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On Air/Party Jocks

M

Musicradio

Guest
I've been doing parties, weddings, class reunions longer than I've been on the air...about 28, 29 years.

Just wondered how many of you do the same -- do an airshift and then work the weekends playing the music for others.
 
If I was smart, that's what I'd be doing. I hate dj-ing dances. Now that I have kids, It's out anyway, but you can make more money at it than you can at radio.
 
Yep -- it's great money.

I don't always enjoy what I have to play for the occasion but the money comes in handy paying bills.
 
In the 90s, I used to at least double my salary from every on-air job I've had doing that stuff but in recent years it's become much harder - too much competition since the Napster era started. These days it's all about who will do it cheapest and a lot of the school dances have dried up as a result. No surprise really - they hire guys who have no experience and a PC full of stolen music and the students don't have a good time.

I was never really into weddings so I retired from it earlier this year. You can still make decent money doing weddings but I even see that changing in the future. One of the hottest trends in weddings now is do it yourself iPod music.
 
Around my city, the jocks still play the music -- we have lots of competition with each other.
 
Musicradio said:
I've been doing parties, weddings, class reunions longer than I've been on the air...about 28, 29 years. Just wondered how many of you do the same -- do an airshift and then work the weekends playing the music for others.
Click to expand...

My cousin Dan has owned his own DJ company in Metro Detroit for the past 20 years (he started when he was 12, believe it or not). I did a couple of gigs with him and did a couple of oldies and country music nightclubs on my own as well. The weddings are naturally much more lucrative, and you can do them cheaper nowadays with the advent of downloading just about any song there is out there.

However, what makes the difference is the talent. They have to know how to read a crowd, they sit down and discuss with the bride or groom to see what it is they want, and program the music accordingly. Not much different than being a program director. You also need to have a personality that's going to be able to entertain and get people on the dance floor.

At my own wedding a couple of weeks ago, I hired a radio friend of mine who had been doing weddings for more than 20 years, and had done radio for ten. He was also my wedding photographer. If you can straddle the fence on both trades, you can really clean up moneywise.

Oh...and of course, did I mention the fact that DJ work is still tax-free? Those who do want to be honest and legit can't be because the IRS doesn't recognize this as a trade. Obviously they're not that worried about it, or it would have happened long ago.
 
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