Over the last few months, there have been quite a few posts where members have mentioned having piles piles of unused, but working sound and lighting equipment tucked away in their garages, lofts etc.

Effectively its all stuff which other DJ's could find useful, and you could make a few ££ into the bargain - as well as your other 'arf regaining some storage space that they've been on at you about clearing up for years...

Now this is only in the early ideas stage at the moment BUT...

Here's idea "PART I"
On a Sunday - in February 2005 (avoiding Valentines weekends) I "hire" (I might be able to get one free.... ) a smallish, easy-to-find (heated) venue somewhere on the M4, within an hours drive of London, the west etc, and we all bring along all our old kit with price tags on - priced to sell... we also bring along a wad of the happy paper £££. cash and (backup?) gear change hands - we all get to meet up, put a few names to faces, have a few lemonades - (Really - lemonades for those driving...), and everyones a bit better off -either in money/space terms, or equipment terms... between us, we must have XXX full disco rigs of SPARE kit...with no postage/packaging costs and post office queues...


Sound Good So Far...?

Here's idea "PART II"
I see if I can get 2 or 3 of the more mobile orientated gear manufacturers to attend on the same day too. This would certainly also include a representative from that awfully nice, Congleton Sound & Light place... bringing along a few goodies for sale at their usual (special DJU) prices, maybe a couple of the DJ associations looking to press-gang a few new subscriptions...I mean...members...


Possibly the second part of the idea is a bit of a pipe-dream, maybe the first part of the idea is too - but whats your verdict?.


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Nice Idea Gary, I'll happily support it and would be happy to bring along a few new 'bargains' at-less-than-retail-prices.

Your time scale is also spot on - the quiet bit between Xmas and the Wedding Season, not a good idea to hold anything this close to Xmas due to us all running around like headless chickens in preperation for the silly season, February sounds good, it also gives you / us plenty of time to make arrangements. .

Count me in too

Fabulous idea - count me in.

Me and the rest of the north-west boys could hire some transport to save on costs - need a big boot though!

im up for it ! might even have some spare cash after working all the way through Xmas

Seems to be that the best course of action would be to post here and give Gary an indication as to whether it is worth persuing booking a village hall / hotel etc.

Then perhaps promote the 'idea' to see if we can get more interest from members who don't visit frequently (I.e promotion on the forum 'newsletter' to all 2000 members).

Then, if it goes ahead, promote the details on a website, i'll happily sort this.

But at the moment it is just an idea and not a potential Plasa Rival! , just a place for us all to meet and have a drink and sell / swap gear!.

Yeah I'm up for it; although I feel it's vital that Gary has a word with those girls on the Gemini stand at Plasa, because I found their knowledge of mobile disco's to be top-notch, and therefore we really need them to be there also

Yes I'm interested. Nothing to sell but would love the meet up, would even be prepared to contribute to the cost of a venue if necessary.

Was going to ressurect the "Instead of Plasa" thread to try and get a meet together, but this would be even better.

Count me in.

ok this sounds a good idea, i'm up for it..

Good idea Gary but an impossibility for me,mind you i might be able to bring a woman for esk as he is obviously desperate!

108 topic views and only 11 votes

I aint got nothing to sell! so I'll keep the bar going!

Sounds good to me

Vinnie

Great Idea, nothing to buy due to lack of transport space....not a lot to sell due to having a recent clearout!!! But would still go anyway, a bit of a drive from Yorkshire but ill try and time it with a works trip away!!!

Steve

Can I make a bit of a suggestion here...Have it more in the Midlands area, central for the whole country and the Birmingham area has excellent communications network!!

Not everything in this world has to be geographically lower than Oxford!

LOL Kingy

When you next call into the Petrol station to fill up, it is possible to get more than £2.50 worth in there!



But, seriously I think Gary has chosen the M4 corridor, simply because 80% of our members are Southern Based, at least the active posting ones. If it was my Decision you'd all be travelling North, but then we'd only have 2 people attending.

