Are 360 parties played out? How to throw a successful party. Do this to create an engaged email list.

On this episode of the Grow My DJ Business Podcast Cream & Gary W Discuss:

• Successful events require extensive planning and teamwork.
• The EDM scene in New Jersey is evolving and gaining popularity.
• Building a strong team can enhance the quality of events.
• The industry is a copycat industry; learn from successful events.
• Plan your trip around who you can connect with at Miami Music Week.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Power of Showing Up
• 3:42 Success of the 360 Party
• 6:33 Building a Strong Team for Events
• 9:35 Navigating the Summer Slowdown
• 12:37 The Evolution of the EDM Scene in Jersey
• 15:36 Creating Unique Experiences in DJing
• 18:44 The Importance of Originality in Events
• 22:50 The Value of Information in Event Promotion
• 28:13 Building Connections Through Email Marketing
• 30:49 Proving the Concept Before Monetization
• 33:35 Navigating the Evolving Nightlife Landscape
• 34:08 Miami Music Week: A Hub for Networking
• 39:59 Strategies for Success at Miami Music Week

Transcript

0:41

All right, what's up guys? Welcome to the 176th episode of the Grow My DJ Business podcast. My name is Cream. Gary W here, happy to be back. Yeah, always happy to be back. We're gonna knock out a quick pod today. Always a lot happening. What? What? Like right before you hit record, I'm like, ah, you know, I don't know if I feel like doing this today. And then you hit record, I'm like, all right, let's rock. Let's have a good time. It's kinda like running for me, honestly. Like the build up to running sucks. And then like as soon as I can loosen my legs up after about the first mile, I'm like, wow, this is great. Let's keep this rocking. It's kinda how I feel about the podcast sometimes. anything worth doing, there's always some sort of obstacle, right? So for me, it's spending 20 minutes setting up and doing the camera and the lights and the mics and all that stuff, because I don't have a set set up in my house. So like, that's my obstacle, right? And sometimes it's I'm so busy, I don't feel like doing this. But like you said, once you sit down to actually do the thing that you've set out to do, It's enjoyable. It's fun. enjoy, you know, it's part of our lives here. It's funny, we talk about how we like it. Even in meetings and stuff, we talk about how we like doing it. And always like an hour, the buildup to the hour before is like, don't really feel like doing this. I'm telling you, it is such that go to work out feeling. You just gotta get there. Just get yourself to the gym and then it'll feel good. Just show up. Title of the podcast, just show up. Yeah, easily. So, all right, so let's, we had our 360 party. had Rick on the show last week. you didn't, if you guys didn't check that episode, go check it out. You know, Rick's awesome. So we lined it up obviously to help promote our 360 event that we just had this past Saturday. And it was definitely our most successful party from pretty much every aspect, right? Like the promo was super on point. Like the social media were on point. The the event was amazing. It was packed. We sold like we had a bunch of tickets. We made more money revenue wise for that particular night than we had the first two 360 parties. So like, we're starting to see the fruits of our labor and the event was amazing. We were super busy by like 1030. We opened an hour early. Timo and Two Face set the tone and played a great early set energetic but not too aggressive. People were dancing, people were engaged, both floors of the place were packed. We sold out every bottle and table also. you did. You wound up... yeah, you guys were sold out before, you? Before the event started? Or almost? we we like sold all the tables, but we did give away a couple promo tables. This one we sold every table except for like our table directly behind us the one To your point about Timo and Two-Face, big shout out to them. They are kind of your main guys at Birch, right? They open for the bigger acts and then they also headline as well. So I think those are two really amazing openers for that party because not only do they know that room in and out, but they're also gonna bring the fans that they have built within that room that it just makes the party all that much better. They're familiar with what they're getting from on the front end. And then obviously you and Rick are going to bring a show as the headliners. And those are kind of ticket sellers, if you will, as it is. So yeah, I think it all just came together and all the stars aligned. And I love the synergy between the podcast and the, and the 360 event. You know, I know that was kind of on purpose, but it just really lined up nicely because Rick's been trying to come on on the show for a while now. So like we could have had them on. a month ago and it would have thrown things off, but it really just lined up beautifully. So yeah, it looked dope. All the video and the pictures that came out of it looked amazing. And I hope the next one's gonna be, and I know the next one's gonna be just as good, so. Yeah, I'm excited. I'll, Rivas is our next one. I haven't really thrown that out into the world yet, but everyone listening, we got Rivas for the next one. So I'm excited about that. You know, he and I have similar styles, I guess. And like, I just know that he and I will work well together