Entertainers University Course-Making a Living With Music-Lesson 6

Transcript Of This Video
(00:06):
Now let’s talk about another very lucrative gig. A lot of guys make their living just doing this, and this is wedding entertainment, wedding reception, entertainment. Now, there’s a lot to doing this, but when you develop the gig coach method of live music blended with DJ music, with tracks behind you when you’re performing, you’re going to have the opportunity, you’re going to be in high demand for weddings because of that live aspect you bring combined with the variety of the dj. You see the ultimate type of wedding entertainment when they have the budget. And by the way, budgets for weddings on average, I think in 2024, the average wedding was like $42,000 means they have a lot of budget for entertainment and catering. Everything’s expensive. The ultimate type of entertainment they want is a DJ and a live performer. They try to hire both, but they’re so expensive because DJs are really expensive for weddings.
(01:15):
But that’s what you’re going to be able to do. If you want to do weddings, I’ve done them for 20 years as a solo only because I can do the live music blended with dj. If you don’t have the DJ element, forget it. You can do dinner music during the wedding. It can make a few hundred bucks doing that. But I’m talking about getting 12 to 1600 to $2,000 to provide the music for the wedding, for the ceremony, and for the reception. It’s two different things. The ceremony, uh, used to be where brides would have, you know, someone playing the piano or their wedding march or the organ, the old days, nowadays they have them, the music dj, they’re not coming down the aisle to, here comes the bride, the traditional wedding march. They’re not using that. They’re picking their favorite songs and they’re coming down to specific DJ songs.
(02:11):
So that opens up the opportunity for you to, it’s a two set up gig. You’ll have a setup for the ceremony and then your main setup at the reception. I’ll show you how to do this in detail in the Entertainer’s University. So don’t stress, I just can’t cover it here. It’s, it’s too much to go into, but you need to seriously consider joining the entertainers University to get this stuff. This stuff is so valuable to you. I can’t even put a price on it because it’ll change the way you do things. But let’s talk about weddings. Two sections to it. The ceremony and the reception. If you provide the music for the ceremony, that’s, I always do that as a package. I never do them separately. I never book myself as just the ceremony, music, music or I, sometimes I’ll do just the reception if they’re not, sometimes they’re not doing the ceremony there, they’re doing it at another location, which I don’t wanna fool with traveling, going to that.
(03:09):
Sometimes I get married at a remote location and come back and have the wedding reception celebration at the venue. But it’s a two set up thing. I won’t just do the, um, the ceremony music. I package it together, which makes my, you know, cost go up, makes it work. If you are a live musician and you happen to play guitar and you can play some acoustic guitar, just nice finger style, you don’t have to sing just nice acoustic melody stuff. You can book that as part of your wedding package. And brides and mothers of brides who you’re really gonna be dealing with, love that. And you speak about it in your marketing. I have a list, and I’ll get you this checklist inside the entertainers University that you’ll ask them to check off. It’s an online form. They’ll check off everything they want. And one of the services you order is nice acoustic music as the guests arrive for the ceremony.
(04:10):
That means if the wedding starts at five o’clock, you’ll start at four 30 playing nice acoustic guitar in the background. As the wedding guests arrive, I have tracks behind me and I play with the tracks. I just will play nice lead lines, the melody on top of the track music. It may be Sinatra music, it may be, you know, whatever, whatever kind of easy listening music, whatever the flavor of that wedding is. Most people like the Laid back Sinatra kind of thing, what I call a Vegas kind of vibe, just relaxing, instrumental stuff. No vocals, just instrumental. So that’s part of the package you can offer for weddings, live music. Then when you do your reception, you have the live music that you blend in with certain songs. You may do a special song for them. They always have a, a father daughter dance. They had the first dance of the bride and groom, which is always the first dance.
(05:10):
And we have an itinerary, I’ll explain this to you in the Entertainers University, but there’s a first dance between the bride and groom, and then typically there’s the mother, or there’s the father of the bride. And the bride immediately go into their dance and that can be a, they, they show you which songs they want, they tell you in advance, then the mother and the son, and then their, uh, sometimes grandparents, dance, all these special things again, talked about in detail in the university. But the fact that you can play live, um, and DJ throughout the night is going to put you in high demand. You’re going, you’re gonna be in a different category than just DJs. Believe me. When you throw in that live performance aspect along with it, if they can afford you, they’re going to want you. And you can go to these wedding shows, these bridal shows that are in every city, every year, multiple ones of them.
(06:04):
And they cost a few hundred dollars or whatever to get a booth there. Some of them are pretty expensive, but if you book one wedding as a solo artist, live music, blended dj, you’re gonna make, let’s say $1,500 at a minimum or more. But DJs charge about that. That’s what a DJ will charge for a wedding from 1200 on the low end up to 3000. You know, they’ll bring fog machines and all that. You don’t have to get into all that. You can if you want to. I’ve not found it necessary. I did that at one time. I had all the lights and uplighting and you know, you go through things in this business and you learn over the years, and that’s why I’m here to teach you so you don’t make the same mistakes that I did. But weddings are a whole thing. They’re a specialty in and of themselves.
(06:53):
And if you want to do them, I’ll, I’ll tell you how to do it. How to deal with the bridezillas, which you’re going to come across, the mothers of the bride, the high stress of the wedding day. It’s gonna be a whole day for you. It’s not gonna be just an evening thing, it’s gonna be a whole day. And days before that, there’s gonna be preparation, there’s gonna be correspondence and meetings with the bride about a, a myriad of things covered that in detail in the university. But this, I just wanted to touch, um, on weddings for you so that you can be thinking about if you want to include weddings in your mix of offerings. Again, some guys just do weddings. They make a very good living, doing a wedding a weekend that’s, say it’s $1,600 per weekend, three six grand a month, just doing weddings. Not bad, but that’s how the wedding industry is for you.
Duration
8 minutes