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Like a few of the others said, it is definately more beneficial to set up your own night. The way it works over here in Ireland anyway is that you pay the club/venue a fee to have use of the room. You then charge a cover fee at the door to breakeven/make a profit. There is a lot of time and effort required in setting up your own night but there are far more rewards than playing for a promoter.
If you do get a gig playing in a club for a promoter or for the club itself, obviously it is a great start but there are a few drawbacks. Very few promoters give you the freedom to play what you want, 99 times out of 100 they will want to you to keep your music within the genre/style of their night, which is understandable but still restrains you from playing the music you love. On top of that, if you dont get the crowds in, they arent going to hang to you for to long. Add this to the fact that if you get huge crowds in, you are not likely to see any increase in the amount that the pay you.
If you choose to run your own night, you are responsible for every element of it, from advertising to what tunes you are gonna drop. The fact that you have paid a fee for the club/venue will give you the incentive to get as many people into the night as possible and it is down to you to spread the word, advertise, promote, design the posters/fliers etc.... This gives you a sense of the volume of work involved in getting a club night up and running. The main benefit for me anyway, is the fact that you can play whatever YOU want. Whether you love tech house or epic trance, then you can play it! The fact that you have total control over the whole night pays dividends. Ok, so maybe you dont manage to breakeven, pull the crowds or whatever...you will gain so much experience in many aspects of the club scene....promotion, advertising, the layout of the club, the theme of the night you are running, financial aspects, seeing how your favoured style of edm is received by the clubbers....it all gives you vital experience and imo opinion, it gives you a much more rounded knowledge of what it takes to make it as a dj/promoter rather than the dj who plays a couple of hours for some promoter every 2 weeks. Give it a shot, if it flops you will learn from your mistakes. Dont give up easily. But if you continuously fail to get any sort of crowd or decent night going...maybe its not the career for you 
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www.myspace.com/paulcourtney
www.babelmusicagency.com
Beauty is in the ear of the beholder
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