starting your own night

[Genetic]

ok so i've been looking at venues across adelaide slowly but surely finding a few good ones,

now i want to visit with the venue owner and discuss starting a monthly night with him/her,

what are the things i need to discuss with them i know a rough outline such as their entertainment license, the cost of venue or admission and drinks costing, payment for us (the dj's), maximum occupancy, security, staff, is there anything i've missed?

this all comes down to how well this saturday goes with the venue for a private party.

[Tomy]

ok so there is a few things you want to be careful about. I’ve ran a fair few night in the past. The manager will want to see a proposal so if you come in with all guns blazing you’ll impress and have a higher chance of securing your night.

This is pretty much how my nights run. You can extract the info from this to write your proposal.

Firstly work out how much work needs to be done monthly this usually consists of

-Booking Dj’s/acts

- Flyer design

-Flyer print

-Internet promotion

-Flyer drop

-Equipment hire / setup if any

Booking is pretty easy. E-mail whom ever get a price, get it approved by the club if that’s the pay method you’ve gone with (we’ll discuss this later). For your night resident Dj’s set a fixed hourly price first so there is no confusion to begin with, if they are greedy and asks how much it pays let them know up front so they know what to expect and there is no funny business going on. 50/hr is pretty standard. So get your full line up done and ready so you don’t need to think about it anymore.

Flyer-ness = Get your flyer done / posters done. This will consist of a design fee and a print fee depending on quality and quantity.

-Internet Promo Powerful. Time-consuming. Cheap.

-Flyer drop: get your flyers out in all the local shops etc. this can sometimes be hard but ask every shop if you can put some up / leave them on the counter most people will help out if they know it’s a local guy trying to do a night for the youngen’s. Work out a ruff price for fuel / times costs if you see fit.

-Equipment: if you need to hire stuff, speakers, cdj’s etc get a quote for all of this and maybe see if they can do delivery, trust me its worth it a 5am it’s the last thing you want to do.

So you now have your base price minus a big act. So far your proposal will be looking good.

Payment schedule – Money money money!

Be careful with this one…. Remember the club makes a fuck load on drinks don’t push to hard but don’t back down to something you don’t understand. Its always a good idea to think over whatever the manager is trying to get you to do over night with a business partner or a few beers.

There are a few ways I’ve had experience of doing it there all pretty good

Door money - Door money is good way of doing it every one wins especially the club. But you’ll have to promote your arse off. If the club has less than 250 – 300 capacity I would be careful, crunch the numbers first before committing.

Eg. 300 Cap. Say you get $5 a head you’ve made $1500 then take out all your costs your probably left with 300 – 500 proffit. This is where it gets shit with door list. If you have a massive act on that has a set fee of about $5000 you’ll have to rise the door price to $20 / person just to cover costs. I would suggest selling tickets if this is the case.

Fixed price. Charge a booking fee and a promotion fee (your profit) plus the fee to cover your costs. It maybe less profit but if you have a quite night your not going to get fucked over.

Bar sales % = good luck getting this. Very hard to get but awesome if you can. The mark up on drinks is fucking crazy. A local sports/bar near me does $4 basics….. sounds cheap. They still make $2.50 a glass.

As for Venue, staff, and security if you’re bringing in 200 plus people a month to the venue / bar / club they should be the ones paying for it, in my opinion. Otherwise your costs are going to sky rocket and setting up the night is going to be hectic if you don’t have much time.

Proposal will be something like

1. What you aim to do, what style of music your bringing

2.Name / Branding of the night if any

3.Rough outline of costs and a full break down of these cost – as discussed

4.List all the promotion your doing. Myspace / FB / flyer etc. the more you have on here the better it will look

That’s about it. Choose your wording carefully if the manager thinks your going to make him money and lots of it then he’ll be more likely to cover things like staff and security. You’ll have to discuss payment methods with them and make sure your getting a fair deal

Good luck man. It took me about 3months to get a venue to run my first night. So It can be a long process. Hope this has helped some how?

Epic post

[Genetic]

ok thanks heaps for this atleast i was on the right track with the ideas i have in my head.

again thanks heaps for the info i've got a lot of ideas but am often quite unsure if the decisions i'm making are along the right path (legality wise/making sure i don't get fucked over)

[defanutley]

what nights have you run in brisbane tomy??

[Tomy]

did a few a few years ago now, latest ones are

stupid fresh @ barsoma - start of the year i think that was.

run a monthly night out at Ipswich called "junk" for 2 years was quite good.

currently looking for either a new night or just to do some bookings. not sure yet. might look at doing a night every 3 months somewhere

[Btom]

awesome advice tomy.

[eggssell]

top info tomy!!

[Cupe]

+rep'd for good post Tomy

[ekhgoh]

Hey Tomy,

Any advice on finding local DJ's that have a name for retro and R&B also with reasonable following. How do I go about sourcing a good DJ for my venue? Any advice?

Regards

[SolDios]

So your from Adelaide man? what part?

Theres a few guys around the area that should help you like Dan and benny who play at HQ

[pundaddy]

good fucking stuff tomy

[Cupe]

Hey Tomy,

Any advice on finding local DJ's that have a name for retro and R&B also with reasonable following. How do I go about sourcing a good DJ for my venue? Any advice?

Regards

You would be better off making a new thread in the Find a DJ section...............

[imadje]

great post Tomy,

my 2c:

If the venue owner does drinks promotions it is worth adding that info to your flyers/posters.

If you are getting a % of door or bar expect to see the till receipt rolls as proof.

You wouldnt normally have to pay for entertainment license as that is the venues annual cost.

When it comes to handing out your flyers I always recruited the prettiest girls and boys who came to the club. Give them free entry/VIP status and they will do all the leg work posting your advertising... (although its worth occassionally following them in secret to make sure they arent chucking your flyers in the bin and skipping off to the pub)

Allow a little petty cash for last minute issues such as missing cable/ broken headphones, taxis to collect an act from hotel, goody bag to keep a smile on the main acts face etc... you never know what may come up.