Im not going to try and cover all the things which I saw at PLASA, but now, as some of the requested info starts turning up through my letterbox, I'm more than happy to mention the exceptionally good points and bad ones.

First up...PROMOBILE magazine. If it werent for on-line DJ forums, I would have seriously considered signing up for this magazine with its cliché title of "THE magazine for mobile DJ's". Luckily I discovered DJs United first, and also luckily, I now have a free copy of the first edition. Very, very disappointing.

Firstly, the size...bear in mind this is a £2.50 magazine...yet its only 6 inches wide, by 8 inches tall, about one third of the size of a proper magazine. Also, out of its 32 small pages, were the equivalent of 10 pages of Disco adverts, 1 page of "Subscription form", 1 page of "Competition" a page of small ads (for sales), an index page, and one was the front cover. The 17 pages left, which due to the size/format of the magazine would be the equivilent of 6 or 7 sides in a full size magazine, were the more useful parts, with reviews of £600 each moving head effects, PCDJ, a green laser and so on.

One article "The family Disco", was padded out with much "blubber" in it, I was expecting a Greenpeace rubber dinghy to get inbetween the article and a japanese harpoon boat at any moment...

It was a shame that Mikeees article on the TVDJA was shoved, ungraceously to page 28 of the publication. His half page was one of the best ratio's of "information per paragraph" in the entire mag. I never knew that the TVDJA had people demo'ing kit to other DJ's at their meetings...hmmm, must get some cans of coke in...

Guess what? I probably wont be subscribing, or recommending this mini-publication to anyone. Perhaps by next years Plasa, the content will have improved.

Glad I am not the only one who thinks it was , and it was ME who posted a link to it here. Sorry guys. £2.50 is far too expensive for 5 sheets of A4 paper with adverts and ramblings on. I for one will not be sending a cheque off.

I had their advertising blurb through several weeks before the PLASA, but declined to advertise in there although their ad rates were quit reasonable.

Sadly many of these publications are now set up as a business venture rather than in the true spirit of being a publication written by D.J's for D.J's. This means that empathsis is given over to advertising and not upsetting the financial apple cart .

The need for a quality Mobile publication is long overdue. I mentioned earlier a Mobile D.J magazine which was originally run by one of the D.J Associations. This was run more in the spirit of a "community" newsletter, and although very limited in size the content was all 100% relevant to it's readership. Of course it ran advertisements - but just enough to cover its production.

Alas I can see Promobile following the path of DJ Mag and straying onto the Club / bedroom / Music production circuit. Being it's first publication I was expecting to see more in the way of advice for those starting out. Review's are great, and needed, but realistically it has to be balanced. Sure, review the £600 moving head but to most mobile D.J's 4 of these would not be realistic or practical purchase - especially as some D.J's are still coming to terms with losing their lightboxes!.

There have been publications over the years where I have wondered if the editor or writer of the artical have ever done a Disco in their life!. This is why it would be more relevant for a publication to be produced, or at least edited by somebody "in the know".

Whenever these magazines appear, are any key figures from the industry approached with regard to taking an active role?. For instance to put Mike's review on the final few pages was laughable, but of course they have to keep the advertisers happy!.

It would be far better for these editors to do a little bit of research and put a bit of thought into the material that goes into the pages. being a D.J is something like an Apprenticeship. it can't be taught in coursework or an exam, you have to learn from other people who have / are making a success of it!. For instance, People can learn a lot from reading about Chris & Tony's travels around the world working the club circuit. Karen's input on the Do's and Don't's of doing a Childrens Party, Paula's Tips on Karaoke and not to mention Mikees discussions on the legalities of the industry.

I didn't regret not advertising my business in there, although perhaps I should have considered advertising this community even though it would have conflicted with their own interests.

I think they will be struggling to get the £2.50 issue fee - you can get similar publications with better content and 100+ pages from W.H Smith for less than that.

I allready expressed my views on this to Mike & Gary and plasa.....didnt I guys....???

Ok Chris I'll sing Mrs Spins praises here, she knows how much I love my work so all my normal birthday /christmas presents tend to be equipment orientated.

In fact just so's you know she would not think twice about 2 moving heads for Christmas. Why do you think the shop i used to use loved to see her walk in the door???

Do you know how easy it is to do a whole evening on a brand new mixer/CD player and Amp without ever having used it before because she had it delivered to the venue for a Christmas function?

I do........... it happened and she took great delight in taking the P when I made mistakes!

Why do you think i treat Paula and Kazz with such repect??

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A WOMAN!!

