Hello, everyone. If you are new here I'm Primo and I launched this community when I started by Music Production journey last year around this time! One yearn later I have learned the following things. - Stay in your own lane: Being a DJ for the last 5 years has taught me a lot about the entertainment on a local level and how to remain true to myself. In the beginning there will always be someone there to help you, uplift you, just make sure you take advise but remain true to your mission. It will change so you will too. - Follow through is thee most important thing: If you say your going to make a mix once a week do it! Prove to YOURSELF that your word is valuable. - Serve your audience: I always thought being a DJ was about me, I thought it was about all the great music I'd heard and sharing that with complete strangers. Turns out DJing is more than that. It's about connection. Connecting to complete strangers through music. Don't forget to connect through familiarity and unknown songs.

Welcome to the vault! You have complete free access to all 5 production and release courses. If you are local and looking for hands-on, live deck training, check the pinned post to reserve one of the limited spots for our 4-hour in-person workshop.

I will always share my experience from the perspective of what I have actually done. My goal is to put you in a position where you can learn and make informed choices about how to push your DJ career forward. At the beginning of my career, I immediately charged for my services. I spent a lot of time practicing on my own so that I felt comfortable asking for payment. I can’t think of many gigs I did for “exposure” or through a barter system. When you decide to barter, you must understand that the client will likely expect to continue bartering in the future. That is not how you want to start your career. You should always charge, even if it is a minimum rate. Understanding Your Floor Rate: A floor rate is a barrier that commands respect from venues and clients. It is the absolute lowest amount you are willing to trade your services for. When I started, I set my rate at $50 per hour. I chose this because I was usually DJing for multiple hours at a time, and in my regular daytime job as a nail technician, I earned between $50 and $80 an hour. That was my floor; I refused to go under it. Commit to your minimum. If a client cannot meet your floor, they aren’t a client—they are a favor. We aren’t building a new career to do favors. You wouldn’t use a bartering system at a 9-to-5 job, so don’t walk into a professional DJ career trading your time for free drinks or “exposure.

Once the gig has been completed, you want to have a strategy for asking for feedback. Of course, the owner and some audience members will have already told you how great of a job you did, but you want to follow up with the person that hired you and ask for specific feedback. Ask how they felt about certain things specific to the gig. Maybe your thing is playing mash-ups or your thing is ‘90s nostalgia. Ask them to rate your performance and even for feedback on what you could improve upon. By now, you have a strategy on how to get gigs and also maintain them so that way you can gain future residency and be hired often by people you know. Rinse and repeat this strategy as many times as you need to until you reach your first thousand dollars. I’ll let you know now, this process isn’t a quick one, but it is extremely effective, and the sooner you implement the techniques listed here, the sooner your hard work and energy will pay off for you. Now, I’m going to throw you off on your own. Take some time to think about potential locations you can reach out to. Again, make sure you have your pitch deck ready and have given yourself a full social media audit before moving forward. Go into the Classroom Where I have what to do to earn your first $1000 as a DJ.

Deliver on the Day of the Gig Let's go over what it actually takes to deliver on the day of the gig. Of course, by now, you've completed my Intro to DJ Course. If you have not, it is what's going to take you from being a practicing DJ to actually performing. Music Preparation When you're planning for a gig, you want to start with music preparation. You've already reached out to the person who hired you and got a good understanding of the venue and the vibe that you should be creating for the event. Now you want to take some time to pick out your song selection and prepare for the night. I personally do not accept requests unless it's an artist or vibe I'm already playing at the time. It is totally up to your own discretion whether or not you want to play requested songs. I do recommend having three to four crates per gig. Now, of course, if your gig is one hour, maybe you'll only need two crates maximum. You want to make sure one of those crates is for emergencies. I like to put together my crates based on the number of hours I will be DJing: - First Hour: I want to start off strong and captivate the audience as soon as possible, so I will play songs that people absolutely love. - Second Hour: I may introduce some mash-ups and see how far I can take the crowd. - Third Hour: I will begin to read things back up and play music that people know along with very popular mash-ups or songs that are known on the Internet. - Fourth Hour: I want to basically put the pedal to the metal and max out by playing music that people absolutely love and making the last hour as memorable as possible. Professionalism & Networking You want to make sure you are always being as professional as possible. This includes arriving an hour early for your set and dressing properly. You want to make sure you arrive early enough to communicate with everyone in the room. This includes managers, bartenders, any crew that's setting up—introduce yourself to everyone. You want to make sure you are meeting as many people as you possibly can during your gigs. This is going to leave memorable impressions and lead to more gigs in the future.