How was your New Years Eve ?
New Years Eve is the night that DJs look forward to all year, right? Right? This year I was scheduled to play NYE at the club I DJ at. I was going to be sharing the entertainment that night with a local hip-hop group. They were going to play for about 45 minutes at the beginning of the night and I was going to go back on, spinning videos, doing the countdown, etc, etc. I got to the bar around 8pm to fire up the rig, get the screen up and everything else that has to be done before the festivities only to find all this STUFF setup on the stage. There was another small PA setup, guitars and amps and a drum kit – way more than the one group would ever use (these guys rock three mics and a laptop with beats on it). The promoter guy was there so I inquired to see what was up. Apparently he had three bands to play that night. They started playing at 9:00 and were set to wrap it up around 11:30 so I could start and do the countdown and spin videos the rest of the night. Not quite what I had expected, but I was getting the door, so, eh..
The bands played – all was good. People were digging it – some – but a few people were asking me what was going on and why wasn’t I playing? Well, fast forward to 11:40. Third band just wrapped up and the promoter gets on the mic and calls the 2nd band back to the stage. Huh? What? What the heck is going on? At this point people are walking out the door. I tried to talk to the promoter and he wasn’t having it. At this point I had a choice to make – was I going to spend the rest of the evening pissy or remind myself that the bar owner told me that whether I played for 20 minutes or 5 hours I would still get the door.
Well, band #2 ended up playing until about 1:30. They wrap it up and the promoter gets on the mic, says goodnight to everyone and pretty much dismisses everyone out of the bar. WHAT? I ran to the booth to throw something on, but it was too late. Too much dead air and people were headed out the door. We were closed on NYE by 2am. Empty. Nada. Zilch. Finito. I still walked with a grip of cash though. Happy New Year.
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wow.. I’d be pissed too. I had a freelance event once and all the people wanted was heavy metal… so instead of even starting up my CDJ system I just threw on a playlist on my laptop and sat back watching them mosh. I guess they had a good time, but I was pretty bored the whole night.
... Toleran