Help, my DJ has cancelled/let me down!

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

It's the fact these clowns cancel and just leave the person hanging that bothers me I mean surely putting anyone in there even if you don't know them is still better than just falling off the face of the Earth and leaving them to deal with it? Again, these guys aren't my competition but from a common decency point of view it really annoys me.

Not sure I mentioned it earlier in the thread but a few years ago my wife and I spent Xmas and NYE in Vegas. We were having dinner and drinks one evening when she mentioned the flights for an upcoming holiday had been changed by the travel agent.

My brain goes "hmmm that's going to be an issue", check my DJEP and right enough they shifted them back so I was now away when I had 2 gigs booked.

My brother was able to cover one so that was cool - let the bride know and she was happy to switch over bookings to him.

I stayed up until 5am NV time pinging messages back and forward to some friends and filling the other bride in on the situation. She was very understanding and I managed to get her on to an excellent DJ buddy and pay back her booking fee on the spot. It cost me a night but I physically couldn't have enjoyed the rest of that holiday without sorting it out even though I could have put it to the side and dealt with it when I got home.

[Excalibur]

As Wayne said in another thread in Supporters, there seems to be an unwelcome increase in cancellations/letdowns again. If you look on Facebook, it's riddled with gigs to cover at the moment, often for the princely sum of £100-£150 for a 2am finish!
I could be charitable and say that obviously there's a huge rise in jobs after lockdown has ended, coupled with many suppliers retiring/stopping working, after getting used to Saturday nights off. Blimey, even I nearly gave in, until Ant and Dec came back on! I don't think that reason alone answers the question, and obviously covid can have a big effect, especially with the new variants.

I still think that people are knowingly taking on gigs they can't cover at the time, and hoping to farm them out after skimming a bit off the top.

[Imagine]

I still think that people are knowingly taking on gigs they can't cover at the time, and hoping to farm them out after skimming a bit off the top.

I'm seeing a LOT of this at the moment and it's really boiling my wee-wee
And the ones that really get my goat are where the DJ asking for cover at stupidly low fees is asking for pictures of nice rigs and you have to work under THEIR brand....what's all that about?

It seems too easy for those doing this a lot of the time as well to just say "Oh, I've got C19" and get away with it (whether they've got it or not).

And it's not just the lower paying pub/bar work either.

For instance, I have a wedding next weekend which only booked this Monday just gone because of an email pleading for help due to their DJ letting them down with less than two weeks to go. Thankfully the email came from the couple themselves, we've had a conversation and I've got a nice little 2 hour set after the band in a nice venue for my regular pricing scale.

[DeckstarDeluxe]

To be fair facebook is always the last place people go looking for their DJs so its always going to be low ballers. It happens in the photobooth industry and I suspect many of the other sectors as well.

[Excalibur]

To be fair facebook is always the last place people go looking for their DJs so its always going to be low ballers. It happens in the photobooth industry and I suspect many of the other sectors as well.

Correctamundo, Neil. An all day wedding I have in August is being organised by the bride's parents. They're lovely people, who are doing their utmost to make the perfect day for the happy couple. Methinks though, that the universe is trying to tell them something.

When they got in touch last year* they'd already been burned by some Singing Waiters, who had taken a hefty fee, then disappeared, apparently. Then, weeks before the event, their caterers ( who were on the venue's approved list, and had been for some time ) dropped a bombshell. The owner did a runner, due to his " problems" . Fortunately, the manager and rest of the staff were in a position to take up the slack, and provide the promised service after all. Phew!


* Why did they get in touch with me? Because the DJ who is preferred here was busy, and he passed them on direct to me. No creaming off, no commission ( although by now, I definitely owe him and a couple of other folk a big, big drink ) just pass on my number.

[Excalibur]

but is Covid suddenly the unassailable ally of the phantom DJ, the one who can't do the gig hours before it's due?

I've seen too many DJs here getting Covid to be statistically possible, in my very humble opinion.

[Imagine]

but is Covid suddenly the unassailable ally of the phantom DJ, the one who can't do the gig hours before it's due?

I've seen too many DJs here getting Covid to be statistically possible, in my very humble opinion.

It's definitely a "thing" at the moment.

Now at the risk of being contentious and a little bit political (what....moi?), I did a wedding three weeks ago with Covid. I'd had it during the week, I thought I was over it (I'd tested negative and felt OK), did the gig, and felt as rough as a badger's rear end the next day and tested positive again. Did I spread it? There have been no reports of anyone getting it from that particular wedding.

I caught it from a wedding a week beforehand....somebody there had it and carried on as per the current guidance.

Two years ago, Covid was a very different beast. We had no immunity to it and it sadly killed a lot of people (I was scared to hell delivering online groceries to positive customers during the lockdowns!). Today, it's rapidly going down the lines of a bad cold (shoot me down if you will but most people that catch it now are telling a very different story from those of a couple of years ago). Sorry - I'm a realist and the common cold itself is a Coronavirus.

The official guidance now is that you can carry on as normal if you feel OK to do so. So why are DJs pulling out of gigs because they've supposedly tested positive (are these particular DJs paying for test kits?). Would they have cancelled if they had a cold?

I feel it's more a matter of convenience than anything else sadly. It's just another excuse in the armoury of those that will happily let people down at a moment's notice and is probably more plausible than a relation/the cat dying on the morning of the wedding.

Sorry but not sorry...Covid isn't a scary thing in my book anymore. It's time for those who are letting people down to stop using it as an excuse.