This Decision Will Skyrocket Your DJ Bookings 🚀

• Cream asks Gary "What would you do in this DJ situation?"
• Reading the room and catering to the crowd is essential, especially in slow rooms.
• The role of MCs and hosts can significantly enhance the atmosphere.
• Transitioning to USBs presents both challenges and opportunities for DJs.
• Bottle service is becoming less popular among younger generations.
• Festivals like Lost Lands attract passionate fans and create unique experiences.
• Venues need to adapt to changing nightlife trends to remain profitable.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Feedback on Previous Episode
• 2:45 Navigating DJ Challenges and Audience Requests
• 6:08 Catering to the Crowd vs. Venue Expectations
• 9:05 The Importance of Reading the Room
• 11:47 The Role of MCs and Hosts in DJing
• 15:12 Dealing with Requests in Specific Genres
• 17:59 Transitioning to USBs in DJing
• 20:00 The Evolution of Bottle Service in Nightlife
• 31:58 Lost Lands Festival and Its Unique Appeal
• 36:56 Current Events in Nightlife and Bottle Service Trends

Transcript

0:02

All right, what's up guys? Welcome to the 163rd episode of the Grow My DJ Business podcast brought to you by the Grow My DJ Business Discord, Digital Music Pool and Pyrrhoi Production Academy. My name is Kareem. Darius over here. What's up, Gary? We got really, really great feedback on our last podcast. And in listening, I was like, you know, that was a really good episode. I haven't, somebody asked how recording went and I immediately thought it was a good episode and I haven't walked away from an episode and like thought that immediately in a long time. I was like, don't know why, it just really went well, thought. So, you we're growing in our YouTube, in the YouTube space right now as well. So if you guys aren't following us over there on YouTube, check us out, get the DJ group on YouTube. throw us a subscribe and a couple likes on some videos, that'd be great. Yeah, let's go subscribe, like comment. I don't care if you're not watching. Just do us a favor. Go help us out. We're trying to grow the show. Let's go. yeah, I think one of the one feedback, someone text me about another person who is DJing all over the place and and involved with some hospitality groups and booking a lot of DJs was he said, you know, I sit down with ownership and management and I coach them on how to talk about the music and sort of giving feedback to DJs. Because I think I think there's a huge gap where you I think you mentioned on the pod where sometimes the managers, they sort of know what they want, but they don't know how to express it. Or like you said, they know if it's good or bad, but they don't know how to express that. And he was saying that, you know, I talked to them and explain like, this is how you explain what we're doing here. Like this is the format, this is what we're looking for. And this is how you can explain to a DJ if they're not doing that format. So I thought that was awesome and I'm like, man, we should have some convos with our owners and managers and stuff. Yeah, it's easier when like you and I are in the room and we're playing a room and then we know what that room needs, right? Because, you know, we're there doing it, but it's those situations when we're not playing in the rooms that it becomes a little more gray area. Right, I mean that's a different story, but I think this is more for like long -term relationships or the higher -end venues where you and I are in more often. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I liked it. It was a great, conversation. Yeah, so if you guys haven't checked out last episode, go check it out. What was the title? I'll never book you. Yeah. You gotta be more positive out here, Gar. She's trying to get some trying to get some clicks green come on So, all right, so I want to tell a little story of a situation that I was in recently at one of my bookings. And I was texting you while it was happening, like, I don't really know what to do in this situation. And before you gave me what you thought I should do, I said, you know what, don't even give me anything. Let's not talk about this. Let's save it for the podcast. And maybe we can sort of do this moving forward where one of us is put in a situation, we can pose the situation. And then whoever, you know, like I'm gonna explain what happened and you can kind of say what you would have done and then I'll tell you guys what I actually did. So, I was at a venue, Sunday Funday. It's a place that I've been playing for me the last two or three years. In previous seasons, it was always packed, right? It's this big brunch party. We play all EDM pretty much, high energy. There's confetti poppers and cryo and... and MC and games and giveaways and all this other stuff that's happening to create this fun Sunday Funday environment. And this was the first time I was there this year and it was super slow, like four tables slow when there's probably 20 tables. So, you know, I sort of was approaching it as I'm going to play the format that I would normally play. I'll play more dance music rather than like big EDM stuff to start. and we'll get busier and we'll get into what we normally do here. Well, it never got busier and you know, I'm trying to force in some higher energy stuff and it's just not working. The people who were there celebrating birthdays and engagements and whatever else were requesting Jersey Club, Sexy Red, music that we wouldn't normally play in that venue on a Sunday. So I was posed with the the situation of do I just continue doing what is on script and what I know the venue wants and what the identity of this party is? Or do I go off script and play the music that I know is gonna work in the room right now, which would have been more hip hop and Jersey club, a little bit of Spanish, because that's what was getting requested. There's a small amount of people. What do you do? I am always guilty of catering to the customer that's in the room. I wanna play what they wanna hear. I'm not here for me. And even at that point, sometimes I feel like, especially in a slow room, it's like you have to cater to those people. In my opinion, they're the only people there. That's what's predominantly getting requested. Can I get away with it? Now, does