Spin

Whooaaa! Hold up you lot! Bright Idea! Gazza pointed out the crappy mag obtained at plasa... so here we go with a money making idea... why dont we put together a DJU mag aimed at newbie mobile jocks.... ooer.... this time next year we could all be millionaires!!

Guys, would you object if I cut and paste your comments, no names, or where they came from and send them to the mag. We really need a mag for our industry and the last one Mobile DJ, disappeared. OK not an impressive first edition but, I'm gone give them a chance and see what happens. The two guy's that run it are in their mid 20's - still got a lot to learn.

... and who better to teach them mikeee! Chris, I wasnt meaning for you to do ALL the work... I would have helped a little bit! xx

I have no objections Mike. I agree that the first issue was Dire - and with so many Ad's that it resembled the local free "advertiser" paper!. If our comments help to improve it then you've nothing to lose by trying.

Did anyone see my advert for some 6U Flightcases............thought not..............enough said then.

Have a look in the classified and it really was there, all sorted now I think, but I got loads of responses (ZILCH to be more precise)

I see it Ads

I believe that Mikeee has forwarded the above comments on, I hope that the editor(s) find the time to read them and understand that having several (experienced) voices is far better than perhaps putting the comments or ideas of one author into print.

This is why forums are now so popular, the chance to get the opinions of several or more experienced people is far more constructive than perhaps asking the opinion of one person!. The publication in question could far benefit from the inclusion, idea's and feedback of as many key people within the industry as possible.

A little bit of consideration over the structuring would have been useful, as it has already been mentioned - Mikeee's article was of far more relevance than a review for a £600 effect, which from experience I know is out of the reach of most Mobile D.J's - especially in an area where the average gig is charged at £60!. But then Southern based magazines tend to cater for southern based D.J's - maybe through ignorance - i.e not having anybody involved in the magazne from the area's in question. Again this is where having real D.J's from all walks of life would be of benefit to them! then the (sole) author is not of the opinion that every business is run in the same way, at the same prices, or with the same gear has he / she uses!.

Equipment reviews do have a place - although you could have £50,000 of the most impressive lighting around and still be a crap D.J!. Lighting doesn't make for a good night, it's the experience that counts, being able to do any gig from a masonic lodge to a corporate gig, kids party or Wedding Reception.

Letting inexperienced D.J's with £600 moving head effects is Kind of like having a trainee mechanic with a £6000 tool kit working on your Merc . I think more effort needs to be made to encourage newbies to start out correctly - so a comprehensive section for them would have been very useful and i'm not talking about a 1/4 page shoved up towards the back along with Ethels Ad for her husband's old Fal Decks!!, this industry takes time to learn, when I was training it was 12 months before I was even allowed near a microphone and that was 17 years ago, today there is far more to learn. I got the impression that the magazine was trying so hard to impress that it forgot the fundamentals, and missed the whole point of being a D.J in the first place. Maybe the editor(s) thought that by stooping to the "This is a mixer - this is a CD Player and more importantly this is a MICROPHONE - please make the effort to learn how to use it!, would of being a bit like Jeremy Clarkson reviewing a 1971 Robin Reliant?.

I'm making an effort to start another DJ Workshop locally, I know that Spin has also found one, perhaps we could all look at what is available for newbies and make a section on the forum available in time?.

To give a fair balance to the debate, here is the reply received back from one of the Editors:-

Firstly, the size...bear in mind this is a £2.50 magazine...yet its only 6 inches wide, by 8 inches tall, about one third of the size of a proper magazine.

This is an area that a lot of people have commented on. The potentially bad decision to set the cover price from issue 1 at £2.50 was made so that the price would not rise over future issues, even though the number of pages will increase. We could have printed "FREE" on the cover of the first issue, but to avoid confusion in the future, we decided to print £2.50, but distribute the issue for free. Please also understand that a small specialised magazine is not going to cost the same price per page as a massive general interest publication.

We will look to increase the page size in the future, but this will involve a major re-working and may take some time. The number of pages will definitely increase for issue 2 and hopefully continue to do so over future issues.


The need for a quality Mobile publication is long overdue. I mentioned earlier a Mobile D.J magazine which was originally run by one of the D.J Associations. This was run more in the spirit of a "community" newsletter, and although very limited in size the content was all 100% relevant to it's readership. Of course it ran advertisements - but just enough to cover its production.

WE ARE NOT making any money from this magazine, in fact myself and my partner have personally lost £1000+ each so far. The advertising was required to HELP cover the production costs. Also the percentage of advertising content is similar if not LESS than the larger publications which are our nearest competition. We are running this magazine because we share the opinion of most of the industry that a quality magazine for mobile DJs is long over due, not to make money. We encourage anyone who does not think our content is relevant to let us know what they would like to read and also contribute articles if they can.


