Discos
The word ‘disco' does not need to be synonymous with cheese. There is talent out there in the form of DJs. They can play any type of music, from modern pop, dance and house, even swing. Make sure you have a chat with them and discuss what you think will suit your guests. It is also useful to get them to supply you with a sample song list prior to the night.

Expect to pay: from £500 to £1,200 for a disco and a dj for the evening.

No link?

Trust you!! I've lost the page after copying & pasting but I'll find it again.

Edit: here's the link youandyourwedding.co.uk

We were 'invited' to advert with them too.

HOW MUCH!!!!! Bring it on.......wish I could charge that much lol

Nick

Just had a look through the listed Disco`s. None of them actually state a price but noticed they are all Southern England based so one would assume the fee`s arn`t far off..Not sure about £1.2k though.

im with you Nick 500 - 1200 my ar$e!! not in warrington, chris evans is cheaper!! lol

Come on guys £500 - £1200 gets you a disco AND a DJ

It would be pretty sneaky, and in no way unexpected for a new-on-the-scene magazine/wedding service looking for advertisers to deliberately bump up the "Expect to pay" prices on EVERY SINGLE SUPPLIER.... hinted at in the service...not just DJ's.

Theres probably wedding car companies, wedding cake makers, wedding dress suppliers, wedding photographers, Wedding Flamingo & Swan colour co-ordination Dye stainers and Wedding Bride & Groom Hang-glider trainers (Last two...American Weddings only:lol:)....all sitting there, thinking we've never charged those sort of prices before... WOW!!! let's pay this wedding service some dosh and start getting those punters.

1 - nil to the Wedding web site...

I don't know about "new" magazine, I think you will find it's been around for a little while, and it's sister publications have been around a while longer.

As for the price, I would say that they are not far off the mark. And before you jump down my throat, consider this - you are a professional, a client rings, you go through the details and quote the price, have you tried asking what their budget is in the first place. I did yesterday and they had set aside a budget of £1,000 for the evening entertainment, and this is not an upmarket affair, just an average wedding (and out of season). I went through all the details, specifically "what they want" and "how they want it" etc etc - quote £600.00, job in the bag.
Don't underestimate clients budgets, and for pete's sake stop under selling yourselfs.

A week or so ago, I read a write up, and I think it was on the BBC, that an average wedding in the south costs £14,500, whereas in Cumbria the happy couple will spend £30,000 on their happy day. Yes there will always be those that will spend the princely sum of £150.00, but thats life.

Well said sir, there are several members of this forum who take that amount of money and get work in the uk. Personaly i think its better to work once for 500 squids than 4 times for 125 a gig !

Spot on ... £500 for a wedding disco is a fair price for a decent nights work...

Precisely.

Try looking at local hire companies and seeing how much it would cost someone to dry hire the kit you supply. That'll give you a good idea of how much you might be undercharging by.

Perhaps you need to break down your charges to 'equipmant' and 'DJ services' so they can see what each bit costs.

I hired and rigged 4 scans, 2 Destroyers, smoke, 2 UV cannons to a promoter at the weekend and charged £250 plus travel (and i did it cheap as it was a mate. Some of you guys must put in more than that PLUS sound system. Don't undervalue you or your kit.

You're right of course Mikeee, this mag has been around quite a while. I can remember advertising with them at least 4 years ago. I also placed ads with some of their sister publications such as Cosmo bride etc.


I think that a lot of DJs are very confident in their actual ability to do the job but have a real lack of confidence when it comes to selling themselves for a decent fee and most have this mental barrier that the public won't pay above a certain fee (that they invent in their minds) and most of them will never be convinced otherwise.
When a client calls, if you speak in a chirpy confident manner it will usually spark an interest for most clients and if your voice is equally as confident when you state your fee and very importantly there are no hesitations!!! then many clients won't have any reservations and will book you even if it is a higher fee than what many other DJs charge. Clients want someone that is confident and they want to be convinced.

