Sooo 2020 was supposed to be the year! I had so much planned and was super excited for 2020. Bookings were on the up yet again, i had some great wedding fayres and met so many people, i was truly excited about the year ahead.
The start of 2020 is always busy with mostly admin and sorting calendar dates for the year ahead. I actually had 3 bookings in January and 2 February and then March i had a wedding fayre booked in for the hotel i have the contract for being the wedding DJ.
In March 2020 i took a week away skiing in France, it was here that the word Covi-19 and Corona Virus started to take place! On return home it was all over the news, a virus with no cure!!! Bad times!! It was a case of seeing what happened and then seeing how where i live reacted.
I live on the Isle of Man (UK) a crown dependency in the UK, a small island sat in the middle of the Irish sea between England and Ireland (go google it). The Isle of Man is self governed so we make are on rules and laws within our own parliament (Tynwald). After a few weeks the government shut down the Island and forced us to work from home. Now I don’t Dj full time im only a weekend/part time DJ, the full time job or day job I am an IT manager so being employed full time kept me busy but my DJ business and all but stopped!
Lockdown arrived and showed no real sign of stopping, big events on the Isle of Man were quickly cancelled and the boarders shut! This meant all the hospitality industry was heavily affected and lost huge amount of trade. The hotel i work for as a DJ was shut indefinably and all events cancelled! This meant weddings, parties and corporate gigs were all lost. Other bookings i had quickly came in to be cancelled or postponed. I feel lucky as most customers came to me and said “we will go ahead we will get married and we want you!” which made me feel great so these are postponed and will be going ahead at different dates in 2021 i hope!
During lockdown i did some DJ sets at home at the weekends, i had friends and family all online partying with me and even now when i have been booked people mention “Oh i watched for lockdown sets” 🙂 This for me was a great and people were so kind!
So after many weeks on lockdown and cases rapidly reducing to almost 0! The Isle of Man started to open itself up back to normal slowly, but within a month we were back to normal and able to mix in groups again as we had no cases at all! The boarders remained shut and if anyone came into the country they had to isolate to strict guidelines and even passed as laws! Believe me when i say but people were arrested and sent to prison for violating these laws!
Within days of being back to normal the emails and Facebook requests came flooding in, people wanted me for garden parties, summer corporate events and school proms!
It got crazy! I had 10 bookings in July, 8 bookings in August and another 8 booked for September!! usually i do 3-4 gigs a month! It took a lot of planning and time management to get all these sorted but the events were amazing! I have a few videos on my YouTube page – https://youtube.com/user/mcorlett1 the proms were great!!!
So now we are in October and entering the autumn and winter months, however business isn’t slowing down. Halloween is proven to be a great holiday time for DJs, i am now hiring equipment to people hosting their own parties where they do not need a DJ but require lights and a speaker to play of a phone or tablet.. This is an area which is growing for me in my DJ business!
With Christmas around the corner also the hotel work is also back! The first Christmas gig being 27th November and i have 12 Christmas gigs booked in as well as New Years Eve. Its certainly all go till the end of the year! 2021 shows no signs of slowing down as i have just been accepted to showcase in the Isle of Man Wedding Fair in January! 🙂
I will leave things there for now! I dont want to go on all day! But hopefully gives you an idea of my busy mobile DJ life!
Thanks
MC 🙂