the management and does ownership want you to play? stuff. That's the next question. Let me paint this other picture. I didn't know one person working there. It was all new management, new bartenders. No one even came up to me and said, what's up? Or talk to me about switching over. I was working with Nico and when he got there, he basically switched me over and I just started playing. There wasn't one directive, not a hello, nothing. And I think this is relatable for DJs who don't own a booking company and who aren't the bookers of the venue and who are just showing up to do their job. So that was, I was in that situation. This is not one of our venues type thing. Right, it's not one of our venues and if you don't know the management, they didn't come up and you don't know who's in charge and you don't know if the owner's in the room and I think you need to tow the line, right? I think you need to, what I would do is maybe play some remixes that are more on brand what you would usually play but of songs that are being requested. So maybe not Sexy Red, the original track, maybe a more up tempo. you know, maybe house leaning remix, right? And then you, so you're kind of catering to both. You're catering to the format of the room and then you're also catering to the clientele that's in the room. Same thing with Latin. would probably, you know, I think you just tow the line and then if you don't have remixes and whatnot, you should be connected to wifi and have the ability to download on the spot so that you can, play requests. I make sure that at every venue, and I think everybody should make sure that I'm connected to Wi -Fi so I can download because I don't have every single song. I'm pretty picky about what goes on to my computer. So I don't have a ton of music that's just sitting around there. So I do download on the spot quite often. So that's kind of what I would do because I do love to cater to the crowd. because I want to make sure that they're having a good time. They're the ones that are there spending money. Our industry is struggling already to get people in the door. Why not make those people that are through your doors happy? Right? And that's where I stand with it. Even if it's not on brand with the party, mean, let's think about that portion of it too. Like, if it's dead, maybe that format's just not working for that room anymore. You know, maybe there needs to be a transition. then the, and then I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, so you weren't really getting booked as DJ from the artist here, right? Like you're more like local. Yeah, this was like a local Sunday fun day in a in Jersey, but not the area that I normally play in kind of thing. Right, yeah, so I think that needs to be then thought about too. Why is it dead? Maybe the format's not working, but that's not your problem at that point. I think you just need to make the customer happy. So what did you do? So I tried to play within the format. This is a room that's like strictly we don't want hip hop type thing. So I sort of did what you said where I wasn't playing like, I'm playing like the most shallow end of the 128 pool. And some of that was even like Pitbull Hotel Room Service, Sean Paul Temperature, you know, the Ice Spice Boys -A -Lir, which is sort of you know, up tempo Jersey club ish, but not a heavy hip hop record. And I tried to tow the line for a while and sort of stay on brand. It still wasn't really working. We didn't get more people in the room. And I just reached the point where I was like, I'm just gonna play what these people want to hear. And that's it. And if they don't want to have me back, they don't want to have me back. But and if someone says something to me, I'm just gonna say like, I played what I thought would help make you the most money. So yes, I played sexy red. Yes, I played Jersey club. Now, did I play like the dirtiest versions or the the, you know, again, shallow end end of the pool, like most popular stuff, right? Like, Lil Uzi just want to rock and a little bit of ice spice and like the most popular sexy red and Drake. And then like back to 100 BPM and like Rihanna and just like, I hit that like very plain Jane pop hip hop stuff. In those situations, all of that Drake 118 to 130 BPM stuff always works because it's so poppy, but it's still in the hip hop world, right? But also, I don't know, he's got a bunch of records in the 118 BPM to 130 BPM range. There's four or five of them that are mainstays that when I'm in a situation like that, I play all of them and sometimes I'll play them back to back. Yeah. You know, especially if like you're in a slower room, there's you don't have a dance floor. Like you're not worried about all of that stuff. It's so like, I will sit in like that, that Drake stuff. Cause it's, it's just pop, you know, it's, it's pop, but it tells with the black coffee production, you know, there's like, I think he's got two tracks with black coffee. Like those always seem to work and it gets people singing a hundred percent of the time, you know, Yeah, that was like I said, I tried to stay within the format because it's not my party. I know that they want a certain thing, but it just reached a certain point where I was like, all right, this is this is it. This is who we got. We're not getting more people, you know, there's an hour and a half left in this party or like maybe two hours. And it's like, it's now or never to play what these people want here to just keep them here as long as possible. And we ended up getting like a party or two that came in. that was just hanging out at the bar that didn't have a table. And like, I was able to keep them till the end of the party, which realistically, I, you know, I probably made them a little extra money in going that route and just caving and playing the room. And I think as DJs, we sort of have to do what's best for the room as far as the music, and then explain later to management, you know? And like we always talk about, I played hip hop and I played sexy red because of these reasons. We had three parties and all of them asked me to play this music. It kept them here for an extra round of shots. It kept them here for an extra round of drinks. And also I'm working with Nico and Nico is the best. He's the best at getting people