Is The DJ Market Oversaturated? 💦

• Taking on private events can lead to valuable connections and future bookings for a DJ business.
• Rooftop parties in New York City provide opportunities for DJs to network and showcase their skills.
• Booking DJs based solely on their ability to bring in a crowd can result in inexperienced DJs being hired, leading to subpar performances.
• Curating DJ lineups based on skill and professionalism is crucial for maintaining the quality of a venue or event. DJs should aim to create cohesive sets that flow well and connect songs together.
• Playing multiple genres and thinking about how songs connect can enhance the overall experience.
• Lazy transitioning and lack of curation can indicate inexperience as a DJ.
• DJs need to adapt to the changing landscape of the industry and stay current with trends.
• The new Sphere residency in Vegas presents opportunities for DJs to perform in large arenas.

Transcript

0:01

All right, what's up guys? Welcome to 153rd episode of the Grow My DJ Business podcast brought to you by Digital Music Pool. My name is Kareem. Gary W here. It was a great weekend, Gar. I'm excited to get into our topics today. But first, we gotta have a little fun, right? Little fun. Mr. hates private events. Mr. I refuse. I'll never play one again. Somehow came out of retirement and DJ'd a Sweet 16 on Friday night. and have an important person ask you to play an event and you're gonna go and play it. You did the smart business, you had the smart business minded move by reading the room, you know, and seeing who's offering you the gig and doing your homework and knowing that great things can come from it, even if it is a Sweet 16 and a private event, something that you really don't wanna do, but being the businessman that you are. I am insufferable guys. I'm insufferable on the day of a private event. All right. team player that you are, you went and did the event for the greater good. So I was DJing a nightlife event probably in the fall and there was a party up in the VIP, you know, like, not old, but like an older group of people that were hanging out, were popping bottles, got a bunch of food, spent a bunch of money. At the end of the set came up to me and this woman was like, hey, my name is this and I loved your DJ set. You crushed it. She's like, what's your Instagram? I want to follow you so I can link with you. We do these events, blah, blah, whatever. We talk to people like that all the time. She follows me and she's a very influential person. She has her own podcast. She is a, you know, a C level person for a very large company. Tons of like 300 ,000 followers on Instagram. she's not an influencer. She's influential, completely different things. Right, right. So when she approached me to, or approached Get Down to do this party, we had a conversation. I'm like, Carrie, I really don't want to do this, but she's like pressing me to be the DJ. And we sort of talked, I talked myself and you sort of were like, you kind of got to do it. And so me and Timmy Vu, shout to Tim Vu, who's like my partner in crime for private events, shout to Flair Entertainment. yeah, so we went and did it. Party went great. I DJed the whole time, you know, rocked it out. Night lifestyle set. I played a ton of music. They were dancing the whole time. They were super happy. We got a call from another mom the next day. Like, we need you for our Sweet 16. I'm like, I'm booked on those dates. I can't do it, but I could send my boy Timmy Vu. He's got you. He was there. So, you know, short term, yes, it was a nice payday. Short term, sure, you know, we made some money as a business, whatever. Long term, this was a long term decision, right? It's what else can we get from this relationship? And that's not like, that seems like a shitty way to think about it, but when our time is limited, it's like, if I don't want to do this event, I'm gonna do it because it has long term benefits for our business, not just a short term payday, you know? think people would argue here, you know, any party that you go to do can have a long -term benefit. There is a possibility of a long -term benefit no matter what party you go and do, which is very true and everybody should walk into all of their gigs with that mindset, right? I have to do a great job here, I have to go above and beyond because who knows who else is in the room and maybe something huge can come of that. big relationship can come of that. So that would be the other side of it. But from your perspective, this isn't the lane that you're looking to go down long term here, Suite 16, but it's great to put yourself in front of people that are potentially important and can grow relationships maybe in a more corporate sense, which that's what Get Down DJ Group wants to really align themselves with long term, right? So. I just wanted to differentiate those two things for people that like, hey, like, you know, you're not, you have to do, you have to go into all sets thinking that there is huge upside no matter who who's booking you. Yeah, totally agree. Like, I met this person in a nightlife setting, right? I didn't know who they were. I didn't know anything. It's just you go and do your thing and if people like you, they're gonna come up to you and introduce themselves to you and maybe you get some bookings out of it. But I think you're right. That's a great mindset to have no matter what. If you're an opener going into a nightclub, you know, maybe you're there to impress the booker or a promoter that books a bunch of venues or an