birch design. But we want our road worthy gear to last too.

I'm just not rider friendly. I don't have big mains people seem to want, but it blows away everything it competes with time after time(up to a limit, the system isn't scalable past a certain point). Working within the limitations of this point-source designed system, I get fantastic coverage and sound quality. Couple that with the fact that I didn't buy an H3 or H4 for my console, I went with A&H, and there's been times when I go head to head with a seasoned "road veteran" on his beloved H4, and I take my "laughable" ML5000 and quite literally "blow his ass out of the water" with it.

If I had to go to line array route, EAW or McCauley would be my choices. Sounds better than the big Martin rig one of the big boys has, but I just can't compete with them.

I can go head to head with the big boys at events up to 2000 people. But they have "bigger companies" and I'm a one-man shop. They have big corporate dollars, I have whatever I get.

I have two gigs this week. I'm grateful for those. Ain't making crap, but it recovers the money I put into my truck to get it running again. $200 to fix a major steering problem. Another $200 the next day to replace an old dying fuel filter. Why the next day? Problem didn't show itself until I was almost home and then it just died on me as I was backing into the driveway. Bad timing, but things are looking up. I'm hoping I make up the losses in volumes and a good prescription package on meds to address my aching back!

bottom line is this field is ALOT OF FUN.. Right now my buisness i charge between $500 and $1200 for a night depending on what they want ETC.. I also do 12 bars karaoke events.. Bars range from $100 bucks all the way to $500.. I work with bars. If they have a great crowd i do expect more. If they dont i Dont expect much.. Most bar owners tend to like that agreement. Seeing word spread and i went from 2 bars to 12 in a year..
I tend to stay away from the large effects for dj. Point is no one really cares they just want some flashing lights and good music.. FOG Dont even bother. Most place have smoke alarms now and i got hit with enough fines for false alarms im done with the smoke.. If they do want it they sign wavers..

I dont do much of the field work any longer i hired 4 guys full time 5 days a week to do all this. I recently bought a couple of the stageline moble stages and have been really into outdoor concerts and indor theatrical events.. BUT TRUST ME.. You might not make to much right away. But your going to have alot of fun...

Well, right now my fun is taking pain killers and muscle relaxers.

25 years of doing this is taking it's toll. Thank goodness I'm not, never was and never will be a DJ though. Audio engineer, please.

I can see your point with fog. I am in the same boat, except I never got nailed with fines. I just state that if they want fog, they eat any negativity that comes with it, be it alarms or damage done via sprinkler systems and what-not.

thats what i do know. WANT FOG SIGN HERE haha... Im involved with all the WONDERFUL State of NEW YORK laws and codes and blah blah blah.. This state is preety Strict.. Why i droped my pyro technicians license. Just wasnt worth it no more..

And i agree about the back. I pay a guy to set up and take down everything. I ust aim , design and run.. Got sick of lifting. Only thing i lift is a good 16oz can hehe

You should get more into lighting then Chris, lol. Most jobs, I show up and direct traffic as to where gear needs to go. Then I tell guys what goes where and how, let my ME handle the rest and then end up behind my console programing. Any major questions/concerns are brought to me, but for the most part, I am sitting down punching buttons. This is also not to say that I haven't paid my dues either, I use to have to do everything myself.

Load outs are nice and easy generally too. I end up calling the pack/organizing the gear as to where it needs to go. I help, but I am mostly putting stuff away instead of taking it down.

As for fog in my neck of the woods, I just always call the fire marshal and let them deal with it. Each area is different rule wise, some require fire watches, others don't care because they are built with heat sensors and not laser sensors. But long story short, I cover my bases and let the end client deal with any ramifications since I did all I needed to do on my end before hand.

SerraAva:

We'll just have to agree to be on difference sides of the line! Honestly, if I could get away from lighting entirely, I would. Just too much of a pain to deal with. Or, ideally, have a dedicated lighting guy directing purchases and operating the gear, but I'm not busy enough to afford that.

I'm starting to work venues where they understand that this 37-year old dude has been doing this for 25 years and it has taken one hell of a toll. But, unfortunately, I can't stop getting involved, I hate standing around watching others work while I just sit there. I can't do that, I gotta be hands on. And I do pay for it.

But, we do agree that shows are better with lights. Can't have the show without sound, but lights are not just "icing on the cake" either because properly done they can be an integral part of the show.

My ideal plan: have someone else on staff doing my lighting so I can just deal with sound. I've provided loads of toys to play with, just need someone who wants to play now.

Right now I'm in negotiations with someone who likes to use MP3's and is thinking "hey, I'll just augment my garbage with his stuff" and my position is "leave your sh*t at home and let a real sound company do it right". Typical DJ mentality though: 1 mic, 1 song, and suddenly he's a mix engineer. Whatever. I think I'm gonna pass on that one. I am not about to get into a position where it sets me up to look bad, because their incompetence comes down on me and it ain't my fault.

So, New York is really strict? Makes sense being so densely packed.

My other objective this year is to be getting jobs where I don't have to move much. It's starting to happen. I got a big biker's event coming up in July. While I ain't into bikes myself, I can't say anything negative about the bikers I know. I know at that gig I'll be well taken care of!