Holiday Report Card

With 150 party animals packing the floor of the Andorra Banquets and Catering venue, DJ Paul Segal found himself with a perfect setup for the 2018 Crown Counseling holiday party.

The hall staff had set up the room with all the tables on one half of the room, with the food and the DJ’s mirror booth located on the other half. With the bar and dancefloor in the center, it made for an ideal DJ/TV setup. “It was great to watch the people dance, other people watch the videos, and the mirror booth jam-packed all night long,” recalls Segal, entertainment director for 219 Productions in Highland, Ind., a Chicago suburb.

“The ladies loved the mixing of newer and older music, the videos, and the online music requests through DJEP. They’re always a dancing bunch – it’s the fourth year in a row they’ve had me as their entertainer – and the owner is always full of energy and games. She does [games like] ‘Heads and Tails’ and ‘Saran Wrap Ball’ with prizes for the employees, and this year they added a ‘Snowman Wrap’ and some quick raffles.”

For Segal, this was actually a typical party for his busy 2018 holiday season. He reports that his December gigs were up 50-percent over last year, between his repeat business bookings and new clients finding his business for the first time – none were hesitant to spend the same amount of money they’d invested in the past.

In fact, Segal says his only challenge this past year was staffing the 10 bookings that he snagged within two weeks of their events.

We polled mobile DJs throughout the nation to find out the status of holiday parties in 2018. Were bookings up or down, compared to last year and years past? Were corporates spending money this year, in what appears to be a good economy?

And we found a huge range of responses, largely depending (but not always) on the region of the nation:

• New Jersey (Artem Lomaz, NinetyThree Entertainment, Roxbury): “Business finally picking up again.”

• Florida (Rick Wilson, Good Guy Productions, Pensacola): “Holiday bookings fading.”

• New York (Carl Williams, DJ Carl Entertainment, New York City): “Less parties than in years past.”

• New Jersey (Gregg Hollman, Ambient DJ Service, East Windsor): “Approximately flat from 2017.”

• Washington (Adam Tiegs, Adams DJ Service, Seattle): “Definitely a lucrative month this season.”

“Here in New Jersey, holiday parties have been really slow, and I think it’s mostly because of the alcohol [situation] – employees drinking and driving,” says Lou Negal of DJ Lou Productions in Bloomfield, N.J. “We used to do 20 parties during the month of December, but now we’re down to roughly five or six.

“In fact, this year I have no holiday parties at all. What these companies are doing is having a luncheon for their employees with piped-in music, and then they just give their people an hour to get their food and go back to work.

“I also work for another local DJ business, and they’ve confirmed they only had a couple holiday parties in December.”

Bob Albrecht, the owner of Fantasy Productions DJ Entertainment in nearby Hackettstown, N.J., says he’s noticed a slow drop-off in holiday party work ever since he started in the industry in 1989.

“My first year – I was working for a company called Star DJ’s at the time – I did 20 parties in 22 days that December,” he recalls. “Now, as a company, we might get 10 holiday parties in all of December and then a few more in January.

“I think the main reason is that companies are simply cutting back on the big holiday parties, with companies doing a much smaller luncheon in the middle of the day, instead of the big blowout evening party with employees plus spouses.”

Albrecht also believes the number of DJs in the market today versus 25 years ago could be a contributing factor.

“There are so many more options for clients to choose from these days,” he says. “Thankfully, our wedding market is busy in December, and I’m able to keep my calendar full with weddings instead of corporate holiday events.”

Up in Minnesota, John Young of Sound Force Disc Jockey says holiday parties have definitely become a thing of the past there in the west-central portion of his state.

“The venues have tried to lure companies back with smaller group parties, but they end up sitting quiet in December,” says the Grey Eagle, Minn.-based jock.

“Back in the heyday, we had pretty much each Friday and Saturday of the first three weekends in December, and then spilling over into January with more corporate parties. Today, there are a couple local companies that do a Tuesday lunch.

“Three venues that used to hold a number of holiday parties every season are empty, and the big hotels that used to have 200-plus people parties are doing single rooms – with companies

choosing family holiday parties over corporate stuff.” Young agrees that it’s the drinking/driving aspect of past holiday parties that hurt the holiday party business the most.

“Up here [in Central Minnesota], we don't have any mass transit, cabs or Uber,” he explains. “Companies moved from having an open bar to food-only, and then ending the party at 10 or 11 p.m. Then, over time, I think the investment went into larger bonuses over $50/person dinners.”

Over the many years he’s worked as a part-time DJ, Wes Flint of DJ Wes’ Mobile DJ Service in Olive Branch, Miss., says the most overall parties he’s ever worked over an entire year was 33, but he only did a little over a couple-dozen gigs in 2018.

The Memphis-area jock points his finger on the economy for taking a major toll on the entertainment industry, and that includes companies splurging on “extras” such as corporate holiday parties.

“When people have a little money to splurge on nice things, then those who offer what some might consider a ‘luxury’ items can thrive,” explains Flint. “Then, when things turn south, the luxury items are the first things to go.

“It’s taken almost 10 years to get anywhere close to where we were in terms of consumer confidence and spending, but now with liability up among those who serve alcohol, I don’t think we’re ever going to never see those pre-2008 numbers again.”

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Says Rob Peters DiFazio of Rob Peters Entertainment, in Franklin, Mass.: “This season we basically sold out, and with more money to boot.”

Same was true for Blake Eckelbarger of The Music Place in South Bend, Ind. “Bookings were good this year, and up slightly from last year.”

And the most effusive response came from Bobbie McDonald of Boogie Inc. in Pensacola, Fla., who said “We were busier than any year since 2008.”

By Jeff Stiles