Hello,
I don’t have much for you, but I can give some input. I too am a beginner DJ and have done TONS and TONS of research. I have been doing gigs for about 2 months now.
1. I thought for a long time about names and didn’t think of anything that I really liked. Everything I did think of, I searched on GOOGLE and found that someone somewhere already had it. I also grabbed a dictionary and just started glancing at words and came up with a few that didn’t really fit me. Just keep an eye out and an ear open and listen to words that you hear in your everyday life. Something will happen. In my case I stuck to my last name.
2. I don’t know what you mean as decent price. If you are serious about starting a business you should buy something that you can GROW into instead of spending a few hundred dollars off the bat and realize you need to upgrade already. If you are just gonna stick to house parties and small venues I would go with the Behringer B212D. It’s a 12″ speaker that is powered and has really good sound. If you want to step it up go with the B215D’s (15″ Speaker meant for bigger venues). You can grab a pair ranging between $425 – $600 (depending if you do smart shopping and using promo codes, and which speaker you choose to go with). If money is tight, use zzsounds.com. They have alot of gear that you can buy everything you want and divide it into 4 payments over 4 months using any credit card. You can also PRICE MATCH with them.
3. I have always always always used vistaprint.com. You can choose a template that they already have for DJ under premium business cards and search “DJ” or “Music” for a template. Then design your business card to the layout you want. You can move things to where you want them to be and change the font,size, color even add pictures. After you design the card and you are happy make sure you search on GOOGLE “vistaprint coupon codes”. You can end up saving 40-90% on most things. If you have photoshop, you can create your own template and upload it to vistaprint.
4. As far as contracts. I searched on GOOGLE “mobile dj contract agreements” , “mobile dj contracts”, etc. Save a few to your favorites and then create your own contract in WORD taking a few thing from each of them and combine to make your own. As far as price, its your friend! I would probably say around $40/hr. Search on Craigslist and go to SERVICES and search “DJ”. You will see what people in the area are charging, but since you are new at it and its a friend at least make enough to pay for your time setting up and breaking down, gas, and your time.
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