Why do clubs not pay DJ's more?

This doesn't surprise me at all. I've suspected for a long time that this was happening. Here's a description of a surreal club experience I had in December...

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This isn't a flash-in-the-pan club, either. It's a large place that's been around longer than I have. One of the first clubs I found in SL.

I don't know who's hiring you to script for them but I'm a custom scripter and my experience is totally different as I've been reading about dancers/etc making 3k an hour and thinking "I don't even make that much!" If I even thought about charging half as much as you say you do I'd get no work at all. Hell my last project took 2 weeks and I got a whole 2k for it...

not all dj's with talent ask for 500 to 1000k
to say the ones getting paid 150 an hour don't have talent is way off..i know a lot of dj's happy with the 150 an hour and stability and cranking out great tips that are some of the best around..we've had dj's at the club for going on two years now doing nothing but djing..i don't know a lot of dj's walking all over them with quality better than theirs..
it's not how much you make per hour that makes you quality it's how good you are at your job that gets you to the good money..

Let's see - 2 events a day, hiring DJs, at least one host, tier & stream can easily add up into hundreds of rl dollars a month. 150Lx2 hours x2 events a day(DJs) x30 days = approximately $68 USD @265L/1 USD. That's just the DJs.

If you are lucky, you can make this back from splitting the tips. But let's say you take 10% off the top. The DJ has to earn 3000L in tips just for you to break even. How often do you see THAT happening? Now if you pay more money on a regular basis, think about how much the staff has to get tipped before you break even on their salaries.

Assume now 50L/hr for hosts. 200L/day = 6000L/month on hosts. $22.65 USD.

Throw in contests twice daily with the DJ'd events and you're throwing away about 30k L a month just to get a handful of people in the door. $113 USD. And this is not recoverable.

Stream fees: Anywhere from 1k to 4k a month on average.

How much money are you willing to put out as a club owner?

Let's say you have some rentals on the side. This is basically the only way to subsidize this endeavor, really, unless you also are a content creator with an independent stream of income. The rentals are unlikely to allow you to actually make an overall profit unless you charge exorbitant rental fees for people to just be near your club.

And you wonder why clubs come and go?

You either do it as a labor of love, or you have something on the side to subsidize it. Clubs are just a huge money loser. It is a shame that we can't pay more, but the financial reality is that it's just too much for the average person to pay regularly because you will never see much of it come back.

Thinking more about the math.... forget owning a club, buy your own full prim island as your own personal playground, the expenses are almost the same.

i agree they are too much for the avg person and clubs just don't make money..

now if done right and you have a long term plan like the club i used to work for which is 19 sims of beautiful rentals and an industrial park for businesses the club becomes part of the community..
it's built into something really nice but did take a lot of money..
i won't even go into the RL figures of what the club used to cost when it sat on the top of the pop list for 9 months..that even makes me cry lol

you have to have money to make something like that work..
clubs are money pits and always will be..they are good for getting attention to other things though..

Absolutely, Ceka. GOL is a top tier environment. I shudder to think of how much that cost in real dollars, but they have excellent designers, the rentals should make up for it easily.

you would cry if you knew what the weekly salaray was for one week in USD for gol3 i know i cried and kittens died all over the place lol..
just the regular security guys not the managers but the regular security were 4k per week..

EDIT: thats 4k lindens per week not USD but the USD numbers were omg lol

/me shudders.

Don't they have like 5 or 6 events a day? They're tossing out about 3k L a day on contests alone.

working for the wrong folks i guess.. in the last 2 weeks alone since i started taking work again i've made 125,000 L$

Indeed, it does sound like I am working for the wrong people. Now if only I knew how to meet some of the right people who'd actually pay better.

when i left or i think it was shortly after i left they stopped putting up money for events i believe..i don't know how they are working it now..but there is no nude dancers there anymore since they switched to GOL's 5th Element..it is a dance club now with great dj's..
i know when i was there we had i think they were two hour events that started at 8am and went all the way until 9 or 10pm slt..
I talk to the owner now and then but i really couldn't say how they do events nowdays..i do know they are a loyal staff and customers and we used to always try to find great ways to make it fun and try to make the budget bigger without having to go to the owner..
we did pull profits sometimes but nothing like the first two clubs did..

