Goodparty | Uk Disco Etc

[Dukesy 0]

Just wondering how the infamous 'DJ meatmarkets' such as Goodparty and UK Disco are fairing during the downturn in business experienced by some areas during the last 12 months.

 

Anybody still with either or both of these entities (or similar ones)?, do they still provide quality leads?, or these leads in the quantities that they used to provide?, are they largely still providing the fee's which you demand?. Are you still largely happy with the service you are paying for?. Would you recommend them to a friend

 

Please be honest with your replies and experiences.

[Raymilkybarkid 0]

Haven't really used Good party since the price rise on their fees.

Most of the enquiries seem to be aimed at the lower price bracket.

Purchased 1 enquiry only to find out it was another local DEJA touting for prices complained to GP and got a refund.

 

I have picked up more work from my website and footwork on local venues...You can't beat the personal face to face approach in my opinion.

[Norfolk DJ 0]

 

Goodparty has priced itself out of the market. £3 for a general enquiry about 'how much' isn't worth it.

[mjmac 0]

Without sounding too harsh... why would any DJ worth their weight need such agencies to gatgher work for them??? Your repeat bookings, referrals, free adds, coupled with a website and a few web links should be doing the work for you... for those starting out, do the foot work it pays off... and you dont have some agency sucking up a few quid out of your night!

 

Ive never used em and never will... as metioned above the personal touch works for me!

 

 

[gadget 0]

Goodparty has priced itself out of the market. £3 for a general enquiry about 'how much' isn't worth it.

 

I noticed another site has put their prices up as well a similar amount. The problem with them is that their fee "seems" random amounts. They've also been seeing a lot more emails / enquiries from them (I bougth one with free credit from a year ago, and no response).

 

Have been seeing an increase of direct email enquiries over the last week or so - but wonder if its because December was a quiet period for enquiries and everyone's now trying to sort themselves for the next couple of months, DJ-wise?

 

Cheers,

 

David

[funkymook 0]

On GoodParty I've noticed the leads are gradually getting further and further outside the areas I put down I'm interested in, obviously it means they have more 'leads' to send out - but the majority are useless to me to.

 

Only bothered following up one enquiry in the last 6 months - though always have a browse through, there's some real gems on there!

[vokf 0]

I use GP a few times a year. For the sake of 1 or 2 quid, its a fair gamble IF the budget is ok and their description isn't "i got no money, need a cheap dj"! lol

 

For me, I normally call and then follow up with an email.

Spending a few mins chatting to them, the following up with the price+ benefits works well.

The last gig I got from GP was a nice local restaurant gig in December. Mid-week, 3hrs, £180 -which I was happy with, due to the later start time (so I could actually get there from work!), and pleasant manager who wants to book later 2011.

 

 

I no longer use UK Disco. After paying for Silver membership and seeing my small 1-line listing on a page full of other DJ's, I could see that I would never get any visibility.

I guess its ok for the gold/platinum members, but I never really liked the site layout anyway.

 

I don't see anything wrong with these types of websites. Its up to the DJ's to work out if they want to reply to individual listings.

We've probably all see the "charity" priced 40ths and 21st and some DJ's will go and do these for £0-£150.

 

The main issue I have with GP is that it does little to educate clients in how to book a DJ and a rough price they should be prepared to pay.

I also find that enquiries can be thin on the ground sometimes. Last year I could only see a few in my area. Last nights email from them showed about 10!

Of these, they break down;

8 x £100-£250

2 x £250-£500

 

So.. £80 low end enquiries (assuming most £100-£250 will not pay £250!), but I used to charge less than £250 for gigs a few years ago, and would have been mainly happy with these gigs.

Some of these may be persuaded to pay a small amount extra for our services, but it becomes a bit of a bigger gamble of time and small outlay.

 

 

[Dan allanthemsdisco 0]

Hi guys,

I am subscribed with ukdisco and ********* -these are the top 2 on google under "mobile disco"

My findings are:

Sep 2007 - Oct 2008- got 3 or 4 gigs from uk disco (Started subscription that year)

2008 - Oct 2009 - Maybe 1 enquiry, no bookings

 

******** - member since 2009 Had 2 or 3 enquiries but no bookings.

 

I have not renewed with UK Disco due to the complete lack of enquiries, despite the fact they are still doing very well on google!!! I asked them for a more competetive quote but all i got was generic based replies and i hate that kind of customer service.

