Hugmaster

Hi Try this... Costs about £60 a year and is extremely low maintenance. I get fantastic feedback about all the stuff that this system provides and allows me to do with my website, and I don't have to worry about creating the forms. Darren

Hi I think this is where geographical and cultural differences come into play. My observations from UK Wedding forums is very much based on gossip,, make up, Dresses and food - entertainment is very much the last thing on their list. I didn't even attempt to sell my services, just answered a couple of questions that were relevant and got slagged off in the process. And that was in my first week! My time is short as I work full time and try and make every hour count when I'm not doing my day job, and I haven't got the spare time to waste being slaughtered by a bunch of ladets on

Hi Some very basic obvious stuff there, however many people fail to see the obvious wen it's right in front of them. When I first started out, I didn't have contracts, take deposits, dress smart etc, I didn't have my business head on. I now come at it from a different standpoint - I'm a DJ for 5% of the time, I'm a businessman and marketer for 95% of the time. Regarding taking part of Wedding forums etc to try and booste the industry reputation. I tried this a little while back only to be told in no uncertain terms that my views weren't welcome and why do DJs think they're the most

Hi Personally I don't see the Ebay option as cheesey or desperate. In reality any form of advertising could be misinterpreted as desperate by some. I run an Ebay shop selling fancy dress and other related items, putting in a listing every now and then for my Wedding Discoes seems like a natural thing to me. However, I haven't done it yet, lol Darren

Hi To finish on, I use a track by world renound guitarist Steve Vai, it's a track called Liberty from his Passion and Warfare CD, it's a real anthemic ballblaster of a track and sounds really good as a climactic ending. It's only about 2 minutes long as well so it doesn't go on and on. I'm looking for a starter track to leed into the show for after the buffet, trying to put together a playlist of atmosphere builders. For a while I used the Thunderbirds theme, yeah I know how cheesey can you get, not any more though. The album version of the Race by Yellow is a good one to start

Hi folks Just a quick note to let you all know that i've just put some new fancy dress items in my Ebay store. All sorts to choose from at the moment from cowboys to cavemen. So, if you or anyone you know's looking for a fun costume for a Christmas bash, we can have the item out to you the same day you buy, as long as it's before 12 noon. Cheers

Hi At the mo we use 3 large sports bags, one for speaker mains and audio cables, one for lighting and one for electrical. Might look into the 45 ltr plastic tubs though, is a real time waster constantly screwing and unscrewing g-clamps, that would save us about 15 minutes at each end of the gig. Darren

Hi Thanks for the responses folks. Coverage isn't the problem we're having, it's like the first reply said, public apethy. They're doing the town Xmas lights switch on this Friday and my g/f is going down to the event to hand out leaflets. The paper is featuring a press release I've written for them next Thursday. The local radio stations are going to be announcing it during the week of the actual event. I'm banking on the last minute buyers to be honest, there's not a lot else we can do. Darren J is going to be phoning the local small business this week and ask them if the

Hi folks Just posting for a rant and a moan. As part of a promotional strategy for my February DJ world record thing, and to raise more money for Dreamflight, I'm in the process or organising a Charity Xmas party at the Leisure Centre in Daventry. Me and Darren jeffs, the guy I work with have worked flippin' hard to get a ton of great prizes to give away on the night, all doanted by local businesses, badgered a ton of shops and other venues to display our posters, handed out about 1,00 leaflets and had a fair bit of press coverage so far. Guess what? Sold about 20 tickets and th

Hi I read in a record collectors mag some years ago when I was looking to complete my now collection that now 10 was the first to get a release on CD, any others will be bootlegs from the vynel or the tracks will be cobbled together from a variety of sources. Now 10 was out in 1987. Here are the now's and their release years. Now 1 1983 now 2/3/4 1984 Now 5 1985 Now 6/7/8 1986 Now 9/10/11 1987 Now 12/13/14 1988 Now 15/16 1989 Now 17/18 1990 Now 19/20 1991 And then 3 "Now" releases thereafter, usually in late march, mid July and late November. Sorted! Darren Ps y

Hi Regarding meta tags... Google isn't the only search engine on the planet, so it's still worth including them. especially the meta description information as this is the info that will be displayed in some search engine results. Darren