owner who's there like... I - those - You know, why are you laughing? I just read Pahrari's tweet about 10 minutes ago about openers just absolutely burning everybody and what's going on with the state of openers right now? Big shout to Pahrari and he started some really interesting conversations that are going on in his Twitter. loves stirring the pot on threads and on Twitter right now. He's like ultimate trolling out there. I had to interrupt but he's saying that like it's gotten real bad out there so we're gonna get into that here in a minute, I think too, but. But yeah, I mean, I think just to like tie a bow in the sweet 16 thing, you know, sometimes we have to do things that we don't want because it's gonna help us in some way down the line for a bigger goal, right? Like maybe opening for less money or playing a venue for less money or for a longer amount of time or whatever it may be in nightlife. Maybe it's not something you necessarily want to do. but it could really help you solidify yourself with that group of people or that venue in a long term kind of way. So I really think we all need to be thinking about opportunities in a long term perspective and less so on the short term. The dollars don't matter as much. The relationship and future bookings I think are more important than the immediate upfront dollars. I think that goes from private events, it goes to nightlife, that goes for everything. We've talked about that in the past where sometimes you'll take less dollars to just establish more of a relationship with somebody and build a relationship. to all our private event DJs out there that like really do this, man, because, bro, I was spent, spent. I left my house at 3 p I got home at like 1 30 in the morning. It's a long day. And that doesn't count any of the prep work, any of the phone calls, any of the planning. Like, it's so many hours per event. And yeah, you get more money, but it's just so many hours that are tied up into this one event, you know? Yeah, I think that's that's why it's a huge reason as to why I stopped doing it because when I was doing it, I had a regular job and had two other jobs or three other jobs. And it was like this. I'm not burning a full Saturday and Sunday when I could just leave my house at nine p to go do nightlife, you know. Right. but money has changed in that world since big time. Like back then you'd get a big, a nice payday might be a grand and now you can get five. So things are a little different. Right, but the way I always describe it too is like, you know, as you add these a la carte items on, it's more work and more stuff you have to bring in, more set up time. And so yes, it's more money and yeah, we can get these huge dollars, but like, we're not a giant private event company. We don't have a warehouse full of stuff. We have to outsource most of the extras that we're gonna get, right? So it just, it's just not our lane. And that's kinda it, like. shout, shout. You're right, though. Shout to those guys that do it. It's tough. That's a hard industry. It's not it's not one that I don't envy those guys by any means. You said you didn't work out all week. That's what you did. You worked out. You worked out on Friday night. I know, I got me and Timmy Vu just lugging gear. Shit. 100 pounds soaking wet. man. So big transition for you after Friday night. Friday night you do the sweet 16 thing, you get home at 1 .30 in the morning, and then you find out about this party that's going on in New York City and you're like in the most uncreamed thing, in the most uncreamed text message I've ever gotten was, I think I'm gonna go into the city and go to this party. I'm like get the fuck out of here. at the pool. I left my pool to go to the city to a party. Think about that. I don't think I've seen I haven't seen it since the early 2010s. wanted to get out. I went out to Summer Club in Queens, which is probably about five or six miles from my house in Jersey. Took me two hours to get there. So I'm in the car and it's like dead stop traffic going cross town Manhattan. And I'm like, damn, do I just turn around? I wanted to go out there because Zanny Duco, who's one of the DJs that works with us a little bit, he's been coming to a lot of our events. He was DJing. Silver Tone from Philly who I've connected with was playing a support set and then our boy D -Rock was there. So I'm like, all right, I can go see three of our, like three guys that I want to go hang out with, show some love. And I only got to see like the last hour of D -Rock set probably. But it was still to get out there. It was still good to get out there, check out the space. I haven't been there since I think it used to be Profundo. But yeah, super dope spot, man. It's like. rooftop, there's a pool, the DJ booth is great. They book all kinds of extra entertainment. It's just, it was just a good vibe over there, man. The weather was perfect. It's just New York City in the summer. And like, yeah, it's just New York City in the summer, man. It's so good. And so many people leave to go to the Hamptons or Jersey or wherever they go and vacations and stuff. And I love it because the summers in New York is like my favorite time to be in the city. I love it so much. And now there's so many good parties that are popping up. I get it that people do get out of it, especially if you live in the city, you get out of the city because it does get touristy. I understand that portion of it. When I lived in the city, we hated the summer because, you know, you had tourists everywhere. But right, but it's