Look at the charges given here then......:

From one of the discos in the mag!!!

An eye opener, even if we are talking deepest Essex!

Perhaps 2007 is the year to pull one's socks up!!!!!

UK DJ's charging a realistic fee for their services shocker...

When I stated 'New' in the title I meant 'New to me'.

I had a feeling that it would spark a pricing debate which is good even if it only gets one member to seriously look at what they are charging compared to what they could/should be charging in relation to what they bring to the event (& I don't mean equipment).

The way I see this particular entry in their site is it gives brides a guide figure. If they then phone ABC Discos and receive a quote of £150-£200 it's too far below this guide price and would make them question whether this DJ is up to the job. If however they received a quote of £600 it's not rock bottom (£500 in their mind) so it's worth considering.

Perhaps we should run a competion, who can get the bigger increase in price's between now and the end of November. Anyone stating "that won't happen here" or "they'll only pay" or "you can't get more than" and other similar comments will be disqualified. I think this is the point where I say "Discuss" - have fun.

What about if your virtually fully booked between now and November!

Holy Mother Of Mitchell........

We'd get lynched in Stoke if we charged those prices!

You must remember though that there are areas that are naturally low payers.

Then try and offer something better than the next guy and be worth the higher fee. ( I am starting to feel like a scratched record because i keep on saying this ) Be it better lights , sound, activities,before and after service or anything else you can think of. But as i say if you get one gig at £500 then thats equivalent of 4 times at 125 to achieve the same result,which would you prefer? Less wear and tear too on both you and the gear.

Am going to put my phone on divert to one of you £500 quoters..When you get a call try and sell yourself up here in the North of England for £500 a gig.

If you get the job I`ll do the gig and give you all the money..

But I'm not better than those around me.

I can work at it though.

I'm forever getting told off by my the wife for under-quoting. I must stop it.
Trouble is, at this early stage of my re-emergence, I'm afraid to miss bookings by charging too much, and I do want to show some profit this year if I can.....

But there is a guy in your area who charges £480 for a 5 hour disco and £975 for doing the wedding breakfast and disco so it can be done.

Now I wonder who that could be.......................

No clues Mikeee let Ringo find out for himself

[quote name='Andy Westcott' date='Feb 8 2007, 09:41 PM' post='168536']
But I'm not better than those around me.

I can work at it though.

Of course you can

"I'm forever getting told off by my the wife for under-quoting. I must stop it."

yes you must or your competitors are going to be calling you a cowboy who undercuts them !

Then one would say if he is a normal working class man, like myself he is full of . If he has some sort of famous symbol then maybe.

Having just looked further through the forum. If its the bloke am thinking of.

A I don`t know him

B He is not considered in my area...

Am guessing with his status he knows the people in the right places..I can`t see him advertising in the yellow pages and the likes for business.

most of these replies take for granted that your phone is constantly ringing with enquiries in order to sell your £500 service, but what about those just starting up their discos or like me who have moved to another area and are trying to re start their business from scratch and whose phones are not yet ringing as much as they had hoped?. i have asked this question before in the months leading up to the move and i think it got about 3 replies as did my wedding fair thread . so how about some of those charging these sorts of prices sharing with the rest of us a diary of how they did it as it seems that these sorts of nuts and bolts questions always get overlooked and have very little input.

By a lot of hard work ! Doing freebies, agressive marketing (loads of footwork visiting all localities that might use djs), bettering my show. But it takes time and a fair amount of investment

I'm pretty certain that I made a long post some time ago on this subject

I've been self employed for almost 20 years (some of it virtually self-unemployed ) and I ran a (non DJ) business that competed on price. Each year I had to work harder to achieve the same profits.

When I decided to get back into DJing I made the decision right from the start that I would not sell my service on price (ie the cheapest) but on quality of service.