and it'll be a great show. And I'm excited for that. Rivas is a great dude. Happy to have him back in town. He's played Birch before as well too, so. Yeah, he's familiar with Hoboken and I think if I was to pick any DJ that is a similar style to yours, at least in production I would say, it would be Revis. At least your older production even. So. event really just opened my eyes and this event was the most successful because we did the most work behind the scenes to make it successful, you know, Marco and Nick and Tim Vue and Timo like we've sort of created this team. Jules has been helping us on some YouTube and video, but like there's five or six guys now that are working on this project. We're going to brand we're going to brand the party. we're coming up with a name, we're going to launch it the whole nine and all the work that was put in. You see the result, right? That's what everyone sees is the result. The videos look amazing. We sold out high revenue, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But in order to do that, it's been a lot of calls, a lot of texts, a lot of time and effort and energy and planning to make it successful. Right? There's a reason why Rick's podcast was planned. for when Rick's podcast was planned for. And it's like that every piece of minute detail is thought about and talked about. And if it's not, it goes in a note so that we think about it and talk about it and plan for it for the next one, you know? And we just try to make every one a little better. We had a little better production on this one. Tim Vu brought some lighting and DMX. We brought extra subwoofers. We brought some extra up lights. Marco from Two-Face brought a little different like table sort of setup, we had some trusting so a little better every time, right? A little better every time. Learn from the last one and make it better. And I think we could just take that into anything you guys are working on, whether it's original releases or edit packs or your own parties, like all the planning is so fucking important. It's more important than the actual execution sometimes. Yeah, I think at first, sometimes it's going to be overwhelming, especially if you're throwing your own party and it's just you or it's just you and one other person. But then you gather a team that gets excited for the event and then they could start throwing ideas and it's building that correct team that's going that you could surround yourself that can everybody can contribute in their own way. It's sometimes a slow build. I think even with this one, right, it was me, you and Dario setting up for the first one. And then you had a little bit bigger of a team for the next one. And then obviously the team that you just talked about, the third one. people start to see the potential in the event, and then they wanna contribute, and then they wanna give ideas, and they wanna, hey, can I bring a sub? Can I bring some lighting? Can I bring some trussing? And then all of a sudden, your little idea has grown into something major. And obviously that's going to happen coming up here soon. So. Are you going to take a break from this over the summertime or is that thinking too far ahead? Well, yeah, we've already been talking about summer, it kind of sucks because we are building all this momentum and our market in the summer is just not as busy as it would normally be. And a lot of the people that would come to an event like this are down the Jersey Shore or in the Hamptons or wherever. So we are going to continue it. I think if the summer didn't sort of break up the momentum we were building, we would just keep making them bigger and bigger and better and better. I think for the summer, we might do two. Instead of three, we might not do every month. It might be every six weeks. I'm not 100 % sure yet. But yeah, we're gonna continue it and try to keep the momentum and then really step it up for September. So we have two more lined up, two big ones. And then we'll probably rock two for the summer and then we'll go monthly for the fall. Side note, Rivas, if you're listening to this, be ready to be on the podcast two weeks before the event. We haven't reached out to him, but now we are. Yeah, I was talking to him before and I meant to actually give him the heads up and I forgot but yes. But this is is funny, right? Like, our market hasn't really had New Jersey as a whole, right? And even New York City up until a couple years ago didn't have a really big EDM or house music scene. It was more like underground, right? So Brooklyn underground stuff more like housey tech housey techno stuff, where It's spread a little more into Manhattan now and you know, now it's spreading more into Jersey, which is great. The Bounce to Bounce guys had an event the same night as me and Rick at Barcode, which is in Elizabeth, a little south of Hoboken. They had Jake Shore and it looked like a pretty successful event. They created this really cool stage. And so like those guys are doing something. We have the Beneath guys in Jersey City doing more like underground house stuff. We're starting to see more of these parties and collectives sort of pop up because it is popular because it you're seeing success in other places across the country and you brought up the ideas like is this starting to get played out already Well, my point is, I think that like the boiler room set thing, kind of, I understand that that's kind of how the crowd wants to consume it, but from a DJ's perspective, I'm sick of seeing it on my feed. It's happening everywhere, it's not new, is there a need for it in our particular market? 