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Ok so, a few friends and I like to throw house parties because there isn't much to do in our town, and we are under 21 so we can't get into any real raves or anything.

Progressively our parties have been getting bigger and better as far as attendance goes, I've been getting better at mixing, and we've been acquiring more lasers over the last year and a half. (Speakers really aren't an issue seeing as my dad is a musician so I've got a garage full of stuff).

Well, today we had a party we've been planning for two months, and hardly anyone showed up. Was a major let-down seeing as a lot of people told me they had planned on going. We had the most lighting we've ever done, the largest speaker rig we've set up, the works. (As far as a house party goes, I guess.)

I mean about 20 people filtered in and out throughout the night, which is decent for a garage party, but still. We all just felt majorly disappointed at the end of the night. (However, it's important to mention that the cops told us to turn it down at like 7-fucking-pm, so we couldn't really go as loud as I'd have liked to/have gone in the past. Major mood-killer. Dancing in a garage to mildy-loud music is just crap.) (It's also important to mention that everyone else had a good time, it was just us who threw the event that were upset.)

So the point of this is, do you guys have any tips/stories/etc. about throwing and advertising parties/gigs/whatever?

I've searched online, but I just get like "Higher a promoter". Not very helpful advice when you're a group of 18 year old DJ's looking to throw a party/gig/whatever you'd like to call it..

Anyways, please give me insight into your past experiences.

(I posted this here rather than General Music because I figured more DJs would lurk this thread than General Music, and I'm pretty sure not all of the DJs on here are signed and have promoters, managers, etc.)

[EDIT]: Oh joy, they've uploaded a video of some clips of the thing:


Kinda shows you what we've got, etc...
Disclaimer: we played the Skrillex song as a joke. My friend Sean has a wig he put on that looks like Skrillex and wore huge 3D glasses, walked up to the mixer, we're all like "OMG SKRILLEX IS HERE", and he presses play and we brock out. I'm the guy who appears out of the fog at like 18 seconds and then loses his shit, lol. Yeah, none of you care but we still think it's funny.

But yeah ok, it's almost 4am and I need to stop dragging this on.

DUDE, THAT IS A LEGIT PARTY. The lights are fuckin amazing. Soudns loud too, and the fog, fucking amazing.

I read the word lights and cringed.

Putting on events is stressful as fuck and I detest putting them on; even when they're a successful night I find it hard to enjoy myself.


Running a good night is about persistence, putting on / playing music you like and enjoying it weather there is 1 man in the room or 1,000,000 - Throwing nights is the most easiest way to give yourself a breakdown though when you start using all your free time on promotion (flyering, online, booking a couple local guys so they bring their mates, etc, etc..) and all your free money on ways to get people to come (artists, flyers, stickers, tshirts, promotional things like free drinks on entry to X number of people).


Once you've stressed out and become poor with no spare time from trying to get the event out there as much as possible you still can only hope people turn up..

Stupid things like a bit of rain or a unexpected event could pop up and you lose 80% of your people coming... Its really a mugs game and not for the faint hearted.


Sorry about the pessimistic attitude.. I have ran really shit nights and really successful ones too so I know both sides of the fence and don't really have good experiences to share haha..


Seeing as you're throwing house parties keep it low-key in terms of costs and just get some cheap flyers and post them around local places; attend other parties to say to people you throw parties on a regular.

From my experience, put anything that anybody might want to steal away in a safe place. Been to so many house parties where people just go and rack the house owners shit. Laptops, ipods, car keys etc

DrSpliff wrote:From my experience, put anything that anybody might want to steal away in a safe place. Been to so many house parties where people just go and rack the house owners shit. Laptops, ipods, car keys etc

This.

Looks really legit. Loving the lights/fog/loudness

You can get a 4 head laser(2 red, 2 green) on eBay from china for about £150. If you wanted to add an extra element.


In addition to our main room rig (3 x CDJ1000s, Vestax PCV-274, Soundlab amp & PA setup), we also have strip lights, a strobe, one of those blue light things, and I think a smoke machine in a cupboard somewhere. At the end of the day, if you want the party to be good all you need to worry about is good tunes, a loud system, and plenty of black plastic bin bags on hand for periodic tidying up.

If you've got to think about people robbing stuff, I'd start reconsidering the guestlist before anything else though.

Facebook events are probably the easiest way to get people to your party. Here is an example of one me and 2 friends put on a little over a year ago that had close to 200 people there until the cops came at about 12:30, then it was about 50 or so until the sun came up. https://www.facebook.com/events/172008106167091/ Granted we had Cyberoptics playing but we have had other ones with about 100 people that just had random friends djing but i couldnt find the event page for those and some didnt even have an event page

and that was a house party by the way not at a venue

I think the big factor to consider comes down to date/time. If something more interesting or important comes up on the
Same day you can bet your target audience will be there. Instead of trying to fight it try to be flexible with time, if you can't change the date maybe try an earlier time (throw a BBQ on or something!) I know a lot of small-mid nights in my town
That booked a big name (or 2) got their promotion right only to find that a bigger night / name was booked on the same date. The result? You guessed it a nice big empty room.

Thanks for all the replies!

Our next plan of action is to try and get a decent sized "venue" (we've got a few leads) so that we can invite more people without having to worry about too many people or getting our stuff stolen. Obviously when you're throwing it at a house, you don't wanna invite too many people on the off chance that they all show up, and you don't wanna invite sketchy people because you don't want your shit jacked. This way we can purely worry about promotion, etc.

Like lege said, it just comes to persistence I guess.

Would have been a fun night had it not been for the noise complaints though, it was that combined with the low attendance that ruined it. Whatever though, all you can do is try I guess.

So far we've purely gone off of Facebook event invites, but again, it being a houseparty we don't go about inviting our entire friends list like we oughtta be.

I'd love to hear more of your stories!

InternetSlaveMaster wrote:Thanks for all the replies!

Our next plan of action is to try and get a decent sized "venue" (we've got a few leads) so that we can invite more people without having to worry about too many people or getting our stuff stolen. Obviously when you're throwing it at a house, you don't wanna invite too many people on the off chance that they all show up, and you don't wanna invite sketchy people because you don't want your shit jacked. This way we can purely worry about promotion, etc.

Like lege said, it just comes to persistence I guess.

Would have been a fun night had it not been for the noise complaints though, it was that combined with the low attendance that ruined it. Whatever though, all you can do is try I guess.

So far we've purely gone off of Facebook event invites, but again, it being a houseparty we don't go about inviting our entire friends list like we oughtta be.

I'd love to hear more of your stories!

Back in the day there was this bar called the cannabis sattiva, we used to rent the space from 2pm to 11 pm, rent some equipment and get like 12 bands to play small shows. Anyone could play, but they had to sell the tickets for themselves and give us the money so we could pay the venue and some headline band. Shit was great, it was, most of the time, bands playing for bands. Sometimes when it was 8pm we had a full house (100 people ) waiting for the head band, sometimes we end up with just enough money to pay everything and get our asses back home. The whole point of making a party is to have fun, meet people and listen to good music. Just keep pushing your sound. For venues, try old whorehouses / strip clubs as they tend to be cheap and have no neighborhood problems. Also abandoned houses / structures.

Make sure you send out texts or calls to everyone you want to come the day before and day of to people you want to come to make sure you know what to expect. Also maybe try expanding your network of people and have a mix of crowds and not just one little click where if 3 people dont come 5 others wont either

You need more girls.