Having just watched The Apprentice replay on BBC2, i've come up with an idea. You'll probably all tell me you've done this for yeeeeeeeeeears, or tried and failed...but basically they look like they have to fill the day with events to make money as one o their tasks. One group came up with the idea of DJing, by either mailshotting bars in a busy area who maybe have a DJ but you aim for a night they don't, or who are in the right type of area, but don't regularly employ a DJ.

The idea is then that you hit the bar and for a small fixed fee, you set up your gearin a corner and have 2 or 3 promotional staff, who hand out leaflets, flyers etc outside and try and get people into the venue - as a 1 off night...

Good idea?

Promoting and making an event work take more than a few flyers ad a venue.

the costs out weigh the rewards if you do what they tried on the tv..

by all means find a nice bar and Dj for them but don't expect instant results..

how do you expect to get paid as people won't pay to get into a bar..

and the bar won't pay you unless theyy see a major upturn in business..

why pay a dj if your bar is busy anyway..

the list of problems goes on..

How does the scenario in the original post differ from the Houseproud event ? or did Houseproud yield no probs whatsoever?

Lots of problems with house proud...

one of our major problem is location.. however its also one of the major benifits too..

our venue is not just a bar.. its not open every night of the week. we had to spend time promoting it over many weeks not just a few hours on the street with some flyers...

the efforts on the TV program tonight were just way off the mark...

Im not saying its impossible, far from it.. im just saying dont do what so many others do and go blindly into somthing thats not going to make you loads of money over night...

and the forum is the place to find out these things first..

For the record, I agree with Marc...the sort of crowd out on say, a Tuesday night, in an area thats a clubbers paradise over the weekend are probably the sort who would spurn a DJ and would rather sit for a quiet drink.

Unless the event had been promoted over a large period of time.

Flip side, if it was a busy area over the weekend, sure you've got more chance of the payment and the punters...but also of the clubs already HAVING a DJ!

Nice idea in theory tho...!

I detest programmes like this and heres why:

I watched that particular one and they did gardening, no of them had ever lifted a shovel before and went round pretending they knowed what they were doing, straight off they've lost money as they waste time farting about trying to distinguish weeds from plants.
Then face-painting, etc, etc.
My point is that you HAVE to be experienced in what you do, when starting a business you are skint for a very long time by the time you pay for advertising prmotions etc, all this takes time before the work appears, I'm in this position which is why I hate shows like this.

They think "oh we'll be DJs tonight," and I betcha if you asked them what a technics SL 1210 MK2 is they won't have a clue.
We spend lots of money and time on equipment, tunes, insurance, and other aspects whereas it appears to the viewers of this show that you can take it up just like that.

Well seen TV isn't real life.

I love the apprentice great TV, but the DJ scenario did make me laugh.
They all thought they could get a cut out of putting DJ's in bars, yeah and did you see the line of DJ's cueing up to do it last minute.....