it's noticeable. You know, when you're walking around, it's noticeable in the summer. But on the flip side, it provides opportunity to go to a lot of venues that might be a little more difficult to get into. in the wintertime, number one. And number two, there's a lot of venues that are open and portions of venues that are open that aren't open in the wintertime because they're outside or they're on a rooftop and you get to get to the whole rooftop vibe thing and the music changes kind of, it gets lighter, it gets more fun or you know, it gets maybe a little more house driven because that's what people want to hear. And it's just nice and like we always say, it does, it provides opportunity for DJs too to meet more people because there are less people in the city as far as industry is concerned. So it is a special time for DJs and people in nightlife to go out and network. These are the parties that are pop that are going to be popular all summer. You know, the rooftop sunset hotel, you know, Azure Day party selling out every week. Shout to Luke Alexander. You know, I'm so excited. I'm playing there August 11th. Probably like the one set I'm looking forward to this entire summer. So super hype for that. But the summer club, Mr. Purple, I walked by Mr. Purple in the Lower East Side on Saturday because I was DJing down there. it was like one of a few places that had a line at 10 p you know, rooftop vibes. The One Hotel does a sunset party and there's like so many other rooftop parties that are popping up and you know, all fall and winter we talked about like do something that is more of an event that people are excited to go to. Like the rooftop parties are kind of where it's at right now. Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, like that's just sort of what it is. Yeah, you're seeing it so much on social media, just even like these record labels or these entertainment groups and they're throwing these rooftop and obviously getting a lot of social media content out of it. But throwing these little rooftop gatherings and it's just, it provides another avenue to do something where you don't need to have an overt amount of production because the backdrop of the rooftop is your production, right? So just. And that's the beauty of it. Set up your DJ equipment and just let it go. sunset with a New York skyline doesn't really get much better than that. like you see all these videos that come out of Iceland and in these caves and you know, right now like the in front of the church with the projections is a big thing. I forgot what country that was in. Jami and Mala just did a big show in a church that looked insane. My boy Justin Mullins, who was in the city on Saturday, I was hanging with him, was showing me pictures of it. Nice. So that's what I'm saying. Like that all require, like some of that stuff requires production, but like some of that like natural landscape backdrop stuff doesn't. And I feel like for New York City, like that's the easiest way to go. Less production and throw a nice, a nicely produced event. So yeah, I mean like down here, we had a pretty big produced, even though we can do outdoor all year round, it upticks down here in Florida as well. Yeah. Memorial Day weekend, Vintage Culture actually did a block party and they shut down two blocks in downtown Orlando, which I feel like is insane coming from where we're from up in New York. We're like, that kind of not happening. There needs to be a dedicated space for that. Well, they literally shut down blocks where there's usually traffic and yeah, gotta love it. Like under the Williamsburg Bridge. You know, pop -ups in New York all over the place, which has been really cool and not something that I would have expected, you know. Skrlickson and Fortet and Fredigan did theirs in Times Square. Who else? I think Sarah Landry did one. Yeah, I was gonna say another woman DJ did did one in Times Square. Bastards Barbecue was in New York City last weekend, which is awesome. Buster Rhymes performed at that. So that was cool. A tracks on his block party out there numerous times. That's usually in Brooklyn. That's always dope and outside. One of my favorite parties that I want to go to is at Knockdown Center. I think that's in Queens. That's an outdoor venue and they get. Yeah, I mean the mirage has been crushing. Clooney was there this weekend, which looked amazing. Ha! Yeah. I said if I was going to go out there, I'd want a chopper out there because you could get like the you can get the blade and sometimes you can get a good deal on a blade. And it's like, I swear to God, I'm not even joking. It sounds like the bougiest thing ever. But I'm not I'm not joking. You can get a blade from Jersey or Manhattan to go to the Hamptons. And it's like, sometimes you can get it for like 125 bucks, which to me is worth the five hour trip or four hour trip in traffic. That's a crazy trip in traffic, man. It's a crazy trip without traffic. But yeah, so I mean, vibes are high out in New York. But what did you think about some of the DJ performances that you saw? You know, especially... not just not just in New York, but just in general, you know, just kind of bouncing around. I don't know, I just didn't hear anybody that was very good. You know, I didn't really hear many sets that were cohesive or sets that like had some thought process around like going from one track to the next. And I don't know, this is a long conversation, right? Because we're sort of in a We're sort of in like a pay to play model, especially in New York City for