I registered with lots of agents and even turned down the first few bookings that they offered me because the price was not what I had in mind. Eventually after 8 months I did get a booking that paid what I was after (via an agent). I made a video of the event (with the clients permission) edited it down to 4 minutes and then sent out 50 copies to agents and hotels (these days it would be a DVD). I also sent a copy out to anyone who made an enquiry.

That was 6 years ago - I'm now totally full time at DJing and although I'm not the most expensive here, I am in the top 10%. I believe this is the only way to make a living in this industry. If you start by competing on price you'll always be competing on price.

Once you get the business started it then down to giving 100% at every event (& the lead up to it) so that you get referrals that do keep your phone ringing. Having said that mine hardly ever rings these days - I do get lots of emails though

paul by the quote i take it you were expirienced before taking djing back up,what happened in the very begining,what was your charging level and why did you take the rest.you cant turn up for your very first event charging those sort of prices.surely you have to do your apprenticeship and cut your teeth at cheaper end of the market,then as you get better, and can offer a better than average service then your price should reflect that.do you think that if all the £100 disco's raised there price to £500,we would be having a conversation saying you could be getting£1000 a show because all the £500 shows have raised there price.
andy

My post was in reply to Mr McCardles' re moving to a new area and effectively being experienced but starting again from scratch which was the position I found myself in.

To answer your other points I did my 1st disco in the local youth club at the age of 13 with mainly home made equipment and did it just for fun. At 17 I teamed up with another DJ who had 2 full rigs and at 18 worked in night clubs. I gave up in the early 90s mainly because I was bored. Same punters every week asking for the same music etc.

Still with me In the late 90s I attended 3 wedding receptions in quick succession. The 1st was brilliant, the 2nd was OK but the 3rd was so dire that we left early. A few days later the niece who was married at the last one asked me what I thought of the disco (she was aware that I used to do it) so in a polite way I reversed the question back and asked her what she had though 'He was absolute and ruined my day'

So the seeds were sown and I decided to revive my DJing career. I knew a couple of local DJs and went out with them as a refresher course before investing in my own equipment (for the 1st time).

In the 8 months until that 1st booking I would spend at least an hour every day (sometimes much more) practising mixing tunes and mic technique (in front of a mirror to the hilarious delight of my family who would sneak in to watch ) so when it did come along although I was nervous I knew that I was up to the job. By this time I'd also assembled and dismantled my rig so many times I could do it without much thought.

Over the next few months as more gigs came in I refined my craft and last year made the decision to cease my other self-employment and concentrate solely on DJing. This has had an avalance effect because with the extra time I can put more effort into preparing for each booking making it flow better and resulting in more referrals. Earlier this year I also made the decision to extend my service to cover ceremonies and the wedding breakfast.

To answer your money question - back in 2000 the 2 colleagues I mentioned earlier were charging £150 and £250 respectively so I set my rate at £200 (this is quite a common way for people in any business setting their initial price but I've recently read this is wrong and my initial price should have been £230 - £240). I turned down a lot of enquires to go out for £100 - £120 because I believed that if I started at that rate that's where I would stay (rightly or wrongly ) and I must admit that as the months went on without a booking I did question if I had made the right decision.

Anyway now that I get more enquiries than I can physically do I have steadily raised my prices to make a liveable wage although I'm still cheaper than 120 chair covers but I'm working on it.

sorry paul,rereading my post comes across with attitude,but it wasnt meant like that.did the break help you, when you restarted you knew where you wanted to go,if you hadnt had the break would you of just gone on just keeping up with the other disco's in your area,out of curiosity are those other discos still going and what are they charging now.just wondering whether it would be better for someone who is just starting to learn at the bottom of the market then when they feel they are good enough to reinvent themself under a different company name aiming at the higher end.(if any of that makes sense please pm and explain it to me)

I just took it as someone who was wanting clarification of some of the points I made which is fine by me.
One now charges between £375 and £550. The other, I believe, still charges around the £150 mark.

