DJ's who run club nights! Any advice?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

DJ’s who run club nights! Any advice?

I’ve just started to run my own club night, in Belfast. The first party ran on a Tuesday and attracted a very mediocre crowd, though we still broke even and now i am attempting to brand my night properly and move to to a weekend.
The whole policy of my night is that we pick outside the standard DJs that are booked for other club nights, and so are a little edgier, and also that no profit is made for my pocket or anyone else that is involved directly with the night(bar room hire, sound man etc)

I have contracted to have a logo designed and fliers done for the next promotion, though i am looking for other ways in which to set myself apart from the multitude of dance music nights in Belfast. i have read the blog post on starting your own night (part 2), though i have used the back to back idea for my last night (back to back extended set for the headliners) and this time i am using a headline dj who runs a record label and set of underground hard techno nights (but himself hasn’t DJ’d out in quite a while) to try and attract some of their core audience.

does anyone have any recommendations as to what i could do to attract a larger crowd and set myself apart more?

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Cheap drinks are a sure-fire way to attract the crowds, especially if you are new…

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So you are promoting a night. Promoting is a full time job and requires a lot of work. You need to set yourself apart from the 1000s of other bars by provide unique music and a unique theme coupled with good specials for that night. Sounds like you want to go the path of underground techno night, or something. What kinda themes could go with that? Also making flier every week putting them on all social media outlets, involving some local big names in it. There is a ton to do to make it big.

What type of music/crowd are you looking to attract?

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Flash mob. They’re all the rage.

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Getting a room on a weekend is hard enough over here, and unless you can guarantee a large crowd they wont do drinks promos. I’ve been trying my hardest to get some local underground big names involved, ad my next headliner is about as big as it gets with reference to that, even if he doesnt DJ very much anymore. The main problem is that the nights are very spaced out, about 2 months apart, and so i dont want to lose any buzz because of it.

The music policy is varied, and it depends on the DJ but the general vibe is pretty underground. The crowd i’m looking to attract is people who normally would only go to see big name DJ’s in large clubs, i’m trying to show them what the local scene has to offer!

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It’s all about the RIGHT crowd.

You target a few key animals that are cool and the rest will swarm around.

Refuse people at the door that don’t fit and make it a bit exclusive, with some identity. I’ve seen this recipe work over and over and over.

Good tunes - I’ll leave that to you

Find cool people - do whatever it takes to identify them get them on your side. Use them like mini-promoters and maybe set up an incentive for them somehow.

The rest is just smart marketing.

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I’m thinking of printing stickers involving our new logo (which is gonna be cool as fuck) and just handing them out to people in other techno nights in the city, as well as plastering thousands of them over belfast, to create a bit of a buzz?

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Have a vision of what you want to do, if there’s someone already doing it, don’t bother. You need to be unique.

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I made stickers and they kinda work. But don’t hand them out at the party. You can really piss off club owners if your stickers are all over the place.

Every 2 months is a little tough. You need to find the right DJs who can bring a good crowd and get some sub promotors who want to help bring in people. Offer them something to make them feel special and they will bring out all their friends. You need to find the big party heads and invite to it. Thats key. Then just promote promote promote. By that I mean before AND after. Many people stop promoting the event after the party is over. Thats when you need to promote HARD especially if your event is spaced every 2 months. Get pictures up, video, collect and email list, pass out cards to people to like fan pages, hand out save the date flyers for the next event. Then before the next party hype up the party with all those pictures of the last party, hopefully people are tagged and they remember how awesome it was and they bring more people.

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Even though I’m still a beginner, I’m doing business studies. You should work step by step, don’t design a flyer before having a good idea of what the party should be like.
I have almost 0 experience of real life business, so the following might be too theoritical.

Pre-event work

Define your :

• Product (what’s the main reason the party is made ? what’s is it’s purpose ? new space to discover ? music ? meeting nice people ?)

• Promotion ( how are the other nights promoted ? can you spread an info to a lot of people around you with email/facebook/twitter/whatever ? what’s your promotional budget ? should you create flyers (base this on what’s working best around) ? if so, where are the hot spots to give them away ? when ? 2 weeks before the night ?

• Place (well this is pretty much set up, but you can still think about the date (day of the week, part of the year, is that during vacations ? school holidays if your aim on the previous point was teenagers for example)

• Price (do a cost estimate of a night, plan objectively how many people you attract per night, based on previous parties, and how popular is the club and then calculate how much should be a ticket so that you end up with a result of 0 (no profit, no loss))

Keep in mind that a successful party means having a good, well selected crowd.

what kind of people do you want to attract ? age range ? social class ? average spending for a night out ? dress code ? social status ? needs ? demand ? usual taste in music ? what’s popular at the moment ? do people really have a decent taste for good music in your area ? do they care about underground techno ? who are the “opinion leaders” ?)

Studying the competitors can also be a good idea.

Are their parties similar to yours ? Are they known to be good ? Bad ? Are they well-known by your target audience ? What are their strenghs ? Weaknesses ? What can be the main differenciation point that you should bet on ?

When all this is defined, then go and design your flyers and posters, with something fresh and attractive, and if possible related with how you want the party to look like.
Maybe you should follow the USP “rule” (Unique selling proposition) In your case, you probably should promote the music played. Only.

Post-event work, debrief and analysis of the figures

Once the party is over, try to figure out the relation between the promotion you did and the results you got (people who came at the night). See if you spent too much with flyers and stuff, or not enough. Were they attractive ? What can be improved ? Design, message, overall distribution and place of the flyers and posters ?

You can also try to do a small survey at the end (doesn’t need to be done in a formal way, chatting can be enough) and see the average % of satisfied people. Why were they satisfied ? Same of unsatisfied people. What was bad ? Will they give your parties another chance or you totally lost them ? What’s the estimated market share you got ? Is that a good result based on your objectives and the money you spent on promotions ?

I wrote all the basic question I thought of, but really this should be done in depth. Some people are studying business for years, I haven’t finished my first year yet, but this is a real full-time job. Take it seriously or pay someone serious to do that for you, but you can’t rely on “feeling” or “luck” to build a solid and long lasting series of events.
Hope this helped :slight_smile:

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I have most of the pre and post stuff done man, never thought to analyse figures etc! I’m taking this extremely seriously man, I’m seeing this as a big step to DJing at least semi-professionally and to get my productions known. It’s very hard to get into the scene in Belfast as the clubs tend to go for the same ‘pool’ of dj’s for every party, or as support for larger acts. I’m taking this as a way to make contacts and meet people who are influential in the business, I’m deadly serious. I’ve wanted since i was a kid to be successful in music and i’m putting my all into it.