Multi purpose entertainments business

[Pazz]

Not sure if there are any in this group who offer many other services alongside the mobile disco experience but I'm seeing more offering all kinds of packages. Such as inflatables, bouncy castle, photo booth, chocolate fountain, special drinks, magician, puppets, clown, characters and much more.

I know there's extra elements to dj packages like uplighting, letters (weddings), vdj, different size packages for setups but all these are all sort of connected to the disco experience.

What's your thoughts about all these extras that others offer under a sort of Entertainments umbrella. Obviously it's good business for them as I'm sure they are very busy (pre Covid) and I know many are already taking bookings for some of these things now even without a disco element. I just feel it's a bit of a jack of all trades instead of a specialist focusing on a disco experience. Personally I would never want to branch out into all these other things - the music and disco experience is where it's at for me. Any thoughts? By the way it's not a criticism and I know some of you offer entertainment packages but just wondered about people's perspectives and opinions...

[rth_discos]

The only people that I know that do this end up being very busy running around trying to fulfil multiple bookings in one day. Great until any part of it gets delayed.

Things like bouncy castles and candy floss machines don't make much money, so you need volume to get any real revenue.

As there's only so many things you can do in a day, much of it will end up in the lockup not doing anything.

I'd only want to venture into that game if I could have a significant number of bouncy castles and a team of people delivering them. It's not something to do in addition to discos.

I think people get lulled in thinking adding on a few extra services is an easy way to generate more money, but all of those are already driven down in price, and I think it's harder to offer a premium product for a commodity, compared to a DJ service where the product is the person, rather than the equipment.

[Benny Smyth]

Pretty much as Gavin says. It's DJs trying to add a sub in the boot, spinning alloys, tinted windows, spoiler, rims, go faster stripes, an extra exhaust and a huge remap of the engine.

It all sounds very nice and good value until you realise that all those bells and whistles were added to distract from the fact that they drive a Vauxhall Nova.

[DJ Jules]

It all sounds very nice and good value until you realise that all those bells and whistles were added to distract from the fact that they drive a Vauxhall Nova.

Nicely put. I tried to find a polite way to put this and gave up after a few attempts ;)

I'm sure there are good DJ's who are taking home more than the owners of some of these businesses, there's usually more money to be made in doing one thing well than doing lots of things in an average way (I'm being kind there).

Julian

[DeckstarDeluxe]

Like any business and industry, they'll be good and bad examples of both.

We branched out into the extras because depending on DJ income alone is very tough (I've done a few wedding seasons of 4/5 wedding discos a week and it really takes it out of you). If you do it properly, plan each weekend and get the right support staff in then it's fine.

For the client POV as well if you can get all your entertainment needs for example from one supplier, it makes life easier for them.