Music and Gig Questions

Hah you are near my region (Austria) so I can comment:
The people in Slovenia and Croatia are very very open minded and generally have a great deal of fun at parties even when the DJ does not deliver 🙂
That has good and bad sides. The good is, that you can easily throw in tunes that nobody expects or are not the expected genre and they will decide if the tune is good or not and not judge you first hand. So you have a real chance there.
However the downside is, that the competition is very hard, as there are many that call themselves DJs, have no idea what they are doing and play a gig for 50 or 100 bucks. I would no let that get in the way though, especially Zagreb is big enough for all of us hehe Just make some mixes and send it to club owners, or even better show up and try to talk to them. To them “style” is very important, so try to look like you have your own clothing style and use big words…

As for DJ pool, I saw that zipdj has lots and lots of music. I have no idea if it really floats your boat though. But you can get a test license, where you cannot download, but explore the whole catalogue.

Hey Max,

The most professional way to go about it here (or what is looked upon as professional) is to go to the club/bar/venue and ask for an appointment. Do not ask to talk to the owner upfront, but ask for an appointment, you want to introduce yourself and possible leave a demo (many do not understand mixtape, they talk about demos). Many times you will not wait to make an appointment and the owner will talk to you right away, but it is perceived as more polite to ask that way. Also show up in good clothing, with your business card and use big words by still being humble. Especially the Croatians and Slovenians like the US people as they still look at them as “those who freed us in the balkan war”, but they also made bad experiences with “bully type” marines, so being humble is especially important if you are from the US. (Humble without trying to kiss ass, as they do not like that).
Then you should not have problems.

The classic payment rippoff is more common the more south you go. Especially Austria and down including Zagreb, I have rarely encountered anyone who wanted to rip me off or even not pay me. Once or twice you encouter someone that had a really bad day (like another venue had a special party and the audience was there…) and they try to convince you that it was really bad and make up for it next time… etc. But even that is very very rare.
Further south and in Italy if you are not Italian they can be more tricky. What I do however is: I have prepared a small form, where I neatly have some basic stuff, like when will the gig be, what the owner has to provide (like permits etc.) and of course the cash I want. I fill that out together with the owner and let him sign it and give him a copy. Never fails me.
This is especially important in Italy where you can get a visit from their music licensing thingy, they will look if your music is legal and if you or the venue have the right permits. If you show them the small contract they will immediately ask the owner and you are safe.
You should definitely look into that jungle of permits and stuff here in Europe it is a nightmare in some countries…

Hope that helps you a bit buddy 😉