Hey guys I’m gonna get right the point here. Long story short me and 3 other local djs threw an event last night that was a bust. There were a number of reasons why: last minute promotions, out of the way venue, long weekend so people go out of town.
Anyway i was talking to a friend of mine about promoting and going beyond things like Facebook and whatever else. He said just fill the place with girls and you’ll be set. While I’m aware of this concept theres a few ways i feel about this.
it’s a cop out/too easy - great there’s girls and people at the event, but ultimately do they care about the event or just that there’s girls there. I feel like it’s a surface level fix and doesn’t fix the problem in the long run I.e. Loyal following for future events.
“what’s in it for me” - As much as I’d love to have a huge circle of girlfriends that i could rely on i don’t, therefore i feel like there would have to be an incentive eventually for girls to come to these events. What would be enough of an incentive? I even feel this way about friends, I really want them to come and bring as many people as they can with them I’d love to be able to reward them as well for filling the events.
it’s all about the music - not really if all we are focused on is getting girls to the event, girls who may hate the music or atmosphere were trying to a create. We had 4 locals last night bangin out some great classic hip hop and with the skill to match. This one cat was doing some on point beat juggling. If we have girls and people there who just want to hear the Latest Kesha track kind of defeats the purpose of the event all together.
Hummm.. Its all about the atmosphere IMO. If I think there will be lots of girls going to an event and I am a single male it would more then likely be the deciding factor for a lot of people I remember someone say for an incentive… A group of 5 or 6 girls that show up together will get a free bottle of champagne.
I live in Miami and it doesn’t matter what genre or crowd you are talking about. Get girls that listen to the music you want to play, the rest will follow, the atmosphere will be a positive one, and you guys will build a following for great times.
(If you don’t wanna read my explanation and just get straight to the answer, it’s the last line. But anyways…)
Exactly. From personal experience, half the reason I go to clubs are for the girls so if you make sure you have girls at your parties, then there should be a good following of people starting to show up.
From what I’ve seen of clubs near me that have special offers like drink specials or reduced covers or what have you, I think they’re good ideas because that’s not only going to attract more girls but also more dudes to try and hook up with these girls.
a) Part of Djing is playing for your crowd. If you don’t have a crowd to play for than why even DJ?
b) Guys 1) want to listen to good music and 2)meet hot girls when they go out. Guys can certainly go without 1 if you have 2 but if 1 without 2 is a much harder sell.
c) There are plenty of girls who would listen to the music you DJ. Trust me. I’ve seen hot girls at all sorts of different venues playing different genres and all of these girls were having a blast.
d) You’re really selling girls short here. I have friends that are girls and that are your typical “top 40’s” listeners, who don’t really ever listen to the music I spin but love going to shows with me and love seeing me spin.I took a bunch of those girls to the club the other night and they had a great time before my friends got us kicked out. Girls just WANT TO DANCE. Give them a beat to dance to and they will figure it out and start dancing. Honestly with an attitude like you have you’ll never even get far enough to find out if any girl likes the music you spin. Give them the benefit of the doubt, if they don’t like it, they’ll leave anyway and you’ll be right where you started: with no girls at your event. If you were more open you might be able to get girls to come just because IT’S YOU SPINNING and they want to support you.
I don’t know where you live and if you don’t live in a big city it will definitely be harder to find women who dig your style. In Boston and NY there is such an eclectic mix of people it’s not hard to entice people to come to a show and it’s not hard to find people who want to listen to what your playing. Just BE OPEN. Getting girls to come to your show is just like getting girls to come back to your place, but way fucking easier. “Hey, there is going to be good music, booze, dancing, and fun!” - how many girls would pass this up?
If you’re playing music that isn’t danceable than you’re probably not going to be playing very long. As cool as it is to see a guy cut it up on the decks even I wouldn’t want to go once a week to something like that if he isn’t going to let the crowd rock to the beat for a little bit. Even when guys like Shiftee play out at a club they aren’t doing scratch routines the whole time. He cuts it up for the first like 5 minutes or so and then mixes for the rest.