engaged. He also kept them there. He was given birthday shots out. He was playing games with the people that were celebrating like in tandem. At the end, said, Nico, how much money did you and I make this venue for just doing what we do, you know? And we've worked together so much that like, I know what he's gonna do and I know what music he wants me to play in certain moments. And it was just, it's been a while since I worked with him and it was awesome. Just like getting back in that groove between the two of us. It's nice to have somebody to work the room, right? I think that it's another thing that almost has fallen by the wayside because people, because budgets are getting cut so bad that like having a host, like having a host is huge. You know, when it creates such an environment, and it creates such, just a great vibe for the room and it really sets places apart. The places that have hosts, it really, it's noticeable, right? And then the DJ can really focus on DJing, you know, It's rare nowadays. I've been trying to find an MC for Halloween at Birch in one of our spots, one of our nightclubs, and it's been a struggle. Yeah, if you're an MC. There's a handful and it's mostly all guys who've been in the game for a while, you know? Yeah, because it's not as sexy as DJing, you know, and people, everyone wants to be the DJ now. So like that's, you know, that's the route that people have gone down. And having the host thing is really like we said, gone by the wayside because hosts aren't cheap because that's a big job, you know. I have a question. How about, I'm trying to think about when... When I play 626 on Sunday, I get a lot of requests. This is going back to dealing with requests and wanting to stick to what vibe you're trying to create. And I know up there, like on a Sunday, we're trying to play Soul House and throwback Disco House and Disco and stuff like that. But inevitably, you get your Bad Bunny requests and you get your pop requests for your Charlie XCXs, et cetera. And it's like... Sometimes when you leave the genre and you got to try to go back that way, it's hard, especially like in a soul house, disco house situation. Like what do you, and then go back. Like you can't go back. I always find like if I'm going to leave, I'm leaving. You know what I mean? But even me as the Booker there and you know, one of the top two, rotating DJs that play in that room, I can stick to tech house and and house and disco. And like, I would never have to play a request there. And that's the form, because that's the format that they want for that particular party. In that situation though, like, do you ever feel weird? Like, do you take the, would you take the request and once you leave that genre, like, you know, would you go back? Would you try to go back? Like is, is I get stuck in this situation where I'm like, I don't want to leave what we're doing here. but it's important to make the people happy. It's hard to say. I think on those Sundays or Thursdays or afternoon sets, I'd be more open to just sort of playing whatever that's gonna work. If I'm playing a Friday or Saturday night and it's a certain format, like I'm gonna stick to that format. And if someone asked me for a song, I'm just like, listen, this is a EDM party or this is a whatever party, like, sorry. Because what I find many times is if someone's requesting hip hop and I play like a tech house version of that hip hop song, they're still not happy. They're not happy. you know, it's mostly with hip hop requests where it's like, they don't want to hear the tech house version of hip hop, they want to hear the original. And I get that. But it's really hard to say, Gary. It's like, it's a case by case thing. I'm of the idea where like, if we have a theme for a party, if this is a disco house party, I'm gonna try and stay disco house unless I absolutely have to leave it. Yeah. And like the Sunday party, I'm gonna stay EDM unless I absolutely have to leave it. And we've been talking about these themes and parties that are more specific and more genre specific have been working better. And I think if we're trying to do that, sometimes you just have to deal with the hard set that's just not that good because you're just training people of like what this party is. Right. We've had, yeah. be that person having to like force it than one of our DJs that we booked there that we then get feedback like, well, this DJ wasn't that good. They didn't play with what the room wanted. Right, right. Yeah, it's it's it is it's very case by case situation. You really got to feel it out and see. If you're a DJ that plays in a specific room often and you have good relationships with the staff, like they're gonna trust you to do what's necessary, right? But if you're like in my situation from the gig we were talking about, I don't know anybody. This isn't my gig. Another DJ who I respect and trust put me on his party, you know? So I'm trying to protect his party. I'm trying to make sure their staff makes money and the party makes money. So it's a little different and I think... That situation that I was in is more like what you guys who are listening go through. You're probably not the booker, you know? You might not be the resident there. You're just going to play a party and you get put in these tough situations and it's really hard to figure out what to do. I would say trust your gut. Trust your DJ gut of what you think is the best thing to do in the situation. And sometimes it's gonna be stick with the format and other times it's gonna be cave and play what's gonna make the room money and what makes sense for the people that are in the room. And if you're a good DJ, you'll be able to make that decision. Yeah, yeah, read the room, read the situation, and do what's right. That's really what a great DJ gets paid to do, right? Read the situation and figure out what to do and what to play and how to navigate who is in the room. Yeah, I would in dealing with some of the ownership that we deal with and like sometimes they just like they're making a decision. I'm thinking about like we do a lot of we do a few spots with game sound for football and sometimes like a manager will try to make a decision before the Sunday even happens. He doesn't even know who's in the room anything and it's