wedding prep time

[Jeff Romard]

If you are only putting 10 hours into your weddings, the subject of the video, your clients have substantially different, likely less expectations for your management and performance.

Different strokes for different folks.

I would say it's about 15 for me on an average wedding event (6 hours play time) but I don't count the time that I use maintaining my vehicle or have the gall to tell a client that I need 2 or 3 hours of library management per event or the other inane things he has come up with to justify his existence and rate. I'd be willing to put my reviews up against his, yours, or anyone else. I think I'd come out OK on the deal

If you feel that isn't enough time for you per event please tell us what you spend your 62.5 hours doing

 

[djrox]

That's a week and a half spent on just a single event - typical of someone doing this pat time or occasionally.

BS or maybe just as it relates to your "professional" performances/experiences.

If you feel that isn't enough time for you per event please tell us what you spend your 62.5 hours doing

The video and the responses are discussing weddings not other events.

No one can survive at a career level if it takes them 60 hours to do what a professional can do 12.

Especially if you are or are competing with alleged professionals or those with self imposed limitations.

It may be uncommon but it is not a negative indicator as your tone and words suggest.

I appreciate that not everyone has the capacity to see value in uncommon effort and work.

Some professionals, those that offer and provide rehearsal, ceremony AND reception services can expend 12-20 hours on actual performance. Planning, scripting, and consultations and meetings can easily warrant and require 30-40 hours.

So allocating 60 hours is not out the predictable realm of need.

Granted many wedding clients can't or won't budget for such serious management and performance...but many do.

 

[rickryan.com]

So allocating 60 hours is not out the predictable realm of need.

A statement that it takes 60 hours to prepare to DJ a wedding is only thing; con artist bullshit. I highly, highly doubt more than about 5% of prospects would buy into it. I'd venture a guess that line of talk, while it may gain him some friends/attention in the DJ circles, doesn't win him many actual clients.

 

[djrox]

A statement that it takes 60 hours to prepare to DJ a wedding is only thing; con artist bullshit. I highly, highly doubt more than about 5% of prospects would buy into it.

I acknowledge your capacity, based only on your personal performances, to speak to deeeejay con artist bull shit.

I'd venture a guess that line of talk, while it may gain him some friends/attention in the DJ circles...

As long as you admit you are guessing.

...doesn't win him many actual clients.

Your personal connotation of "win" is hereby noted.

I have no doubt it doesn't "win" him any clients that you target or work with and I hereby and in response guess you are guessing based on envy, but I'm guessing.

 

[steve149]

For the majority of weddings, I can't conceive, other than the 10-12 hours day-of, how you would spend another 40-50 hours on a typical client. It would seem you'd be killing yourself and not reusing learnings if you spent more than maybe an additional 10 hours. Am I missing something?

 

[rickryan.com]

I acknowledge your capacity, based only on your personal performances, to speak to deeeejay con artist bull shit.

This is just a pet peeve of mine, but I've seen varying versions of this "look how much time I invest on every event" line of B.S. I'm sure we all have. In my own case, I can easily blunt the "I'm a full-time DJ" line by explaining it as such..........

Yes ma'am, I understand what you're saying. However, I also know practically every serious player in this market and can tell you for a fact, there are only 2 other companies which are large enough to really be called 'full-time'. The vast majority are guys that work about 2 days per week, then screw around the other 5. They aren't 'full-time', they're slackers. Between my day job and DJ job, I work 50-60 hours per week. I believe my family deserves no less effort than my best. I will also give you the same level of care and diligence.

Incidentally, the line about spending 60+ hours per event is just bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. The surprising part is any DJ who arrogantly thinks their prospects are too stupid to realize it's B.S.

 

[Ausumm]

I invest an hour in booking the wedding, (phone calls and emails) more if a meeting is needed.
I spend an hour talking on the phone going over details. (some events require more)
And if there a lot of songs I need that I don't have, add another hour or two.
Most gigs are local, so drive time is an hour total (to and from)...occasionally an hour and a half.
Weddings without ceremony are 5-hours.
Set up is about an hour, break down is a half hour.
So, my average is about 10-hours.
I don't think being a full time or part time DJ makes a difference,
however, having a full time job may limit the time you can invest on weekend gigs.

 

[Jeff Romard]

BS or maybe just as it relates to your "professional" performances/experiences.


The video and the responses are discussing weddings not other events.


Especially if you are or are competing with alleged professionals or those with self imposed limitations.

It may be uncommon but it is not a negative indicator as your tone and words suggest.

I appreciate that not everyone has the capacity to see value in uncommon effort and work.

Some professionals, those that offer and provide rehearsal, ceremony AND reception services can expend 12-20 hours on actual performance. Planning, scripting, and consultations and meetings can easily warrant and require 30-40 hours.

So allocating 60 hours is not out the predictable realm of need.

Granted many wedding clients can't or won't budget for such serious management and performance...but many do.

That's a lot of talk you must have forgot to answer the question

 

[djrox]

The surprising part is any DJ who arrogantly thinks their prospects are too stupid to realize it's B.S.

That's a pretty big insult to people that you don't know. I really would ask you to stop insulting my clients.It's rude and unnecessary to the conversation.

[Begin whining, kindergartner impressions]Stop calling other people's clients mean names![/whining, kindergartner impressions]

 

[djrox]

That's a lot of talk you must have forgot to answer the question

What question?

 

[DJ Ricky B]

With 90% to 95% of weddings out there, it's not feasible that a DJ spend more than 20 hours on said event.