We are very interested, nothing to sell but always up for a bargain all we need is a larger house to keep it all in. Sorry Kingy but Birmingham area would be the last place we would want to go to from where we live
M25
M1
M6
I have had to do this journey many times and it has always filled me with dread, always stuck in traffic going nowhere.

P.S.
Anyone taking a small van to the jumblesale for £5

Wouldn't be too bad on a Sunday, certainly has to be better than the traffic around London , although I must admit that Birmingham can be just as bad during Weekdays, 50 mins to drive Sandbach to Birmingham then 1 hour held up on the A38 .

Weekend Motorway Traffic, especially away from the Summer Holiday Season isn't too bad, I drove down the M6 - M5 on a Saturday to meet Andy at Exeter and did it in less 3 hours.

Traffic, sadly exists all over the country!

I just think that more people may go if it was more central. I know I live here, BUt, put that asside for a moment. Wouldn't it make more sense to have PLASA at the NEC...airport, motorway, trains, even a bloody canal!!

I cant see many people wanting to travel from too far up north down to the M4 corridoor, just like not many ( ADS being an odd exception) bothered travelling up to Blackpool last year.

Only a thought.....

Oh and Chris, can I legally buy more than £2.50 worth of diesel at a go? My wife says not!

Stoneleigh Park is just a bit further away from the NEC, slightly nearer to the M4 and therefore the South-East. Having attended an event here earlier this year I know it has good access, everything is on the ground floor and the access doors a so large we could even drive our cars straight into the venue - almost like an indoor car boot.

May be far too expensive...I fear we may end up meeting in Chris's front garden with a large number of extension cables!

I think the NEC and the cost of booking it may be a little bit excessive for what after all may be less than 50 members, and then only a precentage of them (6 so far) would be attending with a view to having some form of stall to sell / swap their old gear. Booking the NEC with only 6 stalls would get us all laughed out of the industry. Aston Community Centre would be more 'us' .

I think Gary was working along the lines of my thoughts, in that it's probably only going to end up being the size of the local Scouts Jumble sale, probably held in some form of hall or hotel function room - whichever works out the cheapest. I think we may be pushing our luck to get the manufacturers out of their warm beds on a Sunday for this sort of scale, but I'm happy to mention it to them, some of the smaller ones may be interested, but I wouldn't insult the Larger ones by asking them. Hopefully the Associations would also lend their support.

Sure, i'm happy to promote it on the WWW in the form of a website (So the sooner we can get the details arranged, the site built and googled the better), and through any other associated medium, WWW presence may boost attendance, it may also promote DJU as well, but realistically I think the best that we can hope for, would be the equivalant of a local Wedding Fayre.

It seems that the talk on arranging a Plasa Replacement is beginning to filter out, and not ONE person from DJU has volunteered to act in a representative capacity to look into arranging something like this. Exactly as I expected. This is because the cost and workload for something like this would take a team of dedicated individuals with the time and financial backing to make it work.

I think Gary's idea is more realistic, and certainly workable. After all the costs involved on this scale could easily be raised from donations, or a very small admission charge .

So, unless anybody has a magic solution to get 3000 people through the door on the day, lets keep our feet on the ground, and remain realistic .

I didn't mean use the NEC !!!

Just using that as an illustration, as I look at the map it seems to be ROUGHLY in the midle of the country.

Thats all I was getting at.

There are loads of venues around here that would be perfect, as I am sure there are in Sunderland, Portsmouth, Liverpool, Dover, Edinburgh and Cardiff. Just thinking of finding the middle of that lot......

I tend to agree with Chris that as more members are from the sourthern end of the country then we would be more likely to get more people attending if the venue was towards that neck of the woods.

I would of course prefer somewhere in the Midlands as it would mean a shorter drive for me.

But having said that, I don't really mind where it is as long as it's somthing more than a 15 minute meet up in an aisle somewhere.

