LIVESTREAMING vs LIVE-GIGGING!

First of all, apologies for the gaps between my posts - it's been a busy summer with livestreaming, production deadlines and the a spell of the ol' COVID also, has taken me a couple of months before I felt vaguely normal again.

But, with the world opening up again and LIVE DJ gigs happening in the real world again, I think now is a great time to reflect upon LIVESTREAMING vs LIVE-GIGGING.

LIVESTREAMING

• Stream from the comfort of your own homes, you're never more than a few steps away from your bed, or your couch, or fridge where a freshly stocked fridge wont charge you £7 for a can of red stripe. Also, depending on how / where your streaming, you can stream for as long as you like (unless if you're part of a showcase where multiple djs share one streaming platform channel.

• Save money on travel - Trains are expensive & public transport is unreliable in the early hours of the morning, even worse if you have a gig in a non-major city. Petrol isn't cheap either.

• Nicer time frames - with livestreaming, you don't have to wait until 4am to play 90 minutes. You can start at 7pm (when you're still fresh) play for 4 HOURS and still get a decent 8 hours kip before awakening the next morning.

• Payment - I have been incredibly lucky in that after much hard work, graft, time and toil, I have built a small loyal following who 'tip' me on my hard work. Twitch has set up a payment system where viewers can buy a batch of 'bits' using real money, and then viewers can 'cheer as many bits' as they want. These bits turn into real world payments once a month, and quite frankly, I've never made as much money as I have on Twitch than I did in the real world of DJing, and it feels GOOD to have your efforts rewarded. Free gigs / Gigs for experience DON'T pay bills and all you're doing is lining the pockets of the promoters even further. Earn your wage by filling the dancefloor and TAKE your proceedings as an acknowledgement that without you, the party would have stopped! Seriously! The glass collector sometimes more than the DJ who is keeping the crowd dancing & thirsty.

LIVE GIGS

• Club atmosphere - you really DON'T get that same buzz standing in your kitchen on your own. The excitement of the clubbers, the rush of euphoria in a shared collective or the feeling of godlike status when they cheer you during a breakdown. The smell of the smoke machine. The flash of the laser. It IS what DJing is about.

• You're not at the mercy of your service provider & home-tech - In real life, you DONT glitch - unless this is the Matrix. In real life, your ability to DJ wont be governed if you have NO internet in your house / apartment. Or if your partner decides to have a videocall with their family, or stream netflix. When you Livestream, you are at the mercy of this. It doesn't matter if you're Carl Cox, people wont suffer an endlessly buffering stream & the competition is so fierce on Twitch, they WILL go elsewhere. Also, you will be at the mercy of endless people in your chat telling you 'stream is stuttering...' because you can see your OBS box glow red. YES, I KNOW ITS STUTTERING, THE INTERNET IS POTATO.. THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO. Best thing you can do, is laugh it off and mention your next REAL LIFE gig that won't rely on Sky Broadband. Also, if you've not got a 1080hp ultra HD webcam, people will complain. And you'll also need to be a green screen expert because DJing is no-longer only about playing damn records, no, you need to do it WHILST SURFING ON TOP OF A GIANT CATS HEAD WHICH HAS LASERS FOR EYES, WHILST YOU FLY THROUGH SPACE, like you're the Starship Enterprise. I've seen it. And he was HUGELY popular with hundreds of viewers. And he couldn't mix flour & water.

• Tune ID? In the real world, you are unlikely to be questioned every 3 minutes with 'whats this tune' like in the chat of your livestream. I mean, most people should've mastered Shazam by now, (its been around for about 20 years) and also, your crowd don't need to know everything. We live in a world where we must have every bit of information at your forefront 24/7, and frankly, if I tell you exactly my set list, you'll download it! White labels were a label back in the day that held little or no tune information, and if someone asked you, all you could say is 'dunno, good though innit?'. People rarely ask me in clubs because they're just 'in the music' or they have Shazam working. Digital livestream DJing really has ruined that air of mystery. Obviously, I tell people occasionally or if it a track I'm trying to promote, I'll tell them twice, but i don't want to give away all my DJ weapons!

• Your neighbours will hate you - unless you have amazingly forgiving / tolerant neighbours like me, they will resent you turning your lounge into an extension of Fabric every weekend to please a few people online. I mix in headphones anyway so the volume isn't ever truly loud (it's been off during the late late hours) but for the majority, people need to mix with loudish monitors.

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So that's 4 points VS 4.... what do you think??