the £5000 question

[surround sounds]

I've thought about dance floors before ... white starlit ones seems to cost around £4500 for 12ft square.
My only concern is how many bookings it would take and how often people want these.

I guess at least there will be a fair good re-sale value to them if you decide to stop providing the service after a while so it's not like throwing money down the drain.

yes thats why over the last 12 month i have basically tested the water to see how many i could sell on.
Yes 12 x 12 ft would cost around £4500 to buy but already got 4 booking for between £400 and £500 each. So if it goes really bad i would not loose money with it cause i could sell it on and get my money back but i should be ok cause i could also add it on with a Mobile disco package as well.

What sort of prices are you sending them out for? I have to say demand here appears to have decreased and clearly doing something wrong by the sounds of it.

I know it maybe wrong of me but it depends on areas.
Eg Solihull or sutton coldfield Around £450ish or with a disco £375
but another area like
Dudley £350-£375 or with a disco £275-£300

On the other side of it.
You must have a lot of enquiries to be able to charge high prices.
For eg 2011 i was only getting around 6 enquiries a month for dance floors and if i was lucky 1 would book at around £350
Now i get around 20 enquiries a month and i may get between 2-4 booking now but at a higher price eg £450
Thats why now i think my websites and advertising are doing good enough now to get my own

[DeckstarDeluxe]

I know it maybe wrong of me but it depends on areas.
Eg Solihull or sutton coldfield Around £450ish or with a disco £375
but another area like
Dudley £350-£375 or with a disco £275-£300

On the other side of it.
You must have a lot of enquiries to be able to charge high prices.
For eg 2011 i was only getting around 6 enquiries a month for dance floors and if i was lucky 1 would book at around £350
Now i get around 20 enquiries a month and i may get between 2-4 booking now but at a higher price eg £450
Thats why now i think my websites and advertising are doing good enough now to get my own

Interesting, thanks for the info.

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

The one thing i'd be wary with re. Dancefloors is that to me, they"re just another fad (chocolate fountains anyone?) and you'd really need to get in with the right clients asap before they decide dancefloors are passe' and move on to the next thing. Weddings are very fickle as there's so much one upmanship going on so it might be an idea to try and think up something completely different that no one else is offering and tout it to weddings.

As an aside I can't say keep away from stocks and shares enough unless you know exactly what you're doing. My bank was very eager to have me invest a sizeable chunk of dough I'd saved up while grafting in the Middle East. I sat through their pitch, read over the documents and so on and was about to sink well over 10g into it thinking that with the economy being in the , it can only get better.

I bottled it at the last minute and the last time I crunched the numbers that money would now be down to around about 4g!!! Its better in your pocket doing nothing than being ed down the drain by some yuppie scumbag.

[Excalibur]

All I can say is that whatever you buy has to make your business grow (or grow more profitable.) Sound and lights purchases are unlikely to do that. Smart money at the moment seems to be in add ons of some type. As to what to look at, I have no idea.

[chrisj]

If you have any interest put funds into children's entertainment and maybe learn to be a children's magician, try joining a local magic society/club.

Although adult functions have become fewer the kids still have their birthday parties and I have just done a 3yr old today, was to be 1 hr but I was asked to extend to the 2 hrs that I usually do for older children. The dad said 'You will definitely be booked for next year and we will want you later this year for our sons 11th birthday disco.'

Plus I gave out 5 cards to interested parents.

This is not what every dj wants or can do but it is a great addition to earn extra.

[Woodyo]

Thought myself about the floors , but to be honest too much extra work and worry for me . Going to invest the money i've put aside on in a complete revamp for my website.

[Ryu]

Some interesting ideas folks, thank you.

Stocks and Shares - Not for me, just now, but a consideration for the future

Children's Entertainment - An area I have had some much begrudged (by me) success, I'm not too bad at entertaining kids, but avoid them by choice (cover my daughter primary and often get follow on enquiries). My main issue with the kids stuff...harder work/lower pay, albeit earlier finishes!

Dancefloors - Possibly away from where I'd like to go with it, I don't think I have the practical resources to take the full on 'events' route...in fact, my newly purchased domain is harlequin-DJ (got rid of Roadshow at last) and I like the idea of pushing for more corporate work through this site...

Add ons - see above, to a certain extent, but I'm
Open to more smaller scale service enhancements...

[par6]

Yes I agree get into the kids disco stuff, loads of work.
Stay away from this years fashion whatever it may be, weddings are where the money is but brides don't want what their friend had at her wedding, they want to be different. All the recent fads seem to have a 2 year run and thats it, so you've got to get in early.
Chocolate fountains, LED dancefloors, photo booths, steer clear, they've been and gone, the secret is working out whats next ?

[Pe7e]

I can't see the starlit led white, and black dancefloors going out of fashion any time soon, no more than marquees will go out of fashion. I can however, see the market becoming over supplied, as more and more operators move in to boost their dwindling profits. The result being the lowering of the price attainable, to the point of it becoming an unattractive proposition for all concerened. A few years ago uplighting could easily command a stand alone fee of £350 - £400, now you frequently see it offered for £100 or less, when included with a disco.

[wensleydale]

If you don't know what to spend the 5k on then I would suggest you may not need to spend 5k. It really depends what you want to do- are you looking to do the same but better and charge more, or do something different as well (add on stuff) or do the same more often ( website/ advertising).
Is difficult to say unless you have a broad idea of what you think could work.