For DJS who are well established in their area, repeat bookings will be much more important, but some of us rely on the internet side of things (new customers) to build the business up and it seems to me there has ceretainly been a decline since the good old credit crunch!

[vokf 0]

One benefit of GoodParty is that there is no fee to pay to view the enquiries.

I know there is a £10 minimum credit, but if there are gigs that you're prepared to quote for, its probably worth that investment - I'm not sure how long the credit remains on your account, but this should be at least a few months. Those that get the odd GP gig didn't mind parting with £1 or £2, but if the enquirer is simply looking for the lowest price - there will always be someone willing to do it for peanuts.

 

UK-Disco has a free subscription, but this only allows 3rd party leads.

I'm not sure who the ****** site is that you mention.. its starred out! Fill in a few characters to give us a clue! lol

 

However, if you're paying money directly advertising and its not working out, then its time to re-evaluate if your advert is correct for your market (ie it could be YOUR fault!) - and then consider going elsewhere.

 

There are a few competitors to GoodParty, but they are not as busy (for me, anyway), and I rarely see anything over £200.

[gadget 0]

I've seen an increase in enquiries via need-a-disco and findmyparty.

 

Had no luck with the free credit with the second one - also gives you the budget, and details - all bar the email and phone number...

 

n-a-d has been OK - but not so sure of their current method of "budget / mid priced / etc categorization - Also you get very little detail afaik unless you have a PIN number to access it (unless you've subscribed to it)...

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Dukesy 0]

I'm not sure who the ****** site is that you mention.. its starred out!

 

Usually for very good reason. Perhaps they have been involved with PM / EMAIL / POST spamming activities on this forum previously, or maybe they are constantly involved with publicy attacking DJU at every opportunity. Like most people, I don't voluntarily throw open the doors here and offer free advertising to (nor indulge) the types of individuals who choose to make a regular practice of openly urinating down my back at every possible opportunity. These filters also contain the url's of commercial entities here who abuse the facilities and goodwill and seem to think that the forum is just a classifieds extension of Gumtree and Vivastreet. Unfortunately, over the years we have had cause to block some retailers, directories and even one DJ Association for these selfish one sided actions. But that was entirely as a direct result of something which was their choice, and their doing, but please don't expect me to reward them with advertising in return for their actions.

 

Either way, the url is blocked and has clearly been placed in the filter for one of the reasons that i've outlined above, which means that I don't want it advertised here, period, and thats basically all that you need to know.

[vokf 0]

Usually for very good reason. Perhaps they have been involved with PM / EMAIL / POST spamming activities on this forum previously, or maybe they are constantly involved with publicy attacking DJU at every opportunity.

 

Well understood now (and 101% agree)!

 

I just thought there was a more obvious "blanking" method - I did actually think that the OP added them (and so didn't correlate the number of asterix with any known organisation.

 

 

[vokf 0]

Twisting this on its head... If anyone wanted to set up their own "Good Party"/n-a-d style website... what what you do to make it "better"?

 

-More info for DJs?

-Lower prices for enquires

-Education to clients for booking a DJ

-Higher min budget (so no £0-£150)

-More frequent emails (GP only sends at 11pm each day)

 

Given that some of use get the occasional gig from these sites, I think they are here to stay.

 

 

[Raymilkybarkid 0]

Twisting this on its head... If anyone wanted to set up their own "Good Party"/n-a-d style website... what what you do to make it "better"?

 

-More info for DJs?

-Lower prices for enquires

-Education to clients for booking a DJ

-Higher min budget (so no £0-£150)

-More frequent emails (GP only sends at 11pm each day)

 

Given that some of use get the occasional gig from these sites, I think they are here to stay.

 

Flat fee for enquiries would be a good start

Enquiries by county selected by the DJ GP has added to my selection most of which are out of my chosen area.

[Dan allanthemsdisco 0]

I think recommended venues for the client would be good

checklist of services offered by disco

disco should have their own page with videos (see entertainaz site)

clients should be able to leave feedback (hopefully positive!)

site should be setup and run by non profit making body eg musicians union

site should cover all live professional entertainers

site should charge subscription but no other one off fees for enquiries

 

Thats about it!