like, but you can't just blindly make a decision without without being there and knowing like what not know. we're going to play game sound versus we're going to DJ for the whole time? Yes, yes. And I'm like, just let my DJ make that decision. Like, he's gonna do what's right for, he's not gonna wanna empty the place out by just playing music when you might need to play game sound, you know what I mean? It's just, I feel like we have to not command some kind of respect from the places, but you know, explain that hey, I'm on your team and I'm doing what's right for your place, you know? venue and a good manager will recognize that and they'll trust the DJ to make the right choice in the situation. And if you make the wrong choice, maybe they'll come tell you to go back to doing whatever you were doing previously, or maybe they'll just let you rock. And at the end, you guys have a conversation and that's it. And next week, the room is busy and you play it like it normally is. And this is just a one -off situation where you had to do what you had to do to have a successful day. Yeah, just so important right now to keep your customers happy, like I said, because it's getting harder and harder to get people in the door. Yeah, and at time where venues are struggling to make money, think adapting to what's happening in front of you is more important now than maybe ever. Yeah, definitely. All right, let's talk about something that you've been kind of doing in your DJ career here and you're playing a little bit more and more on USB sticks and I personally, not for me, but I want you to talk about kind of your journey into this and how you've liked it and I'm gonna give you my reasons of why I don't think I would ever. I'm ever going to do it. Yeah, I mean, I've been talking about it a bunch over the last few episodes, just my transition from computer to USB. And it's not a hundred percent transition, but for all my big parties where I'm headlining a room, I've been trying to go the USB route, or I have been going USB route. And it's been a challenge, man. It's the most challenging thing I've done in my DJ career in quite some time, you know? It's hard. It's hard. And I would say the most important thing is the organization of your music in record box and then to your USB. And week by week, I've been spending more and more time and just getting my USB sticks more organized, more cleanly or clearly defined. And really having some base folders on there that I can go to and then having obviously my specific party folder that I create prior to every gig. Yeah, it's a challenge because it's, I just feel a tick slower, right? A tick slower in getting to where I want to go, a tick slower in transitioning song to song. Sometimes where like, normally I wouldn't play this second verse and drop and build of this song, but I had to because I wasn't ready to play the next track type thing. I'm not planning out sets, you know? I'm creating folders that I play out of and I'm seeing what's happening in front of me and adjusting and you know, you can expect or you can plan for this big EDM tech house progressive house set and then it's not that and what do you do? You have to have folders that are on that stick that can allow you to go do something else. Yeah, I'd have to like sit home and play around with that for, you know, hours on end to just really get used to having everything be second nature. And like just navigating and I mean, you have to be super organized, not to say that every DJ should be super organized in the Serato era. mean, like you have to be. Mine is so overly organized. Doug says, one of our DJs, I never mind jumping on your computer because I know exactly where everything is because it's all right there. I think that's rare for DJs in most cases to have a very organized Serato. I don't know. Everyone's organization is different. Like I could jump on your computer and have no idea what to do. And same with you going on mine. I used to play on yours at, Ainsworth and it was never a big deal. I liked, I could play off yours pretty good. Yours. Yours is very organized as well. play out of these two folders and then you sort of just go and play out of those couple folders, right? easy, right? It just, this reminds me of when, when like, when I transitioned skin, it's ancient. This is so many years ago when I transition from CDs and vinyl over to Serato. And it was like the way I like the way I used to do it on CDs. I would make one CD a week, right? And I would have all the, all the club banger tracks that I'm going to play that I downloaded from that week. And I would, I'd I'd make two of them and then I'd be able to bounce back and forth, you know, for peak hour and I'd be hitting all those records. And then when I transferred to Serato, I was like, well, this doesn't really make sense. I don't know how to do it. And that's why I still organize things by date and not by, and not just by it's genre and date is how I kind of do mine now. because that's, that was the system that made sense in my head, but like setting up your USB sticks. know when I was messing around with just having them as backups, has it gotten any easier? Yeah, I mean, there's a program called Lexicon that will literally transfer over all of your folders with the cue points from Serato to Rekordbox. I haven't used it yet. It just sort of scares me. I used to use something called RekordBuddy and one time it like completely erased a bunch of stuff and I had to like pull up my backup Serato and I've been a little scarred since that happened. So and I heard other stories of people having issues with that RekordBuddy program. It doesn't exist anymore. And that's probably why I don't believe so. So I know Lexicon is the new one and I've been saying that I'm going to spend some time in doing it, but I just haven't done it yet. But yeah, I'm going I'm going to dabble into that. think the way I do it is I'll open, I'll do all my organizing that I would do every week in Serato. And then I'll drag over whatever, you know, next folder, whatever new folder for whatever party I've created into Serato, right? And that's sort of how I do it. And that's how I update it. But it's a lot, man. I compare it to, let's say you're a nightclub DJ, and then you start doing private events, and