I'm happy to work with Gary arranging and publicising the event, I had already planned to do a bit of DJU PR in the form of advertising in national mags etc, so I could leave it a while and promote both on the same advert .

Anybody else who wants to help out with the nuts and bolts of things, feel free to step forward and make yourself known .

Chris. I'll help in any way I can, PC and Internet work especially. I will also volunteer to drive on the day seeing as I'm tee-total.

You mean you're off to Spearmint Rhino?

Can I take this a stage further....

What if, we had a "Dinner / Dance" type affair in the evening, Jumbly say 1 to 5, then a D/D 7 to 11 / 12.

OK it's going to cost a little, the old TVDJA had a dinner last Feb, in Oxford and based on 200 people it panned out at £40 per head, but I'm sure a deal could be done somewhere a long the way.

when you say dinner dance do you mean curry and a night club or do you mean dressing up posh and bringing a date with you ?

@ £40 per head I would say that he meant a full Dinner Dance with black tie, Band or Disco and the full works. Either that or there is some Damned expensive Curry Houses in the Thames Valley area .

So far we have 21 'Yes I'm interested' as indicated on the poll above, so I reckon that would make it around £100 a head. Although I don't know whether the formal approach would be the way to go on this forum, it all depends on the age group who would be attending. As Marc as indicated the Curry and Nightclub may be more appealing to the majority, equally we may not get enough interest to do anything other than the DJU Jumble Sale that Gary is looking at.

As ever i'll leave it entirely up to debate , to gauge interest on the 3 ideas put forward:-

(i) Afternoon Jumble and Dinner Dance, with Black Tie as per Mikes Suggestion
(ii) Afternoon Jumble and Chippy / Curry and Nightclub / Pub as Marc Hinted
(iii) Just the Afternoon Arrangements as per Gary's original idea

Black tie? Dinner dance?

I'm not sure that I'll be able to look all nice'n'clean'n'tidy after lugging the old Disco gear around...

Hold on though - thats what we all do every weekend anyway isnt it...?

My first line of thought upon readin gthe 3 options above was ... "I wanna go back to bed, Im still knackered from the weekend - and listening to undancable tracks til 3am..."...however, thats Monday mornings for you.

My next thought about the three options went two ways.

1) We should start things off small as far as this first DJU meet/bring/swap/buy etc goes. Make it too much of a commitment eg: Cost per head, on-top of travel plans, the duration (to "pencil in" in diaries etc) and some people wont be able to make it, whereas they might have made a simpler -turnup-setup-chatup( )-packup-travelbackup kinda do. If "United #1" takes off, then lets consider something more elaborate for "United #2" (The Sequel)

However, the follow on thought was:

2) Once its gone, its gone. If the first meet enables everyone to sell, swap or exchange their items of gear which they no longer need - by passing/selling them on to someone who does need them - then no-one will have much unwanted gear left to take to any subsequent event eg: "DJU #59" (gaw! Its just like NOW albums!)

can i wear my kilt ?

I like the idea of making it something a little bit more than a jumble sale, but I am not keen for it to become a formal event finishing quite late on, I suspect, a Sunday night.

Having said that, I'll happily go with the flow.

Rich

My thoughts are that the Dinner / Dance is more of a Masonic Lodge / Formal type of event, and with our members being mainly under 35 would it appeal to them?. My own thoughts are that I spend most of my Saturdays wearing a Tie or Black Tie so I prefer to dress casually in my free time / socialising.

I am happy to go with what the Majority decide, but also bearing in mind that Sunday Night may mean school / work the next morning for those who don't DJ full time then any late running Evening event may be a non starter from the word go, then there is the Journey home / overnight accomodation to consider.