 

 

[vokf 0]

I think recommended venues for the client would be good

checklist of services offered by disco

disco should have their own page with videos (see entertainaz site)

clients should be able to leave feedback (hopefully positive!)

site should be setup and run by non profit making body eg musicians union

site should cover all live professional entertainers

site should charge subscription but no other one off fees for enquiries

 

Thats about it!

 

Some mostly good ideas;

Venues is a good idea, but this would need to be added by someone(?)

Checklist of services REQUIRED by the client (so the enquiry would contain tick-boxes of common services, ie Karaoke, Uplighting, etc)

 

 

The rest I don't really agree with.. Feedback is a problem as GP is not a (public) directory of DJ's, it works in a different way. UK Disco is more like a directory, so 1000's of DJ's in a list, feedback could be left, but then becomes difficult to police as UK Disco is

 

I'm not sure why it should be non-profit? Something like this takes a lot of development and effort.

 

I also don't see why any site should cover all live entertainers..? Most clients know if they want a DJ or Band (or Both).

 

The subscription model would only really work if the enquires were of acceptable quality to members. The GP system works well (IMO) as DJ's don't part with any money unless the see enquiries that they feel are worth quoting.

Imagine if GP were taking £5-10/month from DJ's with the majority of enquiries being £100-£250 (or less!), and greatly over-subscribed.

Taking much less via PayPal becomes a problem, and its not viable to take £1 payments via PayPal (you'll be left with £0.46!

 

[Dukesy 0]

I'm not sure why it should be non-profit?

 

Because Dj's largely don't like spending their money on anything which doesn't make noise or produce light

 

Personally, I think that the numbers of DJ's listed per region should be limited to a reasonable, but not excessive number. Part of the reason why some Dj's get more positive results from Directories is partly down the listing saturation of their Geographic location and luck - namely luck in how high and close to the top their ranking is in the Directory results listing. This is often why the top spots command a premium 'vip' fee, because the owner knows full well that these are likely to attract the highest number of enquiries (but not always the biggest fee paying clients)

 

You may need to charge a premium level listing fee in order to limit the number of regional listings and make a profit, but what is the point of having 25, 50 or 100 listings over 10 pages in a Directory?, very few people are going to contact anybody beyond the first page or two in their local region. Case in point, how many of us personally contact all 20 insurers in the list that comes back on comparison sites?, how many venture beyond the first couple of pages in Google searches before we find what we need, and at the price we want and had budgeted to pay?, effectively ending the search

 

Other than that, the usual importance of good search engine results is important. Not just for the obvious 'Mobile Disco' and 'Wedding Disco' but also Regional listings also such as 'mobile disco derbyshire'. This was one of the positive points of UK Disco, is that not only did it have front page presence for the high demand highly competitive keywords, but also appeared on the first page for regional and niche searches also.

[vokf 0]

Because Dj's largely don't like spending their money on anything which doesn't make noise or produce light

 

 

Hey... you missed off ProDub!

[gadget 0]

Just a quick update to this thread...

 

Has anyone noticed a total dropoff of enquiries via goodparty? I've not seen anything for about 2 weeks or so now.

 

I'm not that bothered, as I've been getting a reasonable stream of direct enquiries (as well as a few via another third party site). But I wonder if they've run out of google adwords or something? Before there were loads of enquiries coming through daily... Very odd !

 

Cheers,

 

David

Edited February 3, 2011 by gadget

[Rothgar 0]

I've had a few in the last couple of days come through, a quick look at them and then they're deleted.

[PWES 0]

I'm listed on the UKdisco one, but that's it, and I've only ever had one enquiry texted through

 

I think there is a place for these, both for clients wanting to do the comparethecuteanimal.com type of search and for DJs who dont have their own website, and are happy to take the cheaper end gigs. Let's not be snobby about it, there's a big market out there for those charging lower rates...

[gadget 0]

Agreed... I haven't bougth anything off of goodparty for a while now...

 

I picked up two weddings last week - both direct email enquiries (no goodparty or anything else in sight!)

 

Currently working on my new website - sorting out half-decent images is quite painstaking, as I'm after particular photos which I don't quite have (!).

 

Hoping to launch it in a couple of weeks time... After I've attempted to write copy/content :)

 

Cheers,

 

David

Edited February 7, 2011 by gadget