you have to like sit there and go back and like build out all these folders. And then you go and play a private event and someone asks you to play whatever disco and you're like, damn, never built, haven't built out that folder yet. And it's sort of the same thing on USBs where, you know, I was in a situation where I thought I was going to play a bunch of uptempo and they're just so happened to be a bunch of older people in the room where like my party classic 2000s hip hop folder would have crushed, but I just didn't have it on the USBs because I didn't think I was gonna have to touch that. You know what I mean? So I think over time and over the last couple months, my USBs have gotten more built out and more organized and more music. But in that first transition, like you get what's this is it like this is what's on my USB you get what's on there and if I prepped incorrectly then I'm gonna have a bad night kind of thing luckily I didn't haven't had any bad nights yet but That's scariest part, right? Well, it's sort of liberating at the same time because it's like, well, I don't have your shitty request. I'm playing on my USBs. I don't have it. I can't download it. I can't go on YouTube. And that conversation's over. you But I don't know, like I'm not really playing in a ton of rooms where I have to deal with a ton of requests other than like on the phone type requests. So I would say, the reasons why I did this was as I'm playing better rooms and playing shorter sets, it just presents better to me in this EDM world to be on sticks. It's just more of the norm, honestly. I think people go up there and you see a DJ on a computer and they think like, this is like, an old DJ or at a touch or because every big artist is playing on USB sticks at all the festivals and all the shows and that's just standard. So if I want to play in that world, I thought it was important for me to adapt to what is standard in that world. And when you're playing with artists or you're playing with other DJs, it's really easy to just switch over on a USB, like super simple. It does present more professional. That's a thousand percent. And I think the most important thing that you said there is that it's these shorter sets. Like when you're playing a two hour headlining set, hour and a half headlining set, like sure, you can get through on your USBs. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's a lot less. There's, there's zero chance that you need to go into a different genre. Like outside of, know, you're not going to play hip hop if you're hired to play, you know, as a, as a base house. the act. playing a bunch of hip hop on the sticks. It's not a big deal. It's just a much smaller folder than all my house tracks. And I also don't think it's the hours because I just played a Sunday Funday in Hoboken where I played four hours on USB sticks, but all I played was EDM and bass like bass house and techno, you know. So I think it's more so how many genres you're expected to play. If I'm going to Jersey City and I'm playing a five hour open to closed set where I know the customers want literally every genre. I'm not gonna play on a USB. It's gonna be, not that it's gonna be impossible, but it's just not worth it. Like, I'm not building out all these different folders on my USB to go DJ open format when I could just plug in my computer and it's already done. Yeah. Yeah, it's not not something that, you know, I like to play a billion different genres like a true open format DJ like I'm probably never going to strictly sticks. It's just not something that fits my brand of DJ. You could definitely do it, a thousand percent. could do it, yeah. But it would be the journey of you making the transition and then getting comfortable enough and feeling like you're doing a good enough job on the USB would just take you so long. You'd get, you know, you just not want to be like, fuck this. I'm just going back to my computer. A trick that I now do any set that I'm like, I'm going to play on my USB. I don't even bring my computer. I just bring USBs and that's it. It's like cream, like figure it out, bro. Like you're you're committed to this and that's it. I mean, it sounds very nerve -racking. I told you, it's the most uncomfortable I've been as a DJ in a very long time. But it's not a bad thing. I feel like I'm getting, I'm a better DJ and a better artist for it, for sure. And like, I'm gonna go play Trio, Charlotte, this week, and I'm playing on USBs, and like, I don't know, it just presents way better, and I just think your crowds are gonna respect you more. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm, I don't know. But I've seen videos on TikTok and stuff of like younger DJs, making fun of older DJs on computers kind of thing. But it all goes with, know, how you learned and, you know, you're adapting to the times of what you need to do in order to be a better artist. And, you know, these kids are going to all come up using USBs first and then never even having a computer in front of them. And that's all well and good. And then it'll be on to the next thing, you know, whatever that is. I think if you're thinking about doing it, just do it. Like just go all in on it and just do it and force yourself. Because I said to myself like, I'm gonna make the transition. I'm gonna make the transition. I just dragged my feet for probably an extra six months and instead of just saying like, fuck it, I'm doing this, let's go. And dedicating a bunch of time to organizing and that's it. Yeah. One week I just didn't download new music and I spent that week all the time that I would normally spend making edits and downloading and organizing. I just organized my record box. That was super helpful, to be honest. Yeah, I mean, if you're going to do this and you have to make it a priority 100 % and spend that that all that extra time doing that. Less is more, right? Those little gig -specific folders I create, only the stuff I 100 % want to play go in those folders. And then I just have the generic, like, know, base house, tech house, whatever folders that I'll then go to if I need to supplement what's in that smaller folder. getting wild out there sorry I don't know if you could see it's it's literally as we're recording it's coming it's passing by if you're watching