Getting Started as a Mobile DJ

You’ve already been DJing for some time we hope (if not check out our beginner DJ guides first) and you want to launch your own mobile DJ business. But where do you begin?

Being a mobile DJ is much more than just turning up somewhere with a couple of decks and some music. It requires a lot of work and doing jobs you may not have even thought about so here’s our quick guide to getting started as a mobile dj.

Before you start your mobile dj business you’ll need to look at a few legal aspects. Starting any business requires you to register with the Tax man, set up a company, keep records of payments etc. You can’t really run a business without it being legal, if you get caught and you will there will be some hefty fines and maybe even jail time to pay.

First you need to register your business in your country/state by using the official resource for your country or state. Look on government websites for help.

Look into a financial advisor to sort out your income and outgoings. This is also a great time to see what money you have to spend on equipment and promotion.

Don’t forget about insurance. You’ll need to have not only your equipment covered for theft but also accidents to guests caused by your equipment as well as being able to play music in a public place.

Finally research what equipment you may need to buy. You may have a couple of decks and some table speakers but these will not cut in in a huge hall. So look for speakers, better mixers, PA Systems, lighting and much more.

Now we can move on to actually creating a business plan for your mobile DJing business. You’ll need to write a small document detailing what you want to do and how you are going to do it. Detail how you plan to promote your business too, all this needs to be done not only to help guide you but to also allow you to approach banks and investors that could lend you the money to get started.

Once that is all done you can do the fun stuff of buying equipment. As already mentioned you may need to pick up some extra equipment such as larger Speakers or tables.

For a mobile DJ setup, you’ll be required to have at least:

A set of turntables
A Mixer
DJ Headphones
PA Speakers
Music

But there is one other important thing to remember. Transport. You don’t want to be lugging this stuff on a bus, especially large speakers so you’ll need to budget in either a van to help you or someone with a car that doesn’t mind driving you.

You’ve got your business sorted along with your equipment. Now you need to promote yourself. A good place to start is with a website and some business cards. Creating your website is easy, you can use a service like SquareSpace to host and manage the look of your site for a small amount a month or host and make your own site. All this is for another guide but a quick look online should help you get started. Don’t forget your business cards to, you’ll want to hand these out to friends, relatives and anyone else you can find to promote your services.

You may find it is worth advertising online. Sign up to a google adwords account and you can display adverts on google search results. Be careful to make them limited to locations you are willing to travel to otherwise you’ll just end up wasting money advertising to someone in Australia who won’t book you.

You’ll need to enter some keywords, here are a few to get you started:
Wedding DJ (your city)
Mobile DJ (your city)
Birthday DJ (your city)
Party DJ (your city)

And so on.

A great way to get started is to find out when people you know or friends of a friend are having a birthday or a wedding and offering your services for a better rate than normal. Hopefully they’ll take you up on your offer and once at the event you can hand out business cards to any guests that ask for them or leave them on tables for guests to take after seeing how much better you made the event by being there. It really is a numbers game, you could print flyers and hand them out too but you may find you are wasting money giving flyers to people who are not looking to host an event any time soon.

Being a mobile DJ is a lot of work and that’ll keep you busy for a while. But some events want people to host, so make sure to pick up a decent mic and practise talking to crowds. You’ll need to be professional and courteous as you may be required to make announcements or to help get the party started. You can add extra value to your mobile DJing by hosting firework displays, doing raffles or organising party games whilst DJing. This is up to you but it can be an easy way to make more money.