100%, because if I wanna go see anything like that, I need to go two rivers over. to Brooklyn and it's a huge pain in the ass. And I'm telling you, I'm usually down for anything. I'm the friend that's like, you down? Like, I'm in? But you ask me if I'm down to go to Brooklyn and then try to leave at 4 a.m. It's like 5 a.m. I'm like, I'm just not down for that anymore. That's way, way, way too far off. It's just a hell of a commute. So it's nice that you've started this in Jersey and it's very central to a lot of people. because you can't get more central than Hoboken with the train system and just with the public transportation set up in that area. So it's really nice that you have it right there outside of the train in a big room with good sound. And then now you're building more production behind it is an amazing thing. But from an outsider's perspective, scrolling through my Instagram and my TikTok, if I see another 360 boiler room set, looking thing somewhere, like I'm gonna just blow my head off because it's just like, can't we just do something different? And the next point that I'm going to make is the coffee house sets. We had started to talk about it like three months ago, and now it's like everybody's doing that. Go and do something different. Come up with your own idea and then go execute that idea. You don't have to steal absolutely everything. I mean, I get it. Those parties got promoted and went viral because they were unique and different, right? You're not gonna catch being viral. There's no virality in doing the same exact thing that that first person did it. It's not going to happen. You need to be original and figure out what's going to work for you. Like you just said, you brought up Jake Shore and remember we had Jake on the on the pod about a year, year and a half ago. And he was he went and like DJed under a bridge in like a skate park or something like that. Remember? And that was super unique and that was super dope. And then he he DJed in a liquor store and that was super dope. And he was always thinking ahead. If you haven't listened to that episode, go back and listen to the way that he thinks about his brand and the way that he thinks about putting out his social media content. It is always fresh and new and it's not. completely stealing or copying off of what somebody else is doing. Not to say that you can't do that, you can, you can, but I like the idea of being original. There's a lot to unpack from what you said. think first and foremost, the coffee shop thing, I was looking up, I couldn't remember Steve Cardigan's name, but I know he's the one who sort of started the one out in Venice. There's probably one before that, you know, but he's the first one that really went viral on socials where now like they just had side piece play and they've had some bigger acts, right? They started with some local artists and quickly as the party grew in popularity, you started to see some bigger artists because what happens is those bigger artists see the socials and see the experience and see the reaction of fans and like, I want to be involved with that. Like I'm even feeling that on my end where people are responding to our posts and our promo, like cream, I want to get involved in this. Like, how can I be a part of this? I want to come play. And it's people that maybe wouldn't have played birch or Hoboken, New Jersey, but because we've now created something there's this interest and excitement and that's okay, right? You have to prove a concept first and then you can kind of blow it up, but you have to prove the concept first. So the boiler room thing, the concept's been proven by boiler room and now by all these different people in all these different markets and every market probably has a 360 party. It's what's working right now. It's what people, the customers are saying, I will spend my money to go to this event. And that's...% driving a lot of why it's popping up more and more. It's just the trickle down effect of big artists coming to New York and playing on the bus and playing in Times Square and playing in the coffee shop and playing in the record store. And now and then the Jake Shores of the world are doing it, then the creams of the world are doing it. And it's just this trickle down effect that happens. And we're now at the level of the local venues want to take advantage of this too, you know. Yeah, it's refreshing to see that the local venues do want to bring on these different ideas and take the DJ out of the DJ booth and do something unique and different. So that's refreshing because it's been, however many years you've been DJing, it's like, okay, it's like twisting, it's like you have to twist arms in order to get these owners and these managers to do something different. So it's really nice, a nice, thing. An example, I've been the entertainment director at Birch for whatever, three years, and I've been DJing since the venue opened there. I've been asking them to move the DJ booth since probably year two. The way the booth is set up, normally you're sort of up in a nest. That's the best way to describe it. Behind you are a bunch of VIP tables, there's a bar, regular guests can go up there too, but you have the... dance floor and the sound and all the moving