this on YouTube you could see this room just got very very very dark I can hear it whipping out there so All right, let's get into our next topic. I watched from a distance all weekend of people posting TikToks and reels about Lost Lands Festival, which is like a base dubstep festival in Ohio that looks amazing. And it's something I said in our Discord, like, dude, if I had to pick one festival to go to, it would be this one. It's music I don't play, but it's music that I think is dope. watching the videos, like this looks so cool. It looks like the people are so into this. Yeah, I watched a couple of the videos that you recommended and just checked out some of the different stages and stuff that they have here. And I love music festivals that have some kind of stage in a forest somewhere. And it's all like, I remember Electric Forest back in the day being a really, really cool one because all the uplighting, all the lighting that's getting used in there is wild. Obviously that's not the main stage stuff. The Star Wars remix that you had suggested. Go ahead, explain that because it looks awesome. a Star Wars remix and played it and it was my favorite thing I saw from the whole festival. But basically like the pit opened, there was a drone camera kind of flying around and in the middle of the pit are two people dressed up as Star Wars characters, one red lightsaber, one green lightsaber. And they just like went at it in battle in the middle of the pit. And I thought it was like one of the coolest videos I saw all year being you know, a fan of the Wubs and then also a fan of Star Wars. And I hope that that was like impromptu and it wasn't something that like they set up to happen. Because if it was just something that happened organically, like coolest moment of the year to me, I feel like in dance music. looked awesome. It looked really cool. But there was a lot of those DJs. don't I probably out of that lineup because it's not the world that I'm a fan of. But like out of this lineup that I'm looking at, probably no like, I don't know, 20 percent. I'm trying to see here. It's one of those things where we've talked about these very focused parties, that are successful right now. And this is a very focused, you get, this is what you get. You either like bass music or you don't. And if you don't, you're not gonna go to this, you know? right. I feel like this genre or these genres have such a passionate fan base, like they love the rabbit, like love it, like live and breathe this shit, you know? And I think when you have something like that, well, it's pretty, it's pretty easy to sell tickets to when you're putting all of the great producers and artists in one place. And then you do it somewhere like Ohio that's, you know, not completely in the middle of the country, but you have it to where you can have people travel from all different parts of the country by car. Like if need be, you know, and people will. I feel like those are always success because you're not married to the East Coast, you're not married to the West Coast. It's pretty easy to get to for everybody. So just kind of like smart placement in that regard. I'm just laughing because I'm just thinking of like, if I was there, number one, I couldn't last a three day festival any longer, no way. And we've talked about like camping and all that stuff that it's just not for me either. But like, if I had to pick a festival to go to, I think it would be this one. Because I just think it's so different from what I do on a week to week basis. And it's a world that like I sort of see from afar and I'm just not in but I would love to go check out. I'm just drawn to it. I don't know why. Maybe next year, maybe we're have to do a little field trip. I'm pretty sure Snake also premiered his alias at Lost Lands called Outlaw and it's like techno. It's techno Snake. And there was another cool video of Snake and Crank That playing and they have a song together and I guess Snake debuted some remix that Crank That had never heard and you literally see his live reaction to the remix on stage which is pretty cool. I gotta check out some more stuff that came out of this past weekend. You know, we're talking a little sort of what's happening around the world in nightlife right now. And that was just something that I wanted to touch on. So, shouts all my bassheads out there. I know we got a couple in the group. We definitely do. We definitely do. HOVA converted basshead. Is it? Shout to Hova, you know, one of our guys here locally is moving. So he's leaving Tri -State New York and he's heading down to Charleston to start, you know, a whole new role down there with the hospitality group and DJing down there. So big shout to Hova. You know, he's gonna crush it. I don't even need to wish him luck because I know he's gonna do great down there. So shout to Hova. Told them once you leave, you never go back. So you come down south, that's it, it's over. All right, so another sort of current event that I want to touch on, but it sort of goes into this broader narrative that bottle service is a dying breed sort of thing. And I've seen that here recently with some of my shows and early on here in the fall around New York and Jersey. But this dude, Malone, Malone Lamb, basically had a crypto scam, was like a crypto phishing scam. And he stole like hundreds of millions of dollars from people. And there was all kinds of videos of him this past weekend. I don't know if he knew he was gonna get arrested, but in Miami, going to three different clubs on three different nights and spending like 100K, 80K on crazy bottle service, like shutting down the club type shit and. one that was like two, somebody said that he spent 250. Another person said he spent a million dollars. random hot girls, he's like, there's hot girls deserve Birkins and just handing out Birkin bags. He had to know he was going, he was going to get arrested and he was just like blowing it. you're like, fuck it, I'm just having the sickest weekend of my life and I'm gonna go to jail and that's it? Is that what he did? mean, if the FBI is gonna raid you, you gotta know something's up, right? I don't know, either either you're really dumb. Because if you're stealing millions and millions of dollars, like why would you bring this much attention