Hi Even if you go through Live365, you still have to get relevant licences as they're only authorised/licenced for the US. Online would seem to be the way to go, both in terms of financial and manower. An onlien stations can pretty much run it's own playlist and you go onair live whenever you feel like it, lol. Darren

Hi You've left no option for those that use both. Once the licencing issues have been sorted, I'll be using both, the hard drive solution for speed, the CDs for beet mixing. Darren

Hi Just get the last 4 pro discs, it'll cover most of them. Darren

Hi firstly, Andy don't worry about the stats for at least 5 or 6 months, the search engines won't have fully indexed you yet. Now to explain what some of these stats mean, and I'm only sticking to the need to know figures. Hits - Ignore them totally, lets say your home page contains one page for the tex, two images and say 6 buttons for navigation purposes. Every time someone hits your home page that will class as 9 hits, so these figures will tend to get a bit misleading. right the important stuff... Unique Visitors - This figure represents visitors who have never seen your si

Hi I take out 4 caselogic CD cases, each holding between 100 and 200 depending on how I fill them. I'd say about 8,000 minus aprox 10% allowing for duplication of songs. I'd say I have around 75,000 in my collection, most of which you wouldn't play at your average gig, but you never know. I'd estimate that 90% of the time you could get away with taking out 500 tracks, even allowing for requests, lol. Darren

Hi Regardless of a retailser's refund/replacement policy, it's UK law that if something is not fit for it's purpose, you're entitled to your money back or a suitable replacement. Take it back and go for a different make, if they don't have the brand you're after, go somewhere else. Darren

Hi What I can see happening is this... DJ takes full set up CDs laptop hard drive etc etc etc, any sign of management or PPI, just switch laptop off and discretely stow away in flightcase. If venues already pay PPI for entertainment for funds to be distributed to artists, why the second charge is necessary is beyond me. Either DJs should pay a licence for PPI regardless of whether a venue has one or not, or bleedin' well leave us to get on with our job. Will venues check up on DJs...hmmm discuss but I very much doubt it, they have much more pressing things to worry about, like w

Hi Well according to PPL, the licence is to ensure that artists get their due fees, not t track piracy, so should the licence be non-format driven to ensure they get all fees due, not just fees from easy targets. I'm more than happy to pay the licence based on all formats, I'm certainly not gonna pay a licence simply because I wanted to use an mp3 based system, I'll simply stop using it, then the artists won't get any fees at all. I think a DJ whatever format he uses, or whether he/she's full or part time should hold a licence to do business as a DJ. To ensure that cowboys aren't get

4. Stop hitting DJs in the wallet simply because they choose to play music from the digitally based format, charge everyone regardless of the format, or no one at all.

Hi folks Ok, on 9 December, I'm throwing a charity Xmas bash in Daventry as part of the run-up to February's world record attempt and to raise some more dosh for Dreamflight. So far we've placed posters in shops around the town and in several locations within the venue itself. We're advertising for the next month in the local paper and we've had 1,000 leaflets printedto hand out to local businesses and members of the public. I've also writeen to previous customers inviting them along. Have I missed a very obvious way of putting the word out? We've done pretty well with raffle p

Hi I can see both arguments here... On the one hand, the customer is always right and the b and g may well sing your praises for all eternity for sticking to their insturctions. However, if it's a poor list, 90% of the audience might spread the word that you're a crap DJ cause you didn't play anything to dance to and you wouldn't take requests. persoanlly, if I wasn't given a little rope to slot in guest's requests and alter to suit the mood, I couldn't see myself doing it. After all, if I hire a plumber to come fit my new heating system, I would expect to know exactly what to

Hi Kids parties - Smart black jeans and red t-shirts wit company name. Birthdays and other informals - Smart trousers and shirt. Company gigs - full black tie Weddings - Whatever the customer wants, 99.9% of the time they ask for black tie and really appreciate the effort we make to dress up. Darren

Hi folks Ok I tried escribing these to my g/f and she said they sounded very tacky anc cheap. So, is this the case, are they front screen worthy tacky or is it just my description, lol Darren

Hi thanks Gary... And the light is dispersed evenly throughout the tube itself, does that mean there's more than one light source, but it's made to look as if there just one source, lol Wow, bet that looks pretty slick. Darren