I would prefer a 'jumble sale' from say 1pm to 5pm, then those you wanted to could meet up again at the local pub/restuarant/curry house and have a meal, a bit like we did in Blackpool.
It won't matter then how many people drop out, as some may have work early the next day, some will need picking up and won't be able to make the evening too late either, so then if we had 45 people say yes to the meal, as we hadn't booked anything we could turn up at the local eatingg house with 10/20 numbers down and it wouldn't matter, we could still get a decent discount booking 20 covers on a Sunday evening

Count me in

A jumble sale where we could get a decent bit of kit for a bargain price sounds great. As does meeting up with fellow members over a drink or curry. But it's early on a cold, wet Sunday morning. There's a two hour drive ahead and the bed is so warm and cosy...

I reckon the best intentions of most members who agree in principle to turn up would be put to the test on the actual day. I think we need an incentive to get us on the road, to break the ice between members and give us something to talk about afterwards.

What about starting the day with some sort of activity? Quad bikes, tank driving, falconry, archery, shooting, etc. I expect a group rate booking in February would be quite reasonable - I'd be happy to pay up to £50 if we were doing something exciting. Plus, having paid in advance, it would get people out of their beds nice 'n' early and guaranteed to turn up.

What do you guys 'n' gals think?

Im not sure anything that involves physical activity and breaking into a sweat would be such a good idea.....

plus if there was a major quad bike acident there would be a lot of people with out DJ's the following week and no one to cover the bookings.

I've had my fill of trying to arrange complex events recently!!! But if there is anything I can do, I will happily help.

Keep it simple, afternoon audiojumble/lightfest, carry on in a pub after if possible! Somewhere south of Birmingham would be nice for me, but it's up to the majority. I can make SEDA aware, they might turn up if it is in Kent

Sounds like fun.

I would like to attend and as I would be travelling from Inverness I would go for the sale then a few beers/curry.
Why not just book a hotel funtion room for the whole day say 12-12 .
I am sure we could find someone to do a disco
Also booking a hotel might get cheap rate rooms for any who will be staying the night after a few .

Agreed with Chris, keep it simple, and if people want a curry after then book the curry house then.

I reckon a small hotel room, that does a decent meal in the evening would probably give us a room FOC on a Sunday afternoon, in the hope that we spend our cash in the bar/restuarant

I would definately drop by if it was quite close but I dont think I would travel to the South for it.

My local community cnetre does the hall for the afternoon for about £60 and I recon would have space on the floor area for more than enough stalls and there is a back room and stage area if maraculously we run out of space.

I think that just a jumbe sale would be best as as said before on a sunday people have work / school and people would want to go home an have a rest if they have been gigging all weekend.

I would help if anyone wants to assign a role to me.

I think once we have decided an area for the sale we should have a post brainstorming all the things that would need doing eg website, advertising, finances, booking, organising hwo has what for sale, times, who gets what stall, etc etc.

then another post listing every role and then people could post asking for a role and then a final post telling who has what role.



Daniel

It doesn't have to be Black tie.
The reason for the suggustion was that it would have to be somewhere central, say Birmingham, people travel in from far and wide, the odds are drink will come into the eqaution somewhere (well we are DJ's).

So No driving, no expensive taxi's, everything "inhouse". Jumbly in the afternoon finish 5.00pm, pack up, go to room S.S.S. come down drink, eat, drink, dance, drink, to go bed.

I thought that was keeping it simple.

Also, if it were a "Hilton", type chain hotel, what better image, than a group of professional DJ's, in Black Tie, asking the "local lad" can you play??? Also as an employer rather than employee (for a change), we can ask the hotel to varify that the DJ has PAT & PLI (lol).

Just an idea......

Quick update: I didnt get to speak to the General Manager of the Venue which I have in mind for DJU #1, only one of the duty managers, who turned a funny shade of green when I said "DJ's" and a even wierder colour when I said "Jumble Sale".

However, I shall re-market the idea to the General manager asap, maybe even this weekend.

Cant you just borrow some poor old buggers field to hold it in!




























Andy's got a big garden!