to yourself? Why would you stay in the US? Like if you're stealing money? You got to get out of here? No, I don't know. Right. think he's from like Indonesia or something. I'm sure you can go to the Bahamas or one of these countries where the rules aren't the same kind of thing. It's. It leads to this greater thought is like is bottle service only for the ultra elite? You know, does it make sense for the normal person to get bottle service? You know, I used to do bottle service all the time when I was younger, but bottle service was like everybody was doing. You know, like that's how you got in anywhere. Right. It's you. You had to do bottle service to get into the party. That was generally why I ever did bottle service was because I'm just going to get a bottle. I know I have a spot. I'm bringing a bunch of friends and I'm good. Yeah, it used to be to the point where like once you finished your bottle, like they turned your table and the next person up. But so like they were turning tables with bottles back in the day. Now I feel like it's can't even sell a can't even sell a bottle. I don't know if it's looked at as, you know, just a dumb way to spend money, which in my opinion, it kind of is, especially with the, the, the markup is wild, but you know, obviously there's a lot of people that need to get paid from that. whether that's the VIP manager, the bottle waitress, et cetera. Right. And I think it lives in these spaces where people travel, right? Vegas, like, they could still push, you can't get in unless you're getting a bottle. They could still do that, you know? Miami, they could still do that. Scottsdale, Arizona. Yeah, I said Scottsdale earlier, like thinking about it, Scottsdale's not the biggest, like it's more bars that do nightlife kind of thing. I know one of my buddy goes to Scottsdale, they get bottles. Yeah. And they, not like just like, like a lot of bottles, like that's their, that's, that's their mo going out there. So I think it's looked at differently when you are traveling because you spend money differently when you're traveling, right? To, do this in like a home, you know, sub market, it's hard, like it's hard to sell bottles in a sub market where you just have a lot of locals because well, I'm if I'm going to get drunk, I'm going to, you know, maybe I'll pregame and then I'll just get some drinks at the bar, you know. there has to be some sort of incentive for doing bottle service. If I can just get into the place and spend money at the bar. And I don't have to wait in a long line. I don't have to pay this massive cover. Why get bottles? But God and that's what, and that's what has changed is the fact that you don't have to wait online. You don't have to be shoulder to shoulder anymore because you know, there's, there's just not, the crowds just aren't there like they once were. Right. really only like Miami and Vegas and even like Atlantic City on a smaller scale, they built the clubs to be very bottle centric. So if you don't have a bottle, you're not getting as good of an experience in a lot of cases in those places. Whereas in your local market, like bottle service is just like an extra thing on the side. It's like, yeah, we're going to sell bottles and we're going to make extra money and whatever. But there's no real incentive to have to do bottle service. Like in In the rooms that I'm playing right now, the tables that will always be sold are the ones that are on the stage or next to the DJ or behind the DJ. Like that gives you a cool, different experience that you can't get unless you do that. But like in most cases, you're getting a table on the side of the dance floor where like you kind of just want to be on the dance floor or in the bar anyway. So why am I going to get a table for no reason? Like the elevated tables on each side of the dance floor are always cool because they give you a good vantage point, but not a lot of these places are being built anymore with these things in mind, you know? The other thing with that too though, Gary, is if the rooms aren't super busy, why would you want to be upstairs away from the action where there's like nothing going on around you? And that's the other thing, the way things are built currently, all these venues are like, the bottle service is sort of not in the mix and it's not busy enough to have that ancillary space filled. And it's like, well, why am going to get a bottle on a different floor or a different section of where all the action's happening? I wanna be in the action. Right, mean, that's what you're paying to have, paying to have a space within where everybody's crowding, everybody wants to be, and you're just having your own. if there aren't a lot of, if you're the only person buying bottles or you and one other table, like, that's not fun, that's not an experience, you're just sort of secluded from everyone else. And it's like, what's the point of doing this? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's we're a far cry from like when bottle wars were a thing, you know? The last time I was part of a bottle war was I played Philly Roar, which is a very like bottle service driven or was I haven't been there in years. But this was probably like either during COVID or like right out of COVID. And literally I was on the mic, like egging the tables on each side of the DJ to who's going to buy more bottles. Which that used to be a thing like that used to happen. way more often. Whereas now it's like, I'm lucky to have two tables on either side of my DJ booth. They actually, back in the day when we were booking Ainsworth and Hoboken, I remember they opened this Ainsworth in Newark and like that was their Sunday. I think they called it bottle war Sundays and they just, and like for like eight straight weeks, they were selling dumb amounts of like champagne and whatnot. And they were having tables like by 15 bottles. Like it was like insane. It was a short lived party, but it was fun when it, while it was going on because they said it, you know, it used to get crazy like that, but like that doesn't exist anymore. Like you don't hear about that. Right. Yeah, mean, if you're, if you're, go ahead. you do in like a Vegas and a Miami still, I'm sure of it. Yeah, you go to Omnia, it's like, if you don't have a table, you're literally at