Are Vote to Win DJ Competitions Worth It?

DJs, do you find yourself doing more work than your local promoter? Nowadays, everyone is a DJ. There are so many DJs that promoters and local venues are asking the DJs to do the promotional work for them. How does this happen? To start, a new way of promoting an event is to get the local DJs to submit a mix for a competition to have an opening slot. The goal is to be able to perform on the main stage if you win the competition. How do you win the competition? The competition has every contestant use their social media channels to promote that they are in the contest. The person with the most votes after a specific time period wins a time slot to perform. After submitting and winning an online mix contest to open up on the main stage I learned the truth behind the competition. By getting every contestant to share on their social media that they are in the contest to open for unknown artist they are doing free promotion. These competitions use every contestant to plug the show even if they do not win a slot to perform.

In my case, the event I won was 3 hours away with no pay. The time slot was the earliest possible on the main stage. While I was transitioning a mix from one song to the other a production assistant moved the entire DJ setup. I had never seen this happen during a performance ever. Assistants were still setting up lights and people were just starting to show up. I rocked out the set as best I could either way but sometimes these competitions aren’t worth the stress and heartache. At this point music was my only source of income. What promoters label as “exposure” for pay in reality pays nothing. Money pays the bills, no exposure.