A question for DJ's and club owners

Hey everyone!

I would like to hire a DJ to work for me in my mixed martial arts fight league. This DJ would work once or twice a week, and each event would be 2 hours long. They would be playing the intro music for the fighters, and also announcing the fighters as they enter the ring. I would like them to play music during the actual fights as well, to enhance the mood of the event.

My question is, how much is a fair amount to pay a DJ in this case?

Thanks for your help!

Royce.

Are you providing the shoutcast stream? Pay would depend upon who pays for the shoutcast stream . I provide the shoutcast stream and pay $150L a hour - but my DJs get tips.

You may ned to pay a minimum of $300L a hour for someone to dedicate the time to do this.

This is also something you can do yourself. If you have a PC you can come by CLUB SCHOOL and get a free DJ Class and be up and running within two hours. Send Lias Leandros a instant message to get the school group tag and classs schedule.


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I'd say a minimum of 500L per hour since doing an intro for fighters is a timed thing and there is a delay for the DJ and they will be reading from a script I gather. Maybe contact Nikk Dreamscape. He is a RL DJ and also has done a great deal with The American Fight League and a few Wrestling groups in the area. He know's what is needed in an intro and how to deliever it. Only downfall is his stream is a 24/7 Stream in our store. So getting another set up may be required.

By providing the DJ stream....do you mean just letting them copy and paste their link into my land's media player? I would definitely be providing that. I have been handling every aspect of my events myself up until now, but it's getting too big to do it anymore. I officiate the fights, and run my tournament board as well as deal with all the constant IMs and group invites, and questions regarding rules. lol. I pretty much would need to grow a few more arms and lose my marbles completely before I could also DJ as well.

Thanks for the suggestion for pay.

Meaning Shoutcast Sever

I don't actually know what you mean..I'm sorry. Would I have to buy a subscription to a Shout Cast server? How much does this cost?

This Nikk Dreamscape sounds PERFECT! I hope he is interested and available.

Yes you would have to provide the server most likely.. Depending on your crowd they range from 500L a month to 3000L a month. nothing really pricy..

Oh that's not too bad at all. Would I purchase this through SL, or at the Shoutcast website?

There are a good deal of providers in SL where you can do everything from there. It wouldn't be fair for me to reccomend on in here so I'll just say do a search for Shoutcast in places.. You will find what you need at good rates

Yes you need to rent a shoutcast stream in order to broadcast using SAM Broadcaster, Nicecast (for MACs) or Virtual DJ. Open search and look up the avatar DibbleBee Buckenburger. He rents shoutcast streams at a reasonable rate.

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We provide the stream for our DJ as we use it as well and we pay him 1000L$ an hour while he is working and he keeps 100% tips, but then it all depends what you can afford and what their time is worth to you. We think 1000L$ an hour is cheap for someones time ( about 4USD ), others here will think otherwise, you must strike the balance yourself

I'm sorry but teaching a club owner how to DJ is about the WORST thing you can do.

I learned this lesson the hard way: some of them will turn around and lay off ALL of their DJs to save a buck.

You can use more than just SAM's program for streaming: It all depends on what format your music is in ... I have a crap load of music that I ripped out of my CDs: None of those tracks are in MP3 format: M4A is a bit smaller and a little less lossy. If I had the drive space for it, I'd have used FLAC.

Having hard drive for all WAV is something I wish I was able to do.

Thankfully, FLAC files aren't as big as pure WAV files. They're compressed, but lossless - Still bigger than an MP3 or M4A however.

son as I can ... I'm getting a 1TB external HDD.

I would never take any of a DJ's tips. 1000L an hour is very reasonable, but for a venue like mine, the DJ won't be the central entertainment focus, just an enhancement. I pay my fighters for their wins, and I pay my directors for their management contributions...then again a GREAT DJ with tons of on mic personality is an asset to any venu, and would easily be worth 1000L an hour to anyone.

Yes this is true.. Wav is the Neko's meow though.. lol

This thread brings up an interesting problem. What is a fair rate to pay? I am a DJ. I can make more money to stand around all day punching a button that says what you've asked for. "I'd like a Big Mac." OK, where's the button that says Big Mac? There it is. Push it. "Give me a large strawberry shake too." OK, let's see, um, large, there it is. Strawberry shake, right there. Cool. "And would you like fries with that sir?" "No thanks." "OK, your total is (reading the screen)...." Take the money, get your Big Mac, put it in a bag. Dispense premade strawberry shake material, I don't even have to make it. Done.

DJ'ing takes a large investment in music, time to put together a playlist, personality both in typed chat and on the mic, it's really a ton of work, far more difficult than the job I cited above, and I can't even get paid minimum wage? Something's very wrong here. If they actually enforce the royalty laws recently passed in the United States, there isn't a single DJ in the actual United States who can afford to work for less than $20 an hour. Thats US $, not L$. Are those of you reading this who would have cause to hire a DJ, or already have DJ's working for you, prepared to pay this much to adequately compensate them for their skill, the royalties they will be forced to pay, the $500 yearly license they'll have to pay before they even play a single song, and all the time they'll be required to spend handling the paperwork just to know (literally on a second-by-second basis) exactly who was listening to what song on their stream, and send all that in with their payments?

Somebody has to, or they'll all have no choice but to stop, that's too much to expect them to pay when they work for what is being paid in SL.

I do not see this affecting the DJ;s in SL

as DJing in SL is pretty much the same as sticking the music on your cd player at home and sharing it with friends at a party

remember linden dollars are not real money.. (cough) so therefor no one is really getting paid to DJ...

loop holes got to love them.

That is really ridiculous actually. Would a DJ be expected to front that money even when DJing in SL?

There are eaiser ways to get a license out there. http://www.swcast.net/ for one will save anyone a great deal of money if they want to Net DJ.

you are comparing a RL job to a VR job. In that instance nothing in SL is fair. I'm a clothing desinger in SL.. in RL do you think I would sell an outfit for 1.20? Heck no.. Should DJ's be compensated more? Sure I think so.. But it won't happen..

I would agree, except that if you're DJ'ing, you're using an Internet stream, and there are very exact, publicly readable, laws regarding royalties that have to be paid for all Internet streams, as passed into law in the United States. If they start enforcement of all of them, it's going to cost and cost big.

good point there

guess we just have to wait and see what direction this one takes

Combine an SWcast account with Rhapsody it would cost you less than a sim payment for sure. Most clubs won't max a server and the LPH rate would be pretty easy to afford. Pay 99 cents per song and only have the popluar stuff on hand.. Sure this would limit a good bit of the Obscure music out there. But it would be cost effective

I can understand that you wouldn't sell an RL outfit nearly as cheaply as you're being paid for SL outfits. One difference here though, unless you're selling it as Calvin Klein (for example) and paying royalties for the use of the name, you don't have to pay anybody in RL for the right to make and sell that outfit in SL. Per the laws, DJ's are required to.

The point I was making you were comparing a RL job to an SL job. And if you think about it.. We are not allowed to sell it with a Calvin Kline logo under what? Copyright laws.. But I"m sure if you get permission from say.. Linkin Park to play their music on an internet stream you could and would. It's not a good comparison..

I have given you ideas on how to be legal and the most cost effective ways to do so. I'm only worried about the two FM's and two AM's I have to keep legal RL. The point is.. If you want to DJ in SL yes it will cost you a bit more money and you should ask for more in return. But as long as you have illegals out there it will never happen. I think some will sacrifice quality for money.