heads and cryo pointed directly downstairs a level below you on the dance floor. And you're sort of like kitty corner upstairs looking down on the dance floor and then the VIPs behind you. So like they were really not interested in moving the DJ booth at all, even for like a one off. But now that we've started doing it, the conversation of like, do we just move the DJ booth has already started kind of thing, you know? Yeah. We're in an era now where customers and fans want to feel, they want to be on top of the DJ booth. They want to feel that energy and DJs prefer that too. I much prefer being able to high five people that are in front of me that are dancing, then be up in a DJ booth 30 feet above everybody else and be super disconnected. Yeah, I feel like that about everywhere I play. I that's why I love like I like to be in like more like basements and like, you know, smaller rooms because you just have everybody on top of you. And it's nice to see that these larger venues are bringing the DJ closer to the crowd. Right. It was once cool to be kind of up perched up and away from from the crowd. So you kind of see everything. But it's it's just such a much better vibe. And it's the reason why I like. I like DJing that way because it's just a better vibe when you're at almost face level and you're involved. We've talked about experience over everything and it's just a better experience when the DJ is close to the dance floor. It is, just is what it is. It always has been. It always has been. But it's nice that it's popular now. though, because think about like when we were younger, the DJ booth was always disconnected from the dance floor. I think back to a number of venues where like you were tucked in a closet or you were up in the like teak and Lana lounge and West five and all these different places you were like tucked away. Yeah, but I'm thinking of like some other bigger, like I just watched a video from 09, Steve Angelo played Deco Lounge and like Deco Lounge had one of the better DJ booths I felt because it was lower. It might've been eight feet tall, so you were still looking up, but you still felt like the DJ was right on top of you. It felt like a basement type room. It almost like one of our venues called 626, just like that, but just a little bigger than that. And like the bigger... bigger artists would come in and play and the energy would be crazy in those places because of it. But yeah. end of the day, we are just seeing like this copycatting of things that are working because they're working. And fans and customers are saying that we want to go to these things, we want to consume these things. So there will be a tipping point where there's too many parties and not enough fans. But for right now, it's still working, you know. And if if you've been able to create us, say that again, I'm sorry. as long as the market doesn't get flooded and there's not three 360 sets in area, one every week in the same area, that's when it becomes over saturated, right? Yeah, think of every trend, right? Afro house trend rooftop, every rooftop in New York City was thrown an Afro house party right this summer because a few select parties were super successful at it. I think if you're early to market and you create a brand and experience that's unique and fun, you can outlast trends, right? Azure Day party is going to outlast whatever's happening in the city. There might be 100 other rooftop pop up parties but that party is sort of one of the most well-known, proven success, bigger artists, like that's gonna stay, right? So if you're thinking about throwing a party, ask yourself like, how many of these are happening already? Does it make sense for me to start another one if there are a lot? If there's not, I think it's a huge opportunity to try to start something. It doesn't have to be a 360 event. It can just be something where you are creating a different experience. I I agree. Yeah, now that's a great point. there's not, if there aren't too many, if there aren't any, if there's a hole in your market, go and take advantage. Sorry, I'm just taking a note. If there's a hole in your market and you want to start something, think back to what we started this with, with all the planning and all the preparation and some of our team members right now, because we've been pushing this narrative, like let's start cool parties, let's do something different, let's bring value to some of the venues that we partner with and we work with. And throwing these parties and starting these parties is a great way to show value to any venue. And if you are, if you're a young DJ and you're looking to break into a specific venue, bring them an idea, but bring something more than just an idea. Bring an entire plan, right? I shouted out, uh, Zay, he's, he wants to throw a Latin house party. He literally said, cream, let's set a meeting and had a slideshow with a full plan of what he wanted to do, how he wanted to do it, when he wanted to do it. Why? Solano wants to throw a party, right? Solano and friends, he wants to do a base house party. He created a plan and said, hey, Kareem, here's my idea. Like, can you help me in this way or can we talk about this? Aldez has his party, right? You guys are gonna hear this. His party will be last Thursday. Aldez started it. I'm gonna butcher the name. I can't say it. he 500 tickets to on a Thursday or had 500 RSVPs on a night where maybe there are 75 people in the venue, right? 