openers. It's like, how many tickets can you sell? Like Merck from Alvo was showing me a test text from a promoter to get booked at a very prominent spot in New York City. And it was just like, I need you to sell 35 tickets. What's your DJ name? And Merck was like, what the hell? What's my DJ name? How did this guy get my number? And why is he booking me if he doesn't even know what my DJ name is? So like, these promoters are booking DJs to DJ without one single spec of interest on if they can DJ what they DJ. It's just how many people can you bring out? Can you sell a table? Can you bring people into the party? It's a major problem, man, but it's happening all over the place. It's been happening for a long time. Right. ever, this has been happening there. You know what? I was gonna ask you this because you travel to DJ and you have connections, you know, and definitely have communication with a lot more people than I do, but New York City's been doing this since 06, 07, 08, from what I can remember, for as long as Serato's been a thing, this has been a thing. in New York years ago or like didn't pursue growing there because I didn't want to do this shit when I could get booked as a headliner in Jersey and like make money and not have to deal with the bullshit. Right, it's the reason that I wound up playing smaller spots in New York, and not smaller as in capacity, smaller as in not as known, because I wasn't messing around with bringing people after I had been DJing, even when I was 25 and my friends were still going out, my friends were going out, I did this in reverse, my friends were going out in Hoboken, where we wound up booking years later, and I was playing in the city, and so they weren't coming out there, and they had already seen me DJ for eight years. You know, so it was like, all right, well, I'm not bringing people out where like when I was younger, I was bringing, I could bring 70 people out. Right. And like I played a couple of decent spots then, but then like after that, after the shine wears off and you realize that you're better than the resident DJ at the place, then it's like, well, I'm not bringing 50 people here when I know I, the resident can't shine my shoes kind of a thing, but like, I go, they have a resident opener, you know, and it's the same person or one of the one of a couple people every time I go there and they know the room and they've maybe they started as a young, inexperienced DJ, but they've been in the same club for however long and like, they know the room and they know how to play to their, their, their clients and their customers. Right, right. They're always good to land the ship if things go awry. But as far as New York City's concerned, like it's always, this model has been around, like I said, I think since Serato's been around, that's when I can remember it coming, because there was a saturation in the amount of DJs there was post Serato. Once you could just load all your music onto your computer and just walk into a club with it, it became a lot easier, right? More accessible. And that's all well and good, all for that, for sure. Right. We built a business on it, but you have to watch with the over saturation comes less talent. Let's be real. You know, the talent pool, even though it gets bigger, it shrinks. If that makes sense. we I was with Justin Mullen. So he works with CS3 agency. He's managed M3 in Miami. He's worked in Jersey. I met him at HQ. He used to work at HQ. He was doing AR stuff for HQ. Great dude, like randomly ran into him. We hung out for the whole day. We went out for drinks after we were sitting there and listening to like the DJs later in the day and literally calling the song that they're gonna play next like. It was just so predictable and it was just mixing intro outros and it was just boring. Like, and we wonder why nightlife hasn't been doing as well. You know, you wonder why less people want to go out because they're getting this shitty experience when they go to these high end venues where you're, you're, they're booking DJs that have one, two or less years experience. And like, they don't know how to DJ. absolutely shocked with, there was two or three, and I think I've said this on earlier podcasts, so I apologize if I did, but I was shocked when three of these major venues that I thought were great spots in the city, and I went and looked at who they had playing at their venue, and it was like, this person's been DJing for a year, or this person's Instagrams fill, or TikTok is filled with just. photos from college and their frat and like there's no professionalism within the talent that's being booked and this is looked at one as one of the better venues in the city and what happened six years later cream six months later is that place is not relevant anymore. Right and it's because you're you can't keep a room you have too many options in a small area to have bad talent because people just walk out the door go next door. But the venue doesn't want to pay the thousand or $1 ,500 for the good DJ, it's for them to make 40 or 50 ,000, right? Like they want to have, hey, 21 -year-old, can you bring 50 kids that are gonna vape the whole time? Right, or bring in their own alcohol or drink pregame heavy beforehand and drink waters or do drugs and just drink waters? Like... I'm okay with that. I'm joking, but you know what I mean. It's tough. It's a tough landscape because it's tough all around. The owner's trying to cut costs and that's maybe some portion of this as well. is why I will forever, forever be a proponent of