Let's look at a high demand client, and the wedding is 7 hours of performance time, and let's just say you have to set up 4 sound systems (un realistic), AND you have to set up a large light display, and Up Lighting. Let's say you have no help, and have to do all of this yourself (fault of the DJ's). Let's also say it's a far, far drive at 100 miles (not probable, but totally possible) Also, let's say you need to meet with client 50 miles away TWICE before the wedding, AND do a site visit. ...Let's take it to the max

All the the time invested: (Keep in mind I am taking these time examples to the max, and certainly should not be typical for any of us)

Client contact: 10 emails back and fourth (Time spent emailing - 90 minutes) Two Phone Calls: 1 hour
1st Meeting: Total Time: 3 hours
Contract: 5 minutes
Venue Visit: 5 Hours (Total time traveling in traffic plus 1 hour venue meeting)
Second Client Meeting: Total Time 2.5 hours
Wedding Prep: Songs downloaded, Up Lights Dialed in, charged up etc. : 2 hours (Can you seriously say you spend more than 1 hour downloading music these days for a single wedding, maybe another hour for lights?)
Trip to get Tux Dry cleaned (As if this is added into each wedding) - 15 minutes total
Loading Vehicle, and Double checking you have everything you need: 1 hour
Time
Travel to venue: 2 hours
Load in and Set up: 3 hours (Seriously, can you really say you ever spend more than 3 hours for load in and set up?)
Wedding Ceremony/Cocktails/Reception: 7 hours
Tear down and Load Out: 1 hour 45 minutes (It was a tough load out facility, and those 4 sound systems and all those lights took a lot of trips with the 2 carts you brought)
Drive Back home: 1 hour 45 minutes (Late at night it shouldn't take as long going home as it did getting there)
Next Day:
Load Out of vehicle back into your storage area (garage, house for many, storage unit or office for others): 1 hour (This is pushing it, shouldn't take more than 40 minutes

I come to a maximum time spent on a single wedding to 32 hours and 15 minutes. And this is certainly a very big stretch.

My typical 6 - 7 hour wedding booking takes up 16 to 17 hours of my time...Sometimes 15 hours depending on location. A 4 hour wedding reception only will take up 13 hours...Sometimes less if it's a close location.

 

[rickryan.com]

My typical 6 - 7 hour wedding booking takes up 16 to 17 hours of my time...Sometimes 15 hours depending on location. A 4 hour wedding reception only will take up 13 hours...Sometimes less if it's a close location.

Exactly correct. The guys who are trying to claim this "60 hours" are full of crap, liars who think their prospects are too stupid to figured it out. As I've said, many times, "work 2 days per week and screw around 5."

 

[Jeff Romard]

What question?

If you feel that isn't enough time for you per event please tell us what you spend your 62.5 hours doing

Sorry forgot to punctuate with a question mark

 

[Scott Hanna]

I cannot say how much time it takes someone else to do a wedding. I believe I put in significant prep work for our weddings when they need it. It does not take 62 hours of work for us.

The reality is it varies significantly based on what needs to be done. Some simply don't need that much prep work.

I think many people overlook the prep work and the long day. I don't really care. If they want to know, I'll tell them.

But our fees are based on supply. While it may take just as much time to do a wedding on a Sunday, we have much more availability, so there are deals to be had that would not be available on a Saturday.

 

[DJ Ricky B]

I cannot say how much time it takes someone else to do a wedding. I believe I put in significant prep work for our weddings when they need it. It does not take 62 hours of work for us.

The reality is it varies significantly based on what needs to be done. Some simply don't need that much prep work.

I think many people overlook the prep work and the long day. I don't really care. If they want to know, I'll tell them.

But our fees are based on supply. While it may take just as much time to do a wedding on a Sunday, we have much more availability, so there are deals to be had that would not be available on a Saturday.

I have no problem booking a Sunday wedding at half my In Season Saturday rate if the wedding is on a Sunday in the off season. Sunday during wedding season, I will gladly discount about 30%. I will discount Fridays heavily too. The only issue with Friday weddings is the fact that traffic is TERRIBLE in MD/DC/NOVA area on Fridays so location plays a key role. I may do a Friday wedding 10 minutes away for 50% off my in season Saturday price, but if it's a wedding in down town DC. or Northern Virginia somewhere, then I gotta leave 4 to 5 hours before start time to be safe, and I'm charging them my regular rate, or pretty close to it.

My 2nd highest price booking was on a Sunday in 2015. It was 6.5 hours cer/rec down in Virginia.

 

[Proformance]

So allocating 60 hours is not out the predictable realm of need.

Which is exactly what I said.
If you lack experience and professional deployment capacity you will need many, many hours to compensate for your lack of preparedness.
60 hours for a wedding DJ describes a learning curve - not the prep time of a professional DJ.

Wedding receptions and DJ/MC duties aren't that complicated.

 

[Proformance]

My patience ran out 3:00 minutes into that video but, here's some major flaws with the time calculations:

1.) Phone, text, and email: reacting to one client case at a time, which is very inefficient compared to a better office setup.
2.) Conversations: description of client contact appears to lack an agenda or structure, hence everything takes longer to discuss (no end)
3.) Lack of focus: cafeteria of ideas, rather than specific target recommendations, time wasted on unnecessary list of "possibilities"
4.) Unprepared: not having or knowing much about certain musical themes or requests - this is learning not working
5.) Hours downloading and previewing music: this is learning that can be minimized by leveraging the client's existing knowledge and supply.

A large part of the time can be attributed to not having been there and done it before, or because the DJ unnecessarily expands his role by ignoring or under-estimating the client's existing leverage. Re-inventing the wheel is a poor use of time.