100, 150 people on a good night. good night in there you like 125, 150. So to have five over 500 RSV pieces is incredible. You want to talk about bringing value to a venue, get 500 RSVPs for a Thursday night when there's zero Thursday night parties happening in our market. Even if, you you know all 500s don't show up, But, all, but, even if, but you have 500 eyeballs that now have seen 626 as a venue and now that's on their radar as a venue that throws events, right? So maybe it's not this one, but maybe it's the next one you get a map. So it's. you're getting an RSVP, right? You're giving a free ticket, but what are you getting in return? You're getting an email address, you're getting a phone number, you're getting super, super valuable information on, hey, this is a person that might be interested in the next party I throw. Even if they don't show up to the one that they RSVP for, that information is so, so, valuable. And maybe this is how we're going to transition into our next topic, right? Information is king, right? Information's king. No matter what kind of information you talk about, email, phone number, you name it, social media account handles, all of this stuff that you can then promote to is huge, huge, huge, huge. It's hugely beneficial to... just getting your name out there, getting your party's name out there, getting your venue's name out there. One of those things is going to stick. It might not be your DJ name, it might not be your party's name, but it might be your venue's name. This is all valuable to you as the DJ, you as the party thrower, because if they don't come this time, like I said, maybe they come next time, or maybe they go on a night that you're not working, and it's just improving the venue's... how would you say, like improving the venue's image and the amount of people that come through the door, especially in a time where nightlife is struggling a little bit, So all of having, being able to pepper people with this information, you know how it is, you get, you went and look for that kith hat that you have on right now, right? For our listeners, Kareem's got a kith hat on. And you know how it is, maybe you don't buy it the first time you saw it, and now you're get hit with ads and ads and ads and ads about that hat until you buy it. It's the same thing and that's why you're collecting information. I have your email address and you were interested in going to this party at 626, well now you're on the email list and let's hit you until you show up. That's why it's so important. I've always known that this was important, right? Even just for DJ Cream, I always was building out an email list of who are the editors on the record pools that I can send my edits to? What are the submission emails for the various record pools so I can send my edits every single week? Who are the most, who are the higher end DJs, most influential DJs in my market that I can start sending my music to to try and show value? and make them aware of who I am and get them to play my music. All right, I'm making original music now. Who are the artists that are making similar original music that I can get their contact info and then send my music to support my music? Like it's a never ending thing. The information is so valuable. And I say this all the time, but Instagram, TikTok was about to get banned, right? If you have a hundred thousand followers on it, on TikTok and your TikTok and TikTok goes away, what then? What are you gonna do then? It's just gone. The emails, the SMS, that stuff is not going away. It's just not. It's super, super valuable. Something cool too that you can do, right? So I'm using Kream as an example. I now have my party. I can collect all the information, the people that come to my party and create a segment in MailChimp. It's what I use to send our emails. And it's called Kream's 360 party segment. And every time I want to promote to that group of people, I can just choose that segment. Cream's edit packs. Every time someone goes on Hyped It and downloads one of my edits, I get their information and I bring it into MailChimp and I put them as a segment, Cream's edit packs. Every time I make music, I send emails to that segment of people because I know they're interested in it. If you don't have email lists, if you aren't collecting information, it's so incredibly valuable. If you're giving anything away for free, mixes, edits, edit packs, originals, whatever it is, parties, you have to collect information and put it somewhere, right? You could download, all these sites give you the download where you can download every email of every person that ever downloaded something from you. Yeah, think hyped has become such a integral part of what our group does. I don't know if this is across the country, across all all DJs, but I know that every time that I go to download, I know I could just grab something off of one of our DJs and just download it and they'll email it to me. But you like to go and support on the platforms in which they're putting it out. And I have to it's usually one of them. And it's like you go through all these gates and it's like. This should be. a part of every single person's process when they're uploading and sharing new music, right? Because it's just, like I said, I don't know if this is common knowledge across the board or if this is just within our, you know, really important within our group, but that's like