DJs booking DJs, not promoters booking DJs. When promoters are booking DJs, they don't care. They don't care in most cases. Yeah, they wanna book a headliner that they know is good, but they don't care what's around that headliner. There are some, right? There's a bunch of promotion agencies or promotion companies we've worked with that do care and, you know, curate their bookings as a DJ would, let's say, or really care about the music. But I would say the majority don't. They just care about how many people can you bring through the door. Like, people reaching out to Olive Oil and not even knowing who Olive Oil is, which, why are you reaching out if you don't even know who they are? You just want the 35 people to come through the door. And if you get enough of those DJs that play for 45 minutes, that bring 35 people through the door, you have the start of a party. are the days of having like VB, you know what, it's just different. It's different now, so I'm not even gonna pose the question. But, all right, so you were saying that like some of these DJs, like they're not having cohesive sets, and you said you've been hearing this a lot recently. What do you think like guys can do in order to, and girls can do to prep themselves to have what sounds to you like a cohesive set? It's a huge pet peeve for me and when I'm listening to DJs, it's like the number one thing that I'm listening for. Number one is can you play multiple genres? Because how many DJs that I meet are like, I play house music and I'm trying to play the house music spots. I'm like, yeah, you and a thousand other DJs that I've talked to this year, like all trying to do the same thing. But yeah, the cohesive set, right? If you are... Even if you're playing 128, right? Even if you're playing four on the floor house style music. All right, if you're going to play Vibe House, right? That has a Latin vocal, like don't then go to trap. Don't then go to something that makes no sense with what you were just playing. Like if you want to go from Vibe House music to Latin house, think about the songs that you can can play to get there, right? Maybe the Vibehouse song you're playing, the next song is a Vibehouse track with more of, I don't know, like a Latin house vibe, right? Then the next song is a full on Latin house vibe that has Latin vocals. And like, it's just thinking about how to connect the songs and not just going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. And even more so in like an open format set is really kind of what I'm talking about. But if you're going to transition down to 100 BPM, like give me a house track that has a hip hop vocal to sort of start teasing in that hip hop, right? Then transition down to a 100 BPM hip hop thing. Don't go from Tiesto with a female singer on it to Million Dollar Baby. Like I just, there's just no thought to it. It's lazy transitioning to me. It's not curating your set. And it's a huge pet peeve for me. And I think it's one of the things that shows me that you're an inexperienced DJ. your vibes really have to, they have to mesh. It's what makes, it's what makes people think, wow, that was really good, that was a really smooth set. Whether they know why it was, which they usually don't, but they know that it sounds, it sounds like it all goes together and it flows nicely, right? And I think that's what sets apart, even if you're not a fantastic technical DJ, we say this constantly, you and I are, probably the least technical DJs that there are. But, your set sounds good because there's a clean flow to them. And it's not harsh. You know, and bartenders and people that go out regularly and people that listen to DJ mixes regularly, which is more people than not these days, can tell when something sounds a little jagged, a little harsh. It's not as clean and flowy. You know, and like you said, like even if it's just even if it's a house song with bongos in it, it's like, OK, well, I can get into some kind of Latin flair here and I could. to a Byla Funk from there, or whatever the case may be. be, right. But like you could take elements. Show me that you're thinking about how you want to go from point A to point B, right? Or even if it's point A to point D, you can't just jump from A to D. You have to go from A to B to C, then to D. It just shows me more think... It shows me that a DJ is thinking about their set and how to keep it clean and how to keep it flowing. And like you said, whether the staff or the customers know what's happening, they know what sounds good or what doesn't. They're out enough to know. It's just a, it's something that I'm hearing more and more and more of and it drives me absolutely crazy. And it's something that I really focus in my sets to make sure that I'm DJing in that way. So that it is more of a journey, it's more of a flow. I think that the music pool is vast. There is so much music, there is so much popular music, it is very difficult to wrap your head around bringing all of this music together in a clean way. It's very hard. And how I kind of have avoided really feeling confused and overwhelmed is really having staple tracks. And you don't have to play... the tracks in the same order, just have tracks that you rely on that you know work, right? There's probably 50 of them that I can think of offhand, right? That I'm like, okay, those staple tracks work. I'm going to always play those 50 tracks. It's the other hundred that I'm gonna mess with around those tracks, right? Our industry and the people that we are DJing for aren't as educated as we