So do you think it's right, or totally wrong?

a sad reality of the commercialisation of club culture

This topic has been running in a few places again recently.
London is not doing very well at the moment compared to the 'good 'ole days'....DJs selling tickets clearly isn't working anyway!
I strongly believe that DJs and promoters should take a good look at everything and re evaluate and if they are really passionate about the music they should work together and play fair so we can turn it all around and bring it back up to scratch ... As should the venues and agents.

this has been going on for years with all people who provide entertainment , my mates have been told they can play sankys if they can fill the back room.

Fair comment Zoelee, i know myself and most dj's i know of will always do there best to help advertise the nights they are booked for, not only is this beneficial to the promoters it is also a great benifit to the dj(s).

The promoter should be doing the promoting and the dj should be doing the djing, although there is no reason why the dj's shouldn't help with this, but forcing it on the dj's to sell a certain ammount of tickets to get a booking is a tad wrong in my eyes.

DJs do it for the music, promoters do it for the money


simple as that


for the promoters it's a business, and 99% of DJs have day jobs and DJing is just something to do at weekends - some would call it a perfect hobby

I certainly think that everthing needs to be fair but promoting consists of many things and if they use DJs to sell tickets as one of the options then fair's fair - As long as they covering all the other promotional tools as well.

Many DJs have had the opportunity to play at some of the largest venues due to the fact that they can sell tickets and attract their friends - Without that tool do you really think they would have had that chance to play at the venue unless they really stood out from the crowd with their skills? There are thousands and thousands of DJs to choose from and all the demos I've heard in the past pretty much sound the same - It's very rare that one stands out from the crowd. I think DJs have to appreciate that as well.

There are still a lot promoters out there that try and mix it up by booking sellers with talent as well as DJs they love at events. I think a lot of DJs underestimate what other work promoters do after they have booked ticket sellers as it's obvious that the few tickets the DJs sell will not pack the club out.

Also, I've seen a lot of sets where a DJ has all their friends around the decks cheering and they make for a great atmosphere that really works in a club.

That's bull. Have you seen how much money is in it these days? Its the venues and agents that come out laughing not the promoters.

fair enough - they must make something out of it otherwise they wouldn't bother?


no-one in their right mind would run a business that wasn't viable

I ran parties for 7 years always breaking even ( just) or making a loss ( often) .
I loved to organise, be the boss, thrived on the stress of it and loved the fact that the night ran to my music choice and the crowd were really enjoying something I had put together. I know quite a few promoters that do it for the same reason. As DJs like to play as a hobby I guess some promoters like to spend their time planning :)

I'm sure there are a lot of promoters out there that do it for a buck or 2 but things are very different these days. It seems everyone became a promoter about 2 years or so ago and then the scene became diluted. A great deal of DJs start promoting so they can get a chance to play out and everything started to take a slight dive :(

Does it not tell you though, that the dj's are being booked for ticket sales and not on them being a good dj, thus bringing crap quality dj's into the scene, which does not help it one bit, obviously not all the dj's who get bookings this way are crap, but there are a lot of them that are.

Not necessarily. As a former promoter of a fairly successful hard dance night, I should be lighting cigars with £50 notes according to your theory, but I'm not. I promoted because I put on fun parties, and had a wicked time doing it.

Fair enough, you've gotta make money, or at least break even, but it's a party first, a business second. A lot of promoters forget this, and that's why their club nights are shit. Run a club night as a business, maybe you'll make money at first, but your parties will probably be shit and people will see through you. Run it as a party, you'll have fun, you might not make money, but eventually, people will hear how fun your parties are, and will come. With them comes money, and also fun.

I booked ticket sellers but I listened to their mixes and went to see them play out before booking. Usually promoters know who's got a good rep and following - It's all part of a promoters art to be able to strike a good balance. There's good and bad in everything but it really can't be as simple as DJs DJ and promoters promote. The world just doesn't work like that.

having ticket selling djs certainly doesnt make for a quality event in my opinion, as u can see by lookin at the top parties in london such as mulletover, secretsundaze, disco bloodbath, bugged out etc none of whom ever use ticket selling djs and rely on the quality of there lineups, hardwork and innovation to sell tickets.

I agree but to have quality line ups you like that you need lots of £s and contacts. Smaller scale events simply don't always have this and they shouldn't not run because they need help selling tickets to spread the word.

If all the events that used ticket sellers ceased then London would be a quiet place indeed and a lot more DJs would never get the chance to play in a club to their adoring ticket holding friends :)

I think you should be booked on talent but if asked to sell tickets if u can but not given a set number to sell

then again if these nights cant exist without ticket selling djs should they exist at all?
after all there must be hundreds of club nights goin on in london on anyone weekend only a handful of which r any good do we really need them all.
and lets not forget nights that i mentioned like secretsundaze or mulletover may have big budgets NOW but they didnt start that way i f rememeber rightly giles and james started s.s as small party for friends in the back room at 93 feet east.

without the dj's bringing the crowds the majority of clubs would shut . everyone uses each other

this is a pointless conversation if you think about it and time will be wasted going round in circles.

good point but ive literally got nothing better to do today
so pointless debating it is ;-)

the people who get ripped off a lot these days are the crowd.

my local night club had Boy George booked for halloween but it a lookalike was sent , this was known weeks in adavance but the club never informed people.

stuff like this goes on all the time, clubbers getting ripped off. especially by the greedy meat market commercial clubs