all i can sayy is it wouldn't suprise me at all if the staff found a way to fund events on their own hehehe

sim owners, mall owner, startup companies.. i turn down a lot of offfers because they don't seem or act like proffesionals during the introductary meeting. and many look the other way because they can't afford my time. But scripting is your lively hood, and they will be using your work for profit. Myself I use to let the person I was working for just pay me what they thought it was worth, they were happy, I was happy.. but then once, i was paid 35,000 for a script, and i watched on the objects release day as the owner made back that in double within 30 minutes... after that i would never work for low price again.

but enough derailing, talk to me ingame if you wish.

Between the staff, the contests, the tips to employees, the stream, and the concerts, I was spending at *minimium* $300USD per month. When I closed the club...I bought a sim.

(Two sims, if you include the one I leased and gave up, and then bought my own - two total in my name now.)

At least now, I'll make some money from store rentals and home rentals, instead of spending it all the time.

Yeah I've noticed a lot more DJ paycuts on the sims and clubs I attend, I guess there's less spending going on in sl.


But if anybody wants a DJ job...(i've unfortunately been let down numerous times grrr) there's a DJ job going on Devilfish Beach.

1 hour set, 500L, preferred genres pop/dance (it's a gay friendly beach) 1PM sl time so a european party. You can put out a tipjar, we have a stream you can use. So it's a matter of turning up and playing for an hour. Would prefer a DJ who has a mic and talks from time to time.

We have two days available, Thursdays and Fridays with potential for more, nice crowds, nice hosts, we run contests too so if you want the job and can be RELIABLE IM me in-world.


But yeah money-making club wise is very difficult these days, with so few games available, unless the club sells merch or is supported by something along the lines of malls/properties/other paid for entertainment it's likely the djs pay is coming out of the owner's RL dollars.

If only someone would make an SL alcohol that everybody craved....

My partner and i recently opened a club up in response to her DJ group wanting it. It was a venture for them and as far as we are concerned it is their club and we are the care takers.

We do not pay DJs. It is a tips only job, the same with our hostesses. The simple reason we dont?? Because we cant afford to. Right now the club covers most of its own costs with a very small mall. However our Djs make around 1000L a shift and they seem to enjoy it with decent crowds. My partner left a steady gig with 1000L a shift plus all her tips to do thsi gig. Yes she makes less now, but in the end I think MOST DJs in SL work to enjoy it rather than to make thousands in tips and well those are the DJs we want working with us anyway

We dont want our little club shutting down in like 2 months because we have poured in a heap of RL money that we couldnt afford, so we made a concious choice to have our staff volunteer and work for tips. Clubs are suposed to be fun and the shifts should be too

Oh and as for hosts and hostesses not working?? Well they do a lot people dont even think about. They pick a theme, send out notices, tey might also organise events on the events calander. Then they set the board when they get there. They greet and chat and they may also have to ask peopel to leave and ban them etc (esp at a club like i run with is females only).

/me grins.... now if only i can find me an Aussie DJ!

What you expect people to pay 28cents for only a couple of hours entertainmet?
How can clubs pay DJ's anything when the customers are paying them nothing. Pretty soon the customers will be complaining when they get nothing but canned music

They prolly pay low wages because they cant pay higher ie the club dosent make enough

Can DJ's in sl really complain. I mean really? We are all pretty informed about sl's economy within our first week here. You can buy a whole outfit for $4 USD! You cant even do that at most thrift stores.

Back to the OP's post where they stated that being a DJ in sl could easily cost $300 in rl to get started. While I don't know much about DJing sl or rl I could guarantee you the the cost of being a good DJ is real life has to be 2, 3, maybe even four times that. Lets remember sl is a virtual land. DJ's, dancers hostesses (and in sl I am a dancer) sit in their comfortable homes, wearing whatever they please, and doing whatever they want while not on mic interacting with the crowd. I mean really, how much do you expect for one to pay for a DJ in sl?