I'll PM the rest of the answers so you can get bored all by yourself

getting offered a wedding would be nice. lol.

Then we'll worry about price... but this thread will help. Thanks all.

Having said all that though, we have only been operating for 4 months.


Think I'll charge the 1.2 K

Leaving the actual fee level aside for a moment, quality of enquiries and clients' expectations/perceptions are key here.

No salesman can sell to someone who doesn't perceive the product or service as right for him/her and good value for money.

Broadly speaking Waitrose customers don't go to Aldi ( OK some will ) and vice versa.

Nicely put young man.

Another way at looking at things is:, for every £1,000 booking there are 10 DJ's, but for every £300 booking there is 3 DJ's, and for every £180 booking there is half a DJ - um, let the price war start, but it doesn't help anyone.

You've lost me with that analogy Mikeee could you clarify

lol, Think I nearly understand. Mikee's trying to make a good point...

I'm just not sure wot it is.


... maybe that, there is a big market for the £180 DJs, because nobody wants to be half-a dj

Don’t be afraid to charge what you are you worth. Remember the old saying, “You get what you pay for”.
That perception is reality! People like paying for quality and people do buy high priced goods.
Take your focus off price and put it onto value. The key is to find out what you can provide better than anyone else. Make your value worthy of a higher price and then find the right customers who will recognise the value that they are getting and be willing to pay for it.
Rather than asking yourself how you can beat your competitors on price, ask how you can provide your customers more value.
Put the emphasis on the quality and service you offer and the experience.
Ask what you can do to add more value and listen. Give your customers a mechanism by which they can provide feedback to you, for example, a feed-back form.

Remember differences in price do not necessarily reflect differences in the quality of service.
Vigorous competition to promote the delivery of high-quality can equally lead to increasing competition to lead to lower prices for the customer!

Hope this helps.

Um, do I run and hide, um no.

Right for every booking paying £1,000, there are 10 DJ's chasing it, for every £300 booking there are 3 DJ's chasing the job, so on and so forth. I think you get the gist. Well I know what I mean.

Not sure if I've understood this but, surely, there will be less DJs chasing the £1K gig and more chasing the £300 and even more chasing the the £150 gig?

Isn't it as much about having the aris to chase the bigger fees as having the experience and ability?

I'm pretty sure I understand what Mikeeee is trying to say, but he's just made a right pigs ear of explaining it
Spinner is right though; for jobs at the £180 mark, there are absolutely loads of DJs to choose between from the clients point of view. For the £350 jobs the selection of DJs is far less and for the jobs at £1k plus there are very few DJs around.
Let's have a little sympathy for ol' Mike though; senility will get us all eventually

Technically speaking YES. However, (and I don`t work for £125) if you do 1 gig at £500 with 200 guests & 4 gigs at £125 with 200 guests, there is a potential 800 guests instead of 200 guests who may want to book you for the future.

Sometimes IMO, you need to look at the bigger picture.

Just a thought for you to ponder, albeit a very basic assumption...

If you go out for £125 a time and entertain up to 800 people over 4 gigs you are indeed putting yourself in front of a larger potential client base than if you do one £500 gig in front of 200.

However, assuming that most people move within similar social circles you are putting yourself in front of 800 people who are only probably prepared to pay £125 for a DJ.

Likewise the 200 people at the £500 gig are more likely to pay top dollar for entertainment if they have a party.

Think about it, if you are entertaining at a "posh" do with a more affluent clientèle you may only get 1 further booking, but is that a bad thing when the other option is having to do 4 gigs to possibly get say another 4 gigs from the 800 people you have entertained?

Either way the money you earn is still the same, you just had to work 4 times as hard to earn it.



That to me is the bigger picture.

If that's the bigger picture then I'm quite content with my small screen

One thing that is very clear from this thread is that there is a massive difference between the north and south on what people will pay for a disco. And note, I said what people will pay, not what you can charge.