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

You think that Erick Morillo doesn't sell tickets? He doesn't phone his mates up and beg them to go onto his concessions list so he can make enough money to buy himself a couple of pints, but his name attracts people who are willing to pay to see him.

If no-one paid money to see him, he wouldnt be getting booked.

The fact that you are comparing one of the worlds biggest DJs to bedroom DJs being asked to sell twenty tickets says more about you and how out of touch you are with this debate.

How? It all comes down to selling tickets.

Try again.

Fact is I went to a night this weekend at the Custard Factory in Birmingham where they had 9 rooms with the street outside closed to accommodate this and a shit load of people all paying 15 quid to get in with no big name DJs on the lineup.

No offence to Brum, i was up there a couple of weeks ago and had a wicked time, but the size of the scene isn't by any means on the scale of London's party scene.

The trouble is venues lost their reputations for quality when they started sitting back and taking hire fees rather than promoting their nights themselves. In London there's only Fabric that has amazing nights every Saturday night.

If a venue has a reputation for having amazing music and great parties every week then headliners aren't as important

But you generally only get London people in London, Birmingham attracts people from all over because it's central.


Last Sat sold on the reputation of the soundsystems. Project Storm is one of the biggest underground hardtrance rigs in the UK, Ravenous and Scumlikeus got a fantastic rep round bham and midlands for good techno lineups etc etc.

Not really. I fully get what Matt is saying....Big names sells tickets and a lot of them are very over rated when it comes to their DJ skills anyway - It's the same thing in a roundabout sort of way.
Anyway wasn't a recent event with ' one of the worlds biggest DJs' not so packed recently?

I am a promoter basically because I can’t DJ and I guess I am not the only one!
For no other reason, I love the industry, i love all house music and i love the thrill of putting on a party. It is most definitely not for cash, and most of the cash I make goes back into the gigs, its bloody hard work and to be fair the only guys that make loads of cash are the clubs and the DJ's. I suppose some perks are good like free booze and sometimes and hotel room, it’s the closest I will ever get to being a rock star.

Let’s be totally honest here, there are a million really good DJ's out there all jockeying to get that elusive spot, if i had two DJ's come up too me with the same skill set but one said he could bring a crowd, in the current climate, i would be silly not to play the guy with a rent a crowd. That’s life, DJ’s having to sell themselves as well.

It all helps, DJ's and Promoters must work together, I sound out all the DJ's that play for me and hope the all become friends, there are some that are bigger than being friends, so they just don’t get booked again.

The biggest issues is the Club Owners, they want more for less, I have worked at a few places in London, one gig I was ripped off by the club for £3K. However all the DJ's get paid period of what happens between the Club and the promoter, that’s the way it is. That the only way a promoter can stay credible.
The sad thing is when you get a club offering a real lose lose situation, like sell a ticket for £15 and you make a £5? How can you put on a decent gig with no funding or all that risk? This is where promoters are forced into asking the DJ's to bring some mates, and that really helps, also it takes some pressure of an already very stressful job.
I think some people don’t understand exactly how hard it is to organise a successful party and definitely don’t understand the pitfalls and stresses, and by some comments and blissfully blind to the real world. The days were the same in yesteryear, it has not changed much, crowds fill venues, successful DJ’s have followings, that’s why they are successful and they get more bookings because they are low risk to the club or promoter.
So if you can bring a crowd give me a call HAHA

That was a joke....

I agree people go to hear you music style and the buzz a dj creates and quite frankly the club wouldn't make the money without thats the whole point in mixing in certain types of music and there is alot of similar music out there but it's what gets the crowd going and that equals the businesses income

Another way of selling tickets! facebook.com

Yeah and it's bloody hard getting your foot in the door as a dj, especially with all these cowboy promoters about.

A definition would help here. Is a promoter who books and pays headliners, pays for marketing etc and gives an unknown DJ the opportunity to appear on the flyer and play a second or third room at the club, whilst making a few quid from selling tickets a 'cowboy'. Even though the DJ is question is capable and has agreed to that deal?

Your forgetting something here, the new breed up n comers are the future, without them this scene will fall flat on it's feet, always help and support the new breed, it's something a lot of promoters seem to forget, every dj was new breed at one stage, how do you think they got there foot in the door then?

A Promoter who wears leather chaps with the arse cut out.

If they expect dj's to sell an amount of tickets first then they are most definitely cowboys and should be boycotted at all costs.

And 'you' get the gig and the benefit of the capital invested by the promoter, ahead of a million people who can do the job just as well, why?

But DJing and accessing music didn't used to be the piece of piss then. And there wasn't millions of people who could do it well. It was a saleable skill because it was rare, or at least rarer.

You still have to support the newbreed though, doesn't matter how many people there are out there that do it.

Are you being deliberately obtuse Jinxy? How do you judge who gets to be the new breed?

By listening to demos and then booking them by the skills they have, not by the amount of tickets they can sell.