Progressive pricing! Welcome to 2024, everyone.
Your lunch is worth more than your mid-day snack and a frosty will cost you more at 6:00 p.m. than it would at 11:00 p.m. Yes, it’s the game that airlines and hotel/resorts have been using for years may be coming to a Wendy’s near you soon! The progressive model suggests that rates can be changed throughout the day, based on demand and, using digital price menus, the value of a “value meal” can be adjusted based on the time of day.
Ever go to a hotel on the beach and request rates for a summer weekend in July? Then, you take a look at the same room for November? Totally different rates! Same goes for an airline ticket to Orlando during a prime week at Disney vs. a slow week off-season.
The progressive price model is designed to squeeze the consumer when they are most likely to purchase. The model suggests that the value fluctuates based on time and demand.
Then there are those horrible add-on fees! Fees for everything under the sun that we still don’t understand. “Resort Fees” are just a shining example of the ability for a business to advertise one rate and end up with a much higher rate without you even knowing what hit you in the wallet! And what’s even more confusing is that after the consumer realizes they have been screwed, they still pay up!
Certainly, if you have attended a DJ convention in a major city with gambling as its main draw, you know that the rate you were told is not the final price you pay. The additional fees are for just about everything you once received for free – internet, pool access, workout center, water, oxygen, etc.
Same for those damn airlines! Bag fees! Give me a break! We used to be able to carry on a bag, no problem. But now, it’s $25, $30 even $35 for a bag. Progressive seat up-charges are also getting crazy. I guess the seat next to the window on the wing is worth $50 more because there is an extra 2-inches of leg room. Or there’s an “early-entry” fee because the airlines figured people would pay an extra $35 just to get on the plane before your neighbor.
I mean, things are so out of control that I’m just waiting for an airline to make everyone pay $100 for a parachute right after the captain says the plane is going down in five minutes. Hurry, limited availability! The parachutes without holes will be an extra $50. And how about an extra $250 for the ground floor of a hotel because the elevators are broken? Or, this is one of my favorites… a chair-cover fee because the venue has ugly chairs, so the bride will justify paying $20 per chair just to hide them! This is for real. People do this and at the other side is someone looking to exploit an opportunity.
The whole concept of supply-and-demand has been around forever as a product of capitalism. Inflation, which in my book, is a direct reflection of supreme corporate greed following the pandemic and it has made goods and services almost out of reach for the average all-American family. Why then are the prices of cereal, veggies and steak going up while DJs remain either in a holding pattern or fighting a path down to the lowest price?
In 1988, I was charging more for a four-hour party than many of my competitors charge today in 2024. It is a staggering revelation in failing business practice! It seems like DJs consider being booked solid to somehow be a badge of success vs. actually being profitable!
And for the majority of our industry who get their main paycheck and benefits from their “day job,” they will argue that this is side money and they don’t have to charge what the “full-timers” do. They would argue that this is “get-ahead” money or “vacation funds.” But I would argue the complete opposite.
If you already work 40 hours, these extra weekend work hours should receive “Progressive Premium Pricing,” as this is time away from your family, leisure time or time for errands. Why lose that time to work at a discount? Yes, if you are a part-time DJ, your free time should be looked at as a Wendy’s Baconator at lunch-time or that beachfront room during August.
DJs very rarely get into this business because they want to be business men and women and it shows every time a DJ cuts his/her rate just to get the gig and fill in the calendar. I mean, if we are having a weekend off, we must not be successful, right? To me, success is having a weekend off because we can afford to have it off!
Essentially, I ask: if a burger is worth more at lunch time, why isn’t a DJ worth more on Saturday? I would challenge the full-timer DJs to actually consider premium pricing for Saturdays or dates during prime months and for the part-timers never to lower your rates and stick to you guns for rare days you can have off with the family. If you get your price, go work and make that money. If a client doesn’t respect your services enough to pay your price, then they were not your client in the first place. Go to the beach!
So next time you pull up to a digital menu and notice that Mega-Beef Burger is $1.50 more than it was at 11:00 a.m. just think about this? Why is this OK for beef to go up in price and not OK for a DJ, who is the reason a party can actually be fun in the first place? Where’s the beef!
Here’s to our success!
Since 1984, Mike Fernino has run Music In Motion Entertainment in Seymour, Conn., and since 2008, he has run the Facebook Group, DJ Idea Sharing.