contracts

Uhm, you sure he didn’t want you to play in between the live show acts?

I am just saying that getting mad (although logical) is usually the worst avenue. Sometimes there are (good) reasons why things aren’t what YOU expected them to be (like you thought you were booked for an entire night’s gig, while all the owner expected was you playing the breaks in the live show).

Over the (many) years, I have learned that counting to 10, not letting my anger vent but rather parking it for later and being polite and asking for an explanation more often than not gave me at least some insight about why things were the way they are.

EVERY story has two sides! And while I am not saying no mistakes have been made, communication hasn’t been great or whatever (I don’t know the entire story after all), because something went wrong if only based on the simple conclusion that your expectations didn’t match with what was on offer.

The key ingredient is always, was it done on purpose? If you have serious reason to believe the owner would have you show up while knowing full well you weren’t gonna be playing, than I’d say good riddance to them.

On the other hand even if you weren’t supposed to play and it was all some big communication scr*w up, if you had stayed and talked to the owner in a reasonable voice, he could have explained, possibly apologized and you could have told him (if it was his mess up) that you’d still expect to be paid. Depending on his reaction you could have even offered to play the breaks (so you are doing the work you want to get paid for). If it was clear he wasn’t gonna pay you, even if it was him who got his stuff wrong, then again, good riddance.

But all that was only possible if you had kept your anger in check and been able to communicate with the owner rather than turning around and steaming out of the place.

I understand, as I said, the anger felt for showing up for (what looks like) a non-playing night.
Then again, you are there, you are not gonna get another paid gig for that night on such short notice. You already spent the gas or train money to get there and you have no other plans for the night.

If you had talked to him and depending on the outcome of that conversation stayed for a bit, you could have done some networking with the staff, regular customers and perhaps even the live acts.

My point, at the end of the day, is that trying to ALWAYS try to make something positive out of whatever crosses your path, usually has a habit of working out for the best.

Small anecdote: I remember getting invited to a bar to play one night, very early in my “career”. I was barely 19 and just got my first car so I could drive myself to gigs. I got to the place and got introduced to (lets call him) John “the DJ you are working with tonight”. Needless to say, being the hothead I was at the time, I got pretty upset. Having had a good, older friend, who had taught me a few things, I counted to 10, asked why they hadn’t told me (oops, sorry, our bad – reaction) and if the fee we agreed on would remain as promised even if I was now playing approximately half of the gig (it was). Long story somewhat shorter, I ended up having a great night, learning lots of tricks from the far more experienced John who turned out to be a stand-up guy. Better yet, during one of the sets that John played, I walked over to the bar, talked to some of the customers, one of which was the owner of a venue in a different town (he was a friend of the owner of this bar). I ended up doing 2 guest gigs when his resident was on holiday two weeks later.

Had I done what was my initial thought, namely get angry and leave, I would have NOT gotten paid, NOT gotten some great tips from an experienced guy and NOT played two well-paid gigs in another town two weeks later.

To answer your question, yes we use contracts (especially in the wedding DJ business and corporate events). However they are as much for the customer as they are for the DJ. My opinion on contracts after 30 years in business is that contracts are only useful when there is a dispute. And if you need a contract to enforce agreements made, that usually is the end of any constructive cooperation.

The only use a contract would have had in your case was if you had confronted the owner the same night and he would have told you he wasn’t paying you even though you showed up for nothing. You could have then sunk a lawyer on him the following workday. He might have ended up paying the couple of hundred bucks he owed you, which you could have given right back to the lawyer for his services (with some extra money possibly). You would never work with this owner again and he’d probably be telling everyone in the business that this “a-hole DJ sued me!”.

Losers all around.

Hmm … I did it again, didn’t I, another wall of text.

Still I hope the message is clear though. Part of being a professional is not losing your cool in the face of adversity. Don’t get angry, get even or get paid 😀 As our dear friend Dr. Phil always says: “if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem”.

Greetinx.

p.s. If you need to talk, I have a pretty decent couch!Greetinx.

Sounds like handled it good :-). Hard to comment sometimes without knowing the entire story. So I tend to answer from a broad perspective.

And I agree about not losing regular business, on the other hand, the owner has to pay for the consequences of his actions, I’d try to get something out of it, even if it’s the time and travel cost. Letting him off the hook free is not something I’d be willing to do easily. It’s a matter of valueing your own time too after all.

Let us know how this turns out.

Greetinx.