Gigs & business
Advance
Advancing a show is the exchange of practical information between artist and promoter in the days before it — times, equipment, travel, contacts. The document that results is usually called an advance sheet or day sheet.
In practice
Send the advance a week out and put the answers on one page you can read on a phone in a taxi.
Eight questions cover almost everything: set time and length, curfew, load-in time and door, booth equipment and whether the players are linked, guest list and its deadline, travel and accommodation details, the name and number of the person who will actually be in the building, payment arrangements, and anything you need on the rider. Put the replies into one day sheet and keep it offline on your phone, because the moment you need it is the moment you have no signal.
8
Questions that cover most of it
1 week
When to send them
Offline
Where the answers live
Where these come from: Standard touring advance practice, condensed for a DJ booking — convention, not a catalog figure. For what we can measure, see what to ask about the booth.
Why it matters
Everything that goes wrong on a gig day was answerable by email a week earlier. What time is load-in, which door, who has the key, what is actually in the booth, is there a spare channel, where are you sleeping, who do I call when the taxi does not come — none of it is difficult and all of it is expensive at eleven at night.
It is also the point where a promoter reveals how organised the night is. An advance answered in full within a day tells you what to expect; an advance that goes unanswered for a week tells you to bring your own adapter, arrive early and have the phone number of somebody who will pick up.
Frequently asked
What should a DJ ask in an advance?+
Set time and length, curfew, load-in, booth equipment and linking, guest list deadline, travel and hotel, an on-site contact number, and payment. Eight questions, one email.
What is a day sheet?+
The one-page answer to the advance — times, addresses, contacts, equipment — that you can read on a phone in a car. It is the output rather than a separate process.
Who advances a show if I have an agent?+
The agent normally does, and you should still read the result. The person standing in the booth is you, and the detail that matters is the one nobody thought to pass on.
Related terms
Club standard
Club standard describes the equipment a working DJ can reasonably expect to find: two or more media players and a four-channel mixer, linked, with a booth monitor. It is a convention rather than a specification, and venues vary.
Load-in
Load-in is the window during which artists and crew may bring equipment into a venue, at a specified door and time. It exists because a building has one goods entrance and a schedule for everyone using it.
Curfew
A curfew is the time by which amplified sound must stop, set by the venue’s licence or a local authority. It is not negotiable on the night, and overrunning it can cost the venue its ability to open at all.
Artist liaison
An artist liaison looks after performers on the day: meeting you, getting you accredited, showing you where the stage is, handling the rider, and making sure you are in the right place at the right time.
Explore: DJ tech rider template · Tech rider · Club standard · All DJ terms