think. They know all the... shallow end of the pool country, house, vocal house, Latin music, and you can play all that shallow end of the pool stuff for them, because that's what they want to hear anyway. So keep your core and then build everything else around it. New tracks are going to come and go. They're going to be fads and then they're going to be gone in three weeks to a month. Right. And that's the stuff that you could pull in and throw away. Are those fad tracks and then some tracks are gonna just stick around for a long long time And you guys probably have different Music in your head as I'm saying this you're like, yeah, this one has been around for two years and yeah Well, that's gonna be a staple track that you'll learn Carrie for five six years you know and remix will come out and you'll start playing that remix instead of whatever previous remix or edit or original that you were playing. You don't know that that could be a bi-lifunk remix of that song and now you're heading in a whole different direction, right? So there's ways to play around with this, but you just have to be creative and sit and think about your set and not just walk up there and just haphazardly throw music up. Right, I think a lot of this is your preparation and how you organize your music as well. Are you prepping for those individual sets? Are you creating subfolders with all these different subgenres, right? And that's part of it, doing your homework and just sort of being prepped for your set, having a plan. Do you think that some of this is happening with DJs that have like a 45 minute set to an hour set and they're just trying to get music in? You know, they're not building a DJ set. They're just trying to slam the records that they want to play. Maybe, I don't know. They're just trying to like get their shine, you're saying, and they just want to play the John Summit track and like rock out to it. Because like, I heard a calling and I heard John Summit and I heard back to back John Summit. I'm like, I don't want to hear this at summer club, you know, like I want to hear something else. I want to hear something. We're outside. It's a beautiful day. We're at the, you know, it's sunset. Like I want to hear something different. I don't know. I think that's part of it is everyone's trying to get their shine and get that crowd reaction and get the video and like that's part of it for sure. and part of it is just not knowing because they're just young, inexperienced DJs and not knowing what good is. They've been DJing in their bedroom or in their frat basement and now they're put in front of a crowd in a venue that's trying to make money and they don't understand that they're how they don't even understand their place in this nightlife. cog that's happening, you know? And again, that's how an inexperienced DJ can hurt your venue and has hurt nightlife overall. But it's not the DJ's fault at the end of the day. It's not the. It's not, because somebody else put them there. Now, should that DJ go and then do his homework or her homework after that gig? Absolutely, and continue to become a better DJ, sure. But at the end of the day, somebody hired them. So. wants to be on the fast track, man. Everybody wants to be on the main stage and like... it's sort of part of our cultural, where we're at culturally as well, you know, everybody wants to move quickly. Everybody wants to play the big spots, the best spots. And they'll do whatever to get there. Yeah. forever. Like, forever somebody started yesterday and wants to be doing whatever the biggest guy's doing. Yeah, you know, you and I talk about it in our business, like times are different, right? It's not when we first started where we had to, we were forced to pay our dues and like, I don't know. I think it's a different time and we sort of have, in talking about Get Down, we have to approach our business and dealing with our DJs and coaching our DJs a little differently from five years ago even, you know? It's a different time and I think we, like in everything else we talk about, if we're not adapting, like we're gonna, lose, right? Our business isn't going to do as well. So I think it's the same thing in running Get Down, coaching our DJs. It's just different. Yeah. But yeah, man, I would love to see, you know, these places that I walk into with a headliner, a support act, and then two other resident opening DJs that really know the room. I bet you your party would be better than if you did that, than if you just slapped four promo DJs around a headliner. Like you're gonna make more money, you're gonna have a better party, your customer's gonna have more fun and want to come back. Now, as a venue, you might put out an extra couple thousand dollars for entertainment. But as a DJ who knows how we affect revenue, I think that extra one or 2 ,000 can net you five to 10 ,000 on the backend of revenue because your DJs are better and creating a better vibe and people are staying and spending more money. I will forever have that mind state. I'm gonna talk to promoters here for a second because a lot of times there are none. Well, whoever's managing talent at places, I guess that's kind of where it's fallen away too though because there's been parties, there's still a party that's been going for 20 years and there used to be parties that went for 10 years and 15 years and parties outlasted venues because they built a good party. The structure of the party was correct. The music was always good. It was hard to go play those parties because you had to be talented. I think