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| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
In the early days it was the promoters pocketing most of the cash. Sasha was the first superstar DJ, and I've read his fee doubled annually in the early '90s. So around 1990 he was on about £500 a gig. By 1992 it was £2,000. He was obviously at the top tier of earnings. So the bigger events back then which were hooking one or two thousand people were probably making £10-20,000 for the promoters, of which probably less than a quarter went on the venue/sound hire and DJs. This is why a lot of criminals quickly got involved in the orbital rave scene at the end of the '80s.
Down the years the balance has clearly tipped in favour of the DJs. Looking at old rave flyers, I don't think the average ticket price has changed that much in the last 25 years, which is mad to think about.
Anyway, the original comment was about producers having day jobs, not big name touring DJs. Trawling through Discogs, it quickly becomes apparent that a hell of a lot of names from the '90s only ever produced 10-20 records before vanishing. I think it's fair to say that the majority of records circulating were made by people producing on the side. |
Dammit.Beat me to it.
In the 90's the promoters made out like bandits, some clubs and raves were charging £10-20 to get in and on big nights up o $50, yet top DJ's we paid £2000 for two or three hour set, and supporting DJ's or WArm Ups were typically £500 tops.
Sasha was getting £2k for giant raves. I remember oakenfols saying he usually got $10k a gig but would often discount for interesting gigs or places he wanted to visit and that was around 97.
Sure, if you played very week or even several times a week, that was decent money, but remember that your agent and or manager took 15-20%, then you usually had a driver if you were gigging a lot...the expenses started to wrack up,and compared to a decently paid job, it only really made sense if you were in the top flight.
If you were a grafting DJ, working the circuit in the UK, playing out a fair it, Quitting a decently paid job was a bit scary.
I's nothing like it is now if you hit the big time one gig is what you'd be lucky to clear in a year.
I think Danny Rampling wasn't even what you'd consider wealthy until the late 90's, and he'd been plugging away for 20 years straight and had one of the most influential clubs.
Don't get me wrong, there was money to be had and there wer certainly poeple that did't have regular jobs, but there's countless stories of DJ's eventually quitting their day job to go full time.
Back on Topic, producers were somewhat a mixed bag. You could make money as sales were physical and if you sold 1000 copies you'd get a couple of grand. But on the whole you could have 20 decent selling tracks, get some club play and not make enough to survive a year.
I think people forget that there were plenty of producers that never played a gig, and many who also had to start DJ'ing to make money off it or increase their sales etc.
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Question for old school Trance addicts ?