On another note, in most clubs the DJ takes home most of the money. More than the owners of the club, more than the hosts and hostesses and in most cases more than the fully nude Dancers. And I always suspected that DJs in sl do it for the fun of it. If your not doing it for that you probably shouldnt be doing it, because IMHO thats what sl is supposed to be about.

We get $1600L per set (2 hours) plus tips. You just have to set a standard and stick to it, but make sure you put on a show.

I do DJ from time to time, and ya know what I get paid... nothing...
no tips no pay, I do it because I LOVE to do it

I was more curious as to why clubs pay so little (I was pretty sure the reason would be exactly what many ppl have posted, that clubs are money pits)
just wanted to confirm it for myself

I usually try to tip DJs at least $L1000. The first time I do it, they seem to hit the ceiling with delight.. "wow! thanks man!".. Then I remind them that $L50 is what.. 20 cents? I'm not being overly generous as far as I'm concerned, I'm being reasonable given the effort that goes into a well produced gig. Only a total cheapskate would drop 20 cents into a real life DJ or musician's tip jar.

considering that I actually HAVE been tipped in the range of 50 - 100 Lindens before .... The reaction you got was due more to the fact that at a good many clubs, the DJ does NOT see as much money as some may actually think.

Now, please do not get me wrong on what I am about to say next, I do love DJing and find it fun.

I am currently acting as a 'fill-in' DJ at a club in SL, I do so because at the moment there is no direct pay from the Owner, we only get paid in tips, and the place is just starting out.

But there is another reason I am more of a 'fill-in' there:The last Club I worked at I used to do regular shifts. Once again there was no direct pay by the owners (by direct I mean a fixed rate), ALL of the employees EXCEPT for the Management had to earn their wage in Tips alone. It was fun there, at first anyway. The tips started out good, nothing spectacular ... Then the Upper Management started pushing the staff harder, wanting to run the place 24/7. As a result I ended up pulling double and triple shifts at times .... and at some point before that happened the tips pretty much STOPPED coming. The only reason I stayed with them at that point was because someone I love was still working there.

Eventually it got to the point where we BOTH quit that Club. I had wanted to for some time but hung around as emotional and moral support. It was simply not worth the stress ... I mean, come on! Double and Triple (2-hours at a time mind you!) shifts? sometimes these stints being sprung on me with barely any time at all to prepare? It simply wasn't worth it anymore ... I'd end up walking away most nights with MAYBE 100 in tips from some of those stints!

Now, if I'm going to be working for tips only, I only work as a fill-in until I can see what the atmosphere of the place is like, along with just exactly how many shifts in a row and how often multi-shift work happens .... and to see how much the average staff member gets tipped.

As harsh as it sounds, I don't work for free anymore. DJing is currently the ONLY job I have in Second Life and I am quite frankly sick of pulling so many shifts and getting squat out of them. If the wage is Tips Only? see above. If the Wage is Tips Only AND a percentage of that tip gets shaved or is required to be paid to the Club Owner? I walk, it's not worth it. Hourly Wage? You've got my interest.

The thing that really annoys me, is when a place will "hire" someone and that person is paid only via tips, YET they are expected to follow a very rigid schedule, and to be exclusive to that club (one place I dj'd at very early in my SL days, was exactly like that... (I quit there)

I mean come on, first they are not hired, because you are not paying them, they are volunteering their time and hoping that the patrons will give them a penny here and there
and secondly you are not paying them, why the hell should they be exclusive to you, PAY them, give them a reason to be exclusive!!

/rant

Exactly Rha - and what REALLY drove a spike in there and made me VERY unhappy was this: They apparently had enough money at one point to try and open a dedicated Mall Sim to 'boost' revenue. Granted, the Mall did not do so well as a Sim by itself but ..... If they had that much money, why couldn't they actually PAY their employees?

They eventually had to merge the Mall into the Club anyway - why didn't they do that in the first place so they COULD pay the employees?