that's gone away, right? Like the building an actual party, like having the resident guy at the party and then they bring in talent around them, that's kind of faded away. And I'm thinking of like some of Clutch's residencies, Chachi's residencies from years past, and you know, when A would come in and the two of them would play and like. What the hell of a day like having a child to your clutch and an AM in your room, you know? Rather than having promotions, rather than having promoter companies, there's more like people that are throwing parties and sort of moving around to different venues and they create a brand for themselves. They have a bunch of promoters. They have a bunch of DJs. Then they'll bring in acts to supplement their team. Like those seem like the people that are doing the best right now. Across the country. Like I've talked to Angela the Kid in Charlotte. It's doing very successful there. We're seeing it a little bit here in New York. Definitely. We, I was just talking about knockdown center and I think they have two or three different, different parties that come through that venue that I don't think work for the venue. They just bring the party in and like very, very successful sell out every time. Right. And those groups are doing parties at different venues. Sometimes it's like a different theme or a different style of music. That seems to be what's working right now. You know? It's not, hey, promoter company, come promote this venue and, you know, book the local and regional talent and let's have a, let's sell bottles kind of thing. Like that ain't working. it's the new approach, it's a good approach, it keeps things fresh, you know, people don't get stale, but speaking of fresh and new and new and shiny things, as we know, I'm a huge deadhead and we're I think three weeks into the Sphere, Sphere in Vegas residency, they're doing 30 shows into August, every Thursday and Friday and Saturday night. I'm said I'm not going there's no fucking way. Don't even I hate Vegas. Don't ask me to go. I don't care. You can give me tickets. I'm not going. You're going. out, video came out, it looks incredible. The visuals, they did a great job with it, because when Phish went through there, Phish played 420 there, and everybody said it looked like a Microsoft screensaver. I guess just there, the visuals weren't up to snuff. Denon Company starts, it's obviously a 30-show run, and they put some time and effort, obviously, into what they're putting out, the product that they're putting out, and it looks incredible. So as I'm watching this, my one big thing here is there's 18 ,600 seats there, right? Meaning there's about 1 ,400 person capacity down on the floor, which is still a decent size. I only wanna be on the floor, I don't wanna be in the seats. I have no interest in that. So while I'm thinking about that, I'm thinking, well, how would a DJ translate in this space, right? would this, because initially I'm like, this would be sick. It would be a great thing for a DJ to do or an act to do. And I think we rethink about what's their names. The Afterlife Party, right? Anma or whatever the... I never know how to say their names. Yeah, with their visuals. any of those parties that are super visually forward. like that would be ridiculous in that space, ridiculous. Like that would be amazing, I think I would go for that, but like, just a straight up DJ set that wasn't so visually focused, how do you think it would pull off? Obviously you'd have to build visuals around the set, right? That's the whole point. the dead thing, but to answer your question, I would say if a DJ is booking a gig to play at the Sphere, I would say they're gonna spend a shit ton of money to make sure that their visuals are gonna stand up to that space. That's why people go there. Like, that's what it is, you know? It's a new way of consuming music or entertainment. and it's sort of playing with all your senses, right? Not just your ears, but your eyes and you know, I don't know if they're doing like, are they doing like smokes and smells and different things to like feel like you're really in it? I don't know. Like I think of like when we go to Disney and then we are on the ride and they spray like the smell, like they should be doing that in the spirit too. That'd be ridiculous. Well, I'm sure the dead, the dead Joe just smells like a dead Joe. It just smells like hippies and weed. So. I'm the last possible people on earth that I would think would book the Sphere would be like Fish or Dead. It's just so, it's so against anything that I associate with the people that go to those shows and the bands. But I think when they announced this, everybody kind of shunned it a bit and said, you know, this is so not something that we're interested in. Like we go for the music. And it doesn't matter if I'm looking at the wall at, I was gonna say Giant Stadium, at like MetLife Stadium or, you know, Boulder Stadium that I went to last year. Like I can literally be staring at the wall. And like, as long as I can hear them, that's fine. Right. You know, has nothing to do with looking at a band or sure, they're their visuals behind the stage are incredible. Always. They're very, very good. But that's for the that's for everybody that's on LSD and on shrooms. And you can get lost in that stuff just at like a stadium. Forget this whole sphere thing. I feel like people would be freaking out over there if they're doing those types of extracurriculars. I've seen a couple PSAs by concert goers that were like, bring a lot of water, be