the number one thing that I notice when I go to download stuff from you guys. This is email marketing, right? This is one facet of the marketing industry. My brother was actually, he worked for Vimeo and this is what he did. I learned a ton from him. I just picked his brain. I asked him a million questions and I spent a ton of time in MailChimp just like figuring it out, right? Just like anything else. You gotta go and figure it out. But yes, super valuable and I want, everyone listening to really think about this and figure out like where have I missed opportunities to collect this information and change it moving forward. It's so, so, so important. Something we talked about, right? Aldez sent us a screenshot of someone who's throwing a party locally where in order to get the information for the party, you have to put your phone number in, right? Give us your phone number and we will give you access to this super secret cool party, right? I love it. It's a great marketing tactic. I love it. It's a little scarcity, it creates a little interest. It's like a little secrecy. What's going on? What is this? And all you got to do is give your phone number. It's a fair trade to me, you know? Yeah. One other thing I'll say about just like parties and info capture and all this stuff. It's okay to spend all this time and energy to create something cool and do something cool in your market. But once you've done a few events and you've proven the concept, right? You have to prove the concept works first. Then you could start monetizing. Then you start figuring out. making deals with the venue, right? Selling tickets, especially if you're someone that's never done this before. you're bounce to bounce, if you're project 91 and you have a proven track record of being able to sell tickets and throw good parties, like you gotta make money. This is a business. That's how you're making these deals. If you're someone new and you haven't done this before, you have to prove the concept first. Once you prove the concept though, you have to quickly figure out how you monetize beyond just like, the DJ budget for the night kind of thing. That's a great point because a lot of people put the carriage before the horse and they're looking to monetize first and then you're kind of really in it for the wrong reasons, right? You really need to be in it for the passion of throwing the event and throwing and putting this idea on and then building upon that and then monetizing. When people go into throwing a party and a party idea because of money, it never works 100% of the time. just doesn't work. That's been proven time and again. the concept, not just to the venue, but to people that come. And you have to prove that it's fun and it's cool. And you get all the videos and you promote it. And it's like, you have to do that first before you can charge $20 for people to want to pay for a ticket. Why would someone pay $10 or $20 for something they never even experienced? They don't even know what it is. They pay $20 for a boiler room, right? They pay $20 to go see an artist that they like because those are proven. Man, far cry from when we were trying to throw house parties, house music parties like 10 years ago. like things are just different. The market landscape is just different. We've said it every podcast probably for the last year that the days of opening your doors and expecting to have a successful night are long gone. Cream and I tried to do this on piggybacking on the popularity of EDM at the time, thinking that, all right, we put three, four DJs on and just get to play house music because we didn't get to do that anywhere. Everything was open format at the time. really? We threw like three parties. It was when we first met, you and I. There was no get down. We didn't book each other at any places. And we were just trying to throw an event. me, you, and a friend of mine, we threw one in the basement of Sona 13 and that one was decent. Like we had like 75 people, it decent. And then we wanted to bring one to Hudson County. We tried to do it and like three people showed up, it was terrible. But like. That was like a Sunday afternoon in sort of the middle of nowhere. Yeah, it was tough. But like, it's a far cry from like that from from then, you know, and just the popularity of these one offs. We were trying to do a one off before like anybody was doing one offs. But yeah, it's kind of nice to see. Kind of nice to see. Sometimes an idea is great, but the timing is just not right. right now the timing, the window is closing quickly, but the timing right now to throw these parties, it's open. It's closing quickly, but it's open. Yeah, in our market, we'll see it. We'll see it. Dwindle out a little bit for the summertime, but hopefully those ones in the city still still happen. And that's all well and good. parties pop up here recently in the last three to four months, right? Like even, you know, I did my party at Birch and another venue did a similar style event, like soon after. It's just what happens. The industry is a copycat industry, just like we've said, right? It's, they look at what's successful and they say, how can we do that? Right? Just as what it is. Yeah, agreed. What was our, what's our music topic today? I don't even remember. we're gonna talk Miami, Music Week. Man, I'm looking at St. Patty's weekend first, obviously. I have a jam-packed weekend that weekend, so I'm kind of focused on