Dirty Hippie
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Dirty Hippie
ParticipantI agree that the sound company should know all of this. My concern is making sure my sound company is doing what they should. The quote they gave me is very detailed, and I want to be sure it is everything that is needed but not being charged for items that are not. As this festival progresses in years to come I will know a lot more, but I am trying to get up to snuff this go ’round to make sure the bands and audience are happy when it is over.
Another milestone, I was able to secure my web domain for dirt cheap with free hosting. Now I have to brush up on my web design skills and get the site off the ground. We also hit 250 rsvps and 175 “maybe” on Facebook which I feel is a great amount for an event 8 months away. We are purposefully holding back 4 more headliner announcements to build buzz again right before ticket sales officially start.
ParticipantThanks for the replies. What about mics and mic stands? Mics seem like a very important piece of equipment in a live band situation so you would not think the bands would leave that to the venue, but some people seem to think it is expected.
ParticipantD-Jam touched on it, but make sure you are having fun. Play music you like and make people feel like they should really like it too. That is not to say that you should not adapt if the crowd is not feeling it, but make sure you are always being you.
Another thing is to use some familiarity. One poster above said that she saw DJays not catching on that the crowd wanted hip-hop. However, a DJay is that is booked to play their style of music should stay somewhat within their realm, but can help the crowd get into by playing something that the crowd wants. For example, if the DJays at the show mentioned above would have played some remixes of hip-hop songs, the crowd may have felt included (not sure that is he word I am looking for) and connected more with the music even if it wasn’t exactly what they wanted.
ParticipantSo I have hit the point of stress really creeping in. I am 8 months from the festival, and my budget is basically finalized. Ticks will go on sale officially in January. My major concern at this point is sound, light, and staging. I have taken several bids and all are within the budget, but my main fear is that the bands will not have what they need. None of the bands attached a rider to their contract and the contracts all indicate that the bands will provide their own equipment. However, I am new at this, so they may be expecting something standard that I am unaware of. My DJays are easy. I have a pair of CDJ 200nxs and a DJM 900NXS, as well as a pair 1210’s for the two vinyl DJays booked.
Does anyone have any experience running events with bands? If so, what is expected on stage from the venue other than the PA, lighting, monitors, and a sound engineer to handle the levels, etc.?
On a side note, I used a fraction of the budget for design and graphics to get Photoshop and made my own posters, flyers, and web page (still in progress), saving a significant margin and learning a new skill in the process. I have gotten numerous compliments on the poster which I made with the help of a few tutorials.
Peace,
Dirty HippieParticipantAs someone who just spent the last 2 months booking artists, one piece of advice I would offer is to not ACT like a teenager. As I am promoting my festival, I was willing to consider booking requests from artists of any age. The requests I received ranged from vary professional to informal inquiries, but the younger the artist, the less professional the requests were. One from a 16 year old literally had one line “you still Bookin fer DIs” (that is a copy and paste). I responded and asked for a more formal booking inquiry and information about him and he sent back a link to his Facebook page… I looked through about 10 posts and all of them had at least 3 f-bombs.
I am not saying you kid is a terrible sh!t like this guy, but you could use this time as a learning opportunity to teach him how to network, act in a professional manner, and sell himself like an adult. It will certainly help him a lot in the future.
As far as gig ideas; festivals, block parties, car shows, birthday parties, grand openings, school events, and a lot of others are good for younger djays.
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