Quote:
Originally Posted by Lonman
I lost a show due to a computer user downloading every song from a LimeWire type site where they didn't have to pay for anything. But what goes around comes around, they could not keep a crowd & the bar dropped them a month afterward & tried to get me back, however my price went up so they didn't get me back either!
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Lon, are you saying that you lost a show because someone else with a computer underpriced you because of his/her lower price due to freebies. Wow!
I think I've been undercut a several times in the DJ world of things by some of those guys but I never know when it happens.
One story, though, last summer, when I decided to drop three gigs a week at one place, I had recommended one guy who was completely legal and the owner liked him ok as well. But somehow, one of my regulars snuck in and got the gigs and started to examine how I was hooking up things. Aparently, he was charging a lot less than the recommended guy, was planning on using a laptop with a crack copy of OTS and their new freebie karaoke add-on. He had told me himself he was copying his friends disks into the program. Three months later he came to my house and asked if I would take my old job back. Why, "I asked." Well, my laptop crapped out and I really needed it for the DJ music in between songs. Apparently, he was still using disks, never got them all copied or the copying process didn't work well, and he used the laptop broke down excuse to get out of the karaoke scene altogether. I still see him around town with his laptop DJ'ing a few niteclubs here and there.
This was one of these places where they said "Man, am I glad you're back, the other guy had a lotta songs, but it was all about himself.
Now I'm still in the process of trying to find someone to take at least two of those gigs so I can remain in the place and have a back-up guy when I go on vacations, etc. Oh, and by the way, when I came back, I explained to the owner how my costs were always a bit more than most around town and why I had to raise my rates a little. He said "Sure, no problem". Every week since then, December sometime, someone comes up and restates "Wow, really nice to have you here, it is just so much better."
So, here I am again with a regular job during the week, 4 outa 5 weekday nights KJ'ing, and helping my G/f on weekends doing her two shows, and sometimes we get weddings and private parties on weekend days, usually one or two a month, and my prices are at least 50% higher than most around here. Never lost a regular singer that I know of to another KJ/DJ, and gain at least two new ones a month. I always ask why they come to my show, and it's usually something that has to do with Hoster's ability to let me do things others just can't.
The other KJ's around here have all been at it a long longer than I have and are really proficient with disk handling as well.