that, but then it's, what, a week and a half after St. Patty's Day is gonna be the Miami Music Week. coming up quickly. And I think we want to take an opportunity to just shout out Digital Music Pool. know, DMP has been part of these EDMAs for how many years? Five years, probably. I remember the first one that was just like this little tiny thing. And then last year, who were the headliners last year? I wasn't there last year. Who were the headliners? Yeah. seen dead mouse perform and then because it rained him it was flooded We got to see him in some like wedding hall like to see dead mouse cascade go back to back in a wedding Hall was pretty pretty dope So it's what an event what a huge event. I'm really looking forward to this year It's their biggest event of the year So like, you know, it's important for us to go down and support a lot of our guys go down and support the event as well we have One of our guys is up for an award this year. I think we said this in a past episode. We'll shout him out again Solano is up for breakout remix artist Yes. Friend of the Friend of the show. Castro is also up for the same award. damn one. Like they couldn't have different categories. Yeah, for real. But yeah, like I love what they're doing with the awards. It's just so cool to spotlight the various artists and remixers and editors. And it's not just awards going to the TSOs of the world. KZs is up for award for breakout mashup artists. Like we just said, Solano and Castra for breakout remixer. Beatbreaker's up for an award. I forget which one it is. It might be best editor. So it's just really cool to see somewhere where our peers can be highlighted in. And it's great for the industry. It's great for the artists. We are like a pretty, it's a niche group, right? It's a small niche group, our little electronic music world in the grand scheme of things. So it's great to go down there and everybody's in the same place and you're at the EDMAs and there's like 100 people that you either know or you've talked to in DMs or you've made music with and it's just a celebration of dance music and I love that. Yeah, I've been going for a very long time. Not to the DMAs, but to Winter Music Conference slash Miami Music Week, and just an exciting time to be in Miami. It's the first way that I experienced Miami, so it's always nice to go back and experience it back the way that I remember first getting there, going there. One year I'll go back to Ultra, one year. Kind of experience that all over again, because I know that's just a show in itself. It's cool to see our team go and experience ultra right and go and experience all the different events and pool parties and like it's cool. are the best. The pool parties have been my favorite part of Miami Music Week since day one. Went for ultra, but stayed for the pool parties, you know? Quite literally. And there's just so many different styles of dance music that you can go see. It could be the smallest, most niche genre, and there will be a party for it. And that's what I've always loved about it. I got to see Ben Watt and, gosh, who else was he with? Ben Watt and somebody else at a pool party down there were like, I would never be able to see them anywhere in the States. And it's go find those artists, those hard to see artists and go to their parties if you're a fan because you don't have that opportunity. And it sometimes only comes once a year at Miami Music Week. What's great too is every single artist is going to be rinsing IDs. It's all new music. all it's it's you go to Miami and you sort of get to hear like, what's the summer going to sound like? What's the fall? What's the rest of the year going to sound like from a music standpoint? Because every artist is prepping to have new music to release or to at least test during Music Week. So that every artist is going to be playing their ideas, IDs. So it's really cool to get to sort of hear what's coming. And you know, in the world we live in, I'm sure there's gonna be some viral tracks that everyone starts playing that are then gonna release and be the biggest record that we're playing as DJs down the line. It's always interesting to see what the record of the week is gonna be. Which we'll find out probably a month after. Or we'll know. Everybody will know leaving the week, track they heard at every single party. Right. If you're an artist or you're someone that a DJ or anyone that's going to Miami, I want to talk a little bit about sort of what your strategy should be. And you should have a strategy. It's not just I'm going to Miami to party and have a good time. Yes, you're going to do that. But plan your trip around who are some of the bigger artists that I've connected with or that have played my music or that we've talked in DMS. Plan your days around how you can go and support those people and meet those people and shake their hands and connect face to face. Because you never know if that person can down the line become someone way bigger. Or maybe you make a track together down the line or whatever, whatever the opportunity is. Don't just go to Miami and hang out with all the people from your market that are in Miami, right? We tell this to our DJs all the time. Like, yeah, it's cool to go like support the Jersey and New York people, but like you're here to connect with people from all over the place. Like, yes, I want to go to the 4B and Friends show and connect with 4B and see who else