Throwing a party after a big music festival with no ‘Brand-Name’ DJ
I am trying to throw an after party for a music festival, but I have no fancy DJ’s or anything. I need to get 100-200 people there, and willing to pay $10-$15 for this party, and at the same time there are parties going on throughout the city with Huge Names at Huge Venues. Can I get some advice on how I can throw a good party in this environment (and maybe make some money?)
A little background info, My brothers have all been bed room dj’s but have been branching out lately with small parties and stuff. Of the three of us, only one has actually done some real parties, but he lives in Atlanta and won’t attract too much of a following here. We’re spinning house, soulful house, deep house, etc. so we should stand out from a lot of the techno and electro that will be big every where (It’s the Detroit Electronic Music Festival).
I’d appreciate any info about throwing parties at all as I could get. I read all of the information about building club nights and building reputation as a DJ on the blog here and it was helpful, but some was not applicable since this is a one-time event in a city I don’t live in.
We’re about to put flyers out, we’re building a soundcloud page and a facebook page. Also, I was debating about putting up the extra $275 to put an ad in the official festival flyer, but I don’t know. Anything else?
definitely take note of this, and always prepare for the worst!
check out the link in my signature for the big thread of promotion info… lots of handy tips in there!!
EDIT: make sure you put on the flyer that its an after party for the event. DONT say its an official after party - but do mention that its an after party… and make sure it is in a different color and font to the rest of the flyer’s design so it catches the eye of the recipient.
Thanks for the advice everybody, one more thing I thought about would be offering discounted admission for people.
Particularly:
Half-Off before 10
$2 off with a festival wrist band
and having cute girls hand out $2 off flyers the day-of. The flyers will have a unique stamp on them, and the idea is they will target people who like the kind of music and let them know that we want people with their taste at the party.
Are these discounts something I should shelve for a party that isn’t my first party?
I would recommend trying to find at least some local talent that can be some sort of headliner for the party. Having connections like that will bring in more connections and their following. The downside, unless you have a good connection with these people they will charge you around $200 - 300 dollars a set, or at least that’s what a John Beaver, or Switchblade would go for here in San Francisco.
I like what the guy said above “prepare for the worst.” The job of party promoter/producer during the party is to fix and adjust to problems and changes from the original plan.
Also, try and genuinely get excited about it when you tell people. The whole positive energy that you give off make an impression.
this is a good idea. also try and work something out with the bar that the first 30ppl or something get a free drink card entitling 1 or 2 drinks - & make sure that goes on the flyer too.
1st you get the money, THEN you get the power, THEN you get the women.
Seriously though…this is hard. I think having a big festival around to scoop up the partiers from though is a big advantage. Perhaps investing in some tickets to the event to walk around promo’ing there too would be cool.
Its hard…I’ve participated in throwing one event and I must say…not really my bag. There is definitely an art to getting the right people there at the right time. I want to spin, period. Not so interested in the promo end of things.
lol sidenote is the bogus headliner tactic. I once paid to go to a skating rink party because they listed Joshua Ryan on the flyer. When we waited for hours and he didnt show I got the point
DEMF? PM me your budget and I can get you some bigger names. I’m not joking either, I work with a promotions company that books big artist all the time. These two videos are of hip hop events we have done recently.
We have budgets that range from $5,000 to over $20,000. Every event we have done has pulled a profit.
I’m not joking either, I work with a promotions company that books big artist all the time. These two videos are of hip hop events we have done recently.