sure that you have a seat because you're gonna wanna sit down at points. They say it's completely overwhelming. A lot of people are like, they're breaking down, they're having emotional experiences. But. crack me up sometimes. I guess when you're getting into your extracurriculars pretty heavy, it can be overwhelming, I'm sure. It looks pretty crazy. The stuff that they've been doing is dope. Go check it out. board. I'll go see I go see anyone but you two there for the record. Fuck you two. All right. But I would go see anyone except you two there just because I think it's such a cool, unique, interesting, awesome thing. And as far as for the DJs, like I would love to go see Knock2 or whoever that I'd be really hyped to go see that I know is gonna do some crazy visual to go along with the show. Now, I agree with you. I'm not a in the seat type of person for concerts. Like it's just not really my favorite thing. Whenever I've seen like big MSG shows, like I like them, but they're just not as good to me. Then going to like the festival grounds or just being in GA somewhere. I'm a big GA guy. Like you just really, I feel like you experience the show in a better way. Now, do I want to have VIP so I can get out of the mess? You know, go to a nice bathroom, get a vodka soda. Absolutely. man. Maybe pop a bottle if I'm feeling, you know, real good. No, I don't know. my concert experience, completely different. But yeah, generally not a fan of like the seated shows. Yeah, it seems like everybody's standing up. I think everybody has a seat. I think there's 18 ,000 seats, I believe. I think that's how I read it. But like I said, everybody's standing up, so I'm like, can you sit? But generally at a dead show, nobody sits anyway. I think at most shows, does anybody sit at a show anymore? Probably not. I mean, rarely. Like for a few minutes maybe if you just take a seat to like rest for a second. Yeah, I well, you can see how many non-dead shows I've been doing the last five years. Right, right, right, right. But yeah, I was just thinking like. How would it I mean, I guess, because I still feel like DJ sometimes don't translate in arenas so well because of the seat situation, and I'm thinking about Black Coffee at MSG and I'm like that I would have loved to go to that, but I feel like it would be strange to be shoulder to shoulder with somebody like. while Black Coffee's playing and like, I wanna dance, you know? And like, I want my own space. I think you would you would the first couple DJs you're gonna see in there are gonna be the biggest ones right Calvin Harris Tiesto like the guys that are already doing those massive stadium shows anyway I think that you're not gonna see lower level DJs that don't have the dollars for production like you're gonna get the top end guys or girls with massive production budgets and it's gonna be awesome Televus has to do it. I know that they're not huge, but I think they could do 20 ,000 people there. No problem for their afterlife party. No problem. around the country would fly to Vegas to go to those shows and pack out the sphere for sure. I got guys like Jay Diamond texting me about, yo, did you see the visuals? I'm like, you don't know anything about this. Yeah, but Cream, the visuals are sick. So people that aren't even in this world that much are into it, you know? I love their music, I love their production, everything they do is fantastic. The whole label. The whole label, they do a great job. But yeah, I was just figuring I'd get to throw a little dead stuff in the podcast this week, I get excited about it. man, my computer's gonna die shortly. So it looks like our episode's kinda coming to an end here. I wanna give a huge shout out to Nico Oso and everybody that came out to our event, our Beats Bartendos and Brushes event last night. Nico is a fucking beast, bro. Nico's, every time I watch Nico, it's like damn, man. Nico is ridiculous. He is such, not only is he an incredibly talented technical DJ, He can also party rock and he's an amazing performer. He's amazing on the mic. He's amazing getting people involved. He had a bunch of DJs in a room last night interacting with him during his set, which to me is the hardest room to play for. And he had people interacting, doing like putting hands up, like doing anything that he asked. And I was super impressed, but I'm always impressed by Nico and he's a great dude and super talented human. And I wish him nothing but. the best because he's awesome. born entertainer. I told you I saw him down in Miami. He was hosting the iHeartRadio table and I spoke to him for about three minutes and I was absolutely spent and exhausted afterward because he's just energy and he's good at what he does. Every time I send him dates or text him to book him, I'm like, I hope you can still give me a date. I know you're gonna blow any second and you're not gonna book anything that I ask you to book, but. Yep. Soon enough. So yeah, shout to Nico and everybody that came out last night. We're gonna take a little pause on the networking events for the rest of the summer. We're gonna come back strong in the fall. When everybody's back, you know, it's vacation time. It's just not, it's a good time to take a little break, I think. And we'll see. We might do something a little different. We might come back with the same, we're not 100 % sure yet, but definitely look out for Tri -State New York events again this fall for sure. All right, let's wrap it. Alright guys, thanks for listening to this episode. We'll catch you guys soon. Peace. peace.