is there. But I want to go connect with Sam Collins and Cashew and SidePeace and some of these other people that I've connected with. And like, maybe we can get them on the pod down the line, or maybe they start playing more of my music, or maybe it's just cool to connect in person kind of thing, you know? Like, maybe I can book them down the line for something. It's interesting because I was thinking about this earlier and not even to this point, but it circles back to your point where, because we do see it, we do see guys from our market just go down there and hang out with the guys from our market. like, I get that portion of it too because we're all always working. So it's hard to hang out in a big group like that and that's always exciting, right? But at our end of year calls that we have with all of our DJs, all of the people that are making music always say, I want to get out of market. I want to play out of market. Right. And if you're not going to leave our market, if our market isn't serving you and you're not going to leave our market to go and move to a market that might serve you as an artist better. Well, what better place to get exposure than Miami Music Week. Right. And then you can expose yourself. You can expose yourself to so many other markets in one place. Right? Maybe you don't have the time to fly to Chicago, but go connect with, like you're saying, connect with that Booker from Chicago that you've been trying to connect with. Or the, and then you could bounce to the next party and connect with a Booker from Texas, connect with a Booker from Detroit, all in the same weekend. We've seen, we've seen artists from our market become successful when they moved out of our market. They literally had to move. They were incredible DJs. They were incredible producers, but they but living in New York City, New Jersey wasn't serving them as an artist. And then they moved to, whether it be a different country, whether it be across the country, and then they became successful. Well, think about that on a smaller scale, pull that back. Well, okay, you don't have to move, but take advantage of this week as much as you can in that, with that mindset, with that exact thing in mind. How can I grow outside of my market right now as quickly as possible with as many people as possible? Miami Music Week is that. If you're making music and you're trying to get your music out there, if you're looking to make any connections, just be personable. Introduce yourself to a lot of people. You'll never know who you're standing next to. Like, just because it's not the artist, we've talked about this with Mikey, right? Just because it's not the artist, maybe it's the artist's manager or someone from their label. And maybe those are the people that are the gatekeepers to get your music into the artist's hand. Right? Also, whenever you meet someone, if you make a connection, you talk about yourself, you sell them on your music, and they're interested in the conversation, or it's a good conversation, don't give them your phone number or give them your email address. Get their contact information so that you can follow up. They're gonna meet a million people who all want the same thing. But not a lot of people are gonna follow up with them. The people that, the follow up is really important too. So, Get the information, right? Get the phone number, get the email address, get the contact info, save it, keep a note, however you want to keep track of it, right? And then you follow up after Miami. You send the music, right? Maybe you get a promo email address and you could send your music on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of the following week. But this is all advice that I think is important. And if you're looking to make connections and get your music out there, you got to think about this trip in that way. You have to have a plan just like everything else you're doing. You can't just show up and go with the wind and expect for you to make the most of Miami. Now, if you wanna just go party, that's cool too. But don't expect to make those connections and grow your brand and your artist name by just going there to party and have a good time. Be prepared. Just prepare before. It's all easy after that. All right. That's good. Eh, not so bad. Not so bad. I got the minutes here. It's not so bad. All right. All right, anything else to promo? We have a Get Down and Friends edit pack coming prior to Miami, so you guys will see that in the next couple weeks. We have a couple special guests that, I don't know, should I name them or should I not name them? Yeah, well you could name the next one, because... Name him? Yeah, you can name the next one that we have on, so that works. No, no, no, I'm saying for the edit pack. for the Edipac. Nah, we can wait on that. Yeah, we have some some everyday household names that are contributing some edits for the edit pack. So all the get down crew and then some some special guests. Yeah, I'm excited for this one. This is going to be fun. Should we? All right. We won't tease anything else. have a podcast with a special guest we're recording next week, so that'll come out. We're excited for that one. All build right into Miami Music Week, all build. So we're coming in hot right into Music Week and then afterward, it's regrouping time. Alright guys, we appreciate you. Thanks for listening to this episode and we'll talk to you guys next week. Peace.