Alas I can see Promobile following the path of DJ Mag and straying onto the Club / bedroom / Music production circuit. Being it's first publication I was expecting to see more in the way of advice for those starting out. Review's are great, and needed, but realistically it has to be balanced. Sure, review the £600 moving head but to most mobile D.J's 4 of these would not be realistic or practical purchase - especially as some D.J's are still coming to terms with losing their lightboxes!.

I can assure you that we have no intention of following DJ down the road of a Club / Bedroom / Music production magazine. Pro Mobile will always be a mobile DJ magazine. The choice for featuring moving heads instead of cheaper, run of the mill effects was to offer an insight into the next generation of lights that most DJs don't have but may now be able to afford. Perhaps this was the wrong decision for issue 1 and should have come later. Wouldn't hind sight be wonderful!


There have been publications over the years where I have wondered if the editor or writer of the article have ever done a Disco in their life!. This is why it would be more relevant for a publication to be produced, or at least edited by somebody "in the know".

I (the editor) have been DJing for over 10 years and have played at hundreds of functions across the board from kids parties and school discos to Weddings and Anniversaries. Although I am sure there are DJs out there with more experience, I feel that my experience is adequate for the job. Please remember that there are always (at least) two sides to any argument. The authors of the articles featured in the magazine are also DJs from different areas of the country and with varying experience.


It would be far better for these editors to do a little bit of research and put a bit of thought into the material that goes into the pages. being a D.J is something like an Apprenticeship. it can't be taught in coursework or an exam, you have to learn from other people who have / are making a success of it!. For instance, People can learn a lot from reading about Chris & Tony's travels around the world working the club circuit. Karen's input on the Do's and Don't's of doing a Childrens Party, Paula's Tips on Karaoke and not to mention Mikees discussions on the legalities of the industry.

Believe it or not, months of research and thought went into the magazine, but to get the magazine to a place where all (or a least most) of our potential readers are happy with it is going to take much longer. If any of the people listed above would consider contributing articles to future issues of Pro Mobile we would be keen to here from them. I hope that you will help us to improve the magazine to your standards instead of dismissing us out of hand.

Whoops. I was getting the feeling that the person replying was in a fairly neutral, even tempered manner, until the last sentence.

Oh, thats ok then..so its only whoever started this thread that need worry then...who was that? Oh, it was me!

In essence then, truely, I hope that we've helped by offering a few Pointons, sorry pointers, which the editiors may, or may not, choose to implement in the future issues.

sorry guys...but I have to admit Size does not matter! Recent research into teen mags has proved that smaller mags appeal more (I speak of the teenager here) - and I for one, prefer a smaller periodical. It is also a well known fact that any publication will rely greatly upon advertisers to ensure the distribution cost involved in publishing any magazine - avertising pays for editorial!.
£2.50 is an acceptable charge for any magazine that provides good information - and I cant see how anyone could call that extravagant.
It is hard to launch any new mag these days - and I for one hope that the guys behind this mag can make it a success..... at least they are willing to learn and perhaps a few more positive comments could spur these guys on into creating a top mag that is going to be a vital hand tool for all mobile jocks in years to come... remember, negativity breeds negativity.... Lets have a bit more of a positive approach. Good luck guys!

well said Kazz, every publication needs advertising,

After reading the latest posts I have to agree with everything said, any business is harder to get off the ground, I wish them the best of luck in thier venture and maybe in 6 months time when it has improved, which it will because the editors are listening to comments, and taking them aboard, I may buy a copy.

I for one have not seen this magazine and if it wasn't for this forum wouldn't even know of it's existence so more needs to be done on the promotional side.

Thanks for your support Paul, I think that there is a compliment in there somewhere

5 star - its all well and good having this great forum - but - even in this day and age, not everyone has the benefit of the internet.

Being in Norway i obviously havent seen this mag but if they are trying to start something good and not dissing anyone personally then it can only be seen as a positive thing.I did not see the editors last line as negative i saw it as him asking for a little patience and understanding and personally my first night as a dj was crap, so perhaps these guys deserve a chance

Looking at the magazine afresh, after considering the viewpoints of others (Which is always a nice way of doing things), I think that my overall concern was "Value for money" or, to put it another way, what you got, for the price mentioned.

The £2.50 cover price was very high for the content offered in issue one. Had the cover price been lower, then I would have been expecting less as I turned the pages.

I hope that they (the publishers) take the comments made above on-board for future issues, and I wish them every success in the future.