this shitty bar in the back of the room, and like, that's where you get to hang out, you know? The whole place is tables. Or you're at Live, like, there's a little side bar that you get to hang out at, and like, I don't know. That isn't fun to me. Anytime I've ever been to those places, I've gotten tables, or been lucky enough to be at the DJ table, or whatever, like. I'm not going there and standing in the back or the side and spending money and waiting in line. Like, why would I do that? I'd rather not go than get that shitty experience. I'd rather pay up for the experience. local DJs, bookers, promoters, anybody listening to this, if you're trying to sell more tables or any tables, think about how can you incentivize customers to want to buy tables? What do they get? What experience do they get that's better than just walking into the club? And I think everyone that's involved in these conversations at venues needs to ask that question. What are we doing to incentivize people to actually buy tables? It has to be some experience that they can't get as a regular customer. And it can't just be some shitty little side of the room where you're roped off. Like that's not the answer. Maybe there is no answer. And if that's the case, like what's the next concept? How do venues make that money that they're losing from not selling bottles? They're not, and that's why everyone's doing so poorly right now. Yeah, drinks have gotten so expensive. It's I'm thinking about this from like a okay, if I'm going out and like there's it's a$300 bottle and there's four of us or something. But like drinks are now 2025 bucks for a drink. Now it's like, does it maybe make sense to get a bottle and get an area? Right. The gap is closing, you know, the gaps closing. it makes sense monetarily. Because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I I haven't really looked at many bottle menus in very long time, but like, correct me if I'm wrong, but like I think bottles have come down in price over, or they've stayed the same, you know? menu right now, because it was sent to me earlier. They've at the very least stayed similar to what they were 10, 15 years ago. Are they still three, 400 bucks? a standard bottle of whatever you would know, like regular vodka, tequila, whatever, you know, 250 to 350, let's say. And then your high -end stuff, your 1942, your Klaas Azul, like 500 -ish in that world. Champagne, 200 bucks, 200 to 500. You can get Ace of Spades, 600. I'd argue that it's come down. Because I think when I was going out, like it was like 350, was like normal. Yeah. or Vegas club for sure. Well, that menu is, you know, it's a sub market. It's a sub market of New York City. So you can't. market, a B market price list. Right. So you can't compare that to what they're charging in New York City. But I mean, you know, they've been charging between three and five hundred dollars since 2005 for a bottle. You know what I mean? And drinks back then, I think, were 10 or 11 dollars. And now, like drinks are twenty twenty twenty five dollars. So it's like that gap is seriously closing. So that. Since that gap's closing, does it make it more appealing to get the space? Maybe it's on sale. Maybe it's a little, you know, there's a little value in bottle service right now if you're a customer. We were talking with a new owner and they're opening a bunch of like some new places and their cocktail menu, he told me, was like, I think he said $16 to $23 per drink. That's the norm. And that's sort of what it is, right? That's the norm. I mean, I've stumbled across a couple $30 cocktails. think I had my first $30 cocktail not too long ago. I'm like, where in the world? But when you're talking about aged bourbon and things like that, you know, like the price goes up, you know? It's crazy. again, we've talked about this before with just the generation differences. And this is just not something bottle service is not something that the younger generation is that into unless you really show them that it's worth it. They're just they're smarter than our generation when it comes to nightlife. They they've made a stand and said, This is ridiculous. We're not doing this anymore. Right. I don't blame. So how do places adapt? That's the question. And I don't think places have adapted very well right now. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. It's an expensive adaptation, you know, because it's like entire concept change or entire layout change, which are things that are very expensive and in a time where places aren't doing as well, it's a lot harder to put that money up to do those things. Yeah. Yeah. Because your margins on bottles, that's where you're making a lot of your money as a, as a nightclub, a lot of your money. So. like going from let's say 20 tables in a night to five is a huge revenue drop. How many normal people walking through the door do you need to make up that 15 table difference? A whole lot. You can't make it up. You literally can't make it up. I don't care what cover it is, I don't care how much drinks are, it's just not, you're not able to make that up. Right? That's just revenue lost at the end of the day. And so you have to figure out what can you do to attract people in that space. It's hard. It's hard. Not a job I'd want. No, absolutely not. All right, I think this is a good place to wrap up. Before we go, I wanna promo the latest Cream and Friends. So Cream and Friends Volume 6 is out now. It is myself, Beatbreaker, JD Live, and Seen. So 12 edits from the four of us on SoundCloud, on Hyped It. You can go grab the edit pack for free. There's a mix on SoundCloud of all the tracks. Love it. about this one. pumped about this one. It's so fun to be able to put something out with people that I really respect and who I think are the best in the business. And that's what this Creaming Friends thing is all about. It's artists and DJs who I just think are super dope. And these are three of the best right now. So. I'm pumped about this one. It's going be great. Anything else? Anything else we need to promo? No, I think once we get the ball rolling on some of our new venues, we can give some shout outs, but we won't do anything yet. Sweet. All right, guys. Thanks for listening to this episode. We'll talk to you guys next week. Peace out.