Depends on your goals for the event i think. If you play stuff like tech house or techno and wanna showcase great tracks and sets for the music, you’re gonna have a hell of a time getting girls out anyway imo. Im basing this solely on the fact that im pretty sure i know a grand total of 0 girls who even know what tech house is. Now if you are playing top 40 all night, then its not a cop out to try and play up the female factor cuz in reality thats why most ppl go clubbing to begin with.
Everyone knows sex sells, perhaps the best way of looking at it is appealing to the ‘uneducated masses’ with what Frank said “Hey, there is going to be good music, booze, dancing, and fun!”, get the girls in, and then hoping at least some ppl are gonna be buying what you are selling musically as well
I appreciate you guys weighing in on this. I always like to go against the grain but I suppose this is one area where it doesn’t make a lot of sense to try and fight what is a known and working concept. And I suppose I shouldn’t focus so much on trying to find people who are as stoked about the tunes playing as much as just wanting to dance. Not everyone is a dj and is going to be stoked on tricks, transitions or rare gems. So now i guess the question is how do you guys entice members of the opposit sex to come out.
Just ask them? lol. Tell them that there is going to be good music they can dance to and girls will be all over it. Hand out fliers that look cool. Start promotions for girls. Go out and make some friends with girls and then tell them to come check out your show.
Promotion is half the battle dude. Leave promotional cards/fliers EVERYWHERE AND ANYWHERE. Play the odds. It’s just like meeting women to go out with them. The more women you talk to the better chance you have of getting a few of them.
You might want to hire a dedicated promoter if you’re not good at it. If the music is your thing, handle the music, and find someone to handle the people. It’s good to know your strengths and weaknesses. Find a guy who knows a lot of people, tell him you’ll pay him some scratch if he gets the word out and can fill the club. If you can find someone with experience running and promoting shows - even better.
dude you live in a pretty big city. It definitely won’t be hard to find girls to come to your show. My girlfriend used to run hardcore/screamo shows in the middle of bumfuck nowhere Pennsylvania (think cornfields and amish people) when she was 13-14 and could fill a place with 500 people. She used to book some pretty big bands in that scene. You just need to promote and know your scene. Definitely find someone who knows the scene you are in and knows the places to go to find people who love your music. Book acts as headliners who are bigger in Regina and who play the style of music you want to play.
Well not for nothing, but bumfuck places can sometime fill much easier then bigger cities. Smaller cornfields places don’t have a lot of choice in where to go to hear that type of music or EDM in general.
In places that large (I live in Chicago) its cut throat to get gigs, get people to come etc, because well there are so many damn other things going on.
This is true, there is the substitution effect. But here in Boston a new show just popped up and they absolutely promoted the fuck out of it and filled the place. Fliers everywhere. In dorm rooms, street corners, literally everywhere I went I found I flier. They had a great draw.
Also, my g/f competed with a bunch of other shows for people. She wasn’t the only game in town but she knew how to book the big bands and how to promote real well.
I totally agree. Promotion is huge. You got to promote the hell out of yourself in Chicago. You think boston is bad come to Chicago, literally every bar has a live DJ set, different nights, people trying to jack your gigs. Promotion is the only way these clubs/bars/lounges get any business for sure. Personally I say do whatever it takes to get people out but also a huge thing to do once a gig is booked and its working out is work the floor man and go meet the people that came and listened to the music, get some fans and pass your card along that has FB fanpage stuff.
Maybe it is because I’m more of a raver than a clubber, but I can’t help but cringe when I see clubs/events doing obvious things to get more women to attend (i.e. separate prices, drink tickets for the first 10 women or w/e), it just comes off as somewhat sleazy to me.
Agreed. The thing to do is print out some VIP/Free entry before 11 type tickets and personally hand them out to girls.
Don’t be sleazy, just be enthusiastic about the music etc and say that as it’s a new night you’d giving out a few select freebies to people you think will enjoy the night.
If they want more freebies give them an email address they can hit you up on.
Number the freebies and give them a stamp (get a custom branded stamp from a stationary website) and keep a track of the numbers so people can’t just photocopy them thus completely doing you out of profit.
