Building Community or Marketing Scam? How Online Competitions Are Gaslighting DJs Into Performing for Free
It’s been four years since I first started DJing, and roughly 30 years since dance music went fully mainstream in the UK. I was only born in 2004, so I feel like I missed out on the era where clubbing was a space to let loose and forget your worries. Thankfully, there are promoters on the rise helping upcoming DJs get a feel for what it’s like to play in front of a crowd, big or small.
Promoters like Camel Toe and Not Bad For A Girl are just two of many UK-based collectives that provide real-world access to the electronic music industry, particularly for women and gender-diverse artists.
However, there seems to be a growing issue with commercialised brands and promoters offering DJs opportunities to gain exposure and build their careers, when in reality, they’re essentially a way of getting free labour from artists.
In the last few years, Reading & Leeds Festival has been one of the many festivals in the music industry at the centre of online discourse, with discussions around who should be allowed to perform, who recognises who on the lineup, and what music can be played. This year, the festival is sponsored by Pepsi Max and has a stacked lineup, including big-name artists such as Charli xcx, Dave, Skepta, Raye, as well as up-and-comers YT, SINN6R, Ceebo, DJ EJ, and many more.
However, a competition that the festival is running this year for emerging talent seems to deviate from the whole purpose of these opportunities.
Reading & Leeds has teamed up with Smirnoff Ice and Chase & Status to launch an online competition offering an upcoming artist/DJ the chance to play the Smirnoff Stage. The 10 best entries are “picked” by a judging panel, including at least one independent judge, and then reviewed by the London drum and bass duo against the same criteria.
Follower numbers and metrics are not taken into account but rather judged on “DJ-related content, professionalism, consistency and stage presence”. In theory, this relieves some of the pressure artists often feel to present themselves as popular and in-demand online in order to be deemed relevant.
However, issues have been raised online about whether costs or alternatives are covered, with the official site stating that “any additional costs or expenses linked to enjoying the prize are the responsibility of the winner and their guest.”
Online competitions have gone from a genuine opportunity created by grassroots promoters to help rising artists get their foot in the door, to a gaslighting grab by corporations to fill in slots for vanity metrics or free marketing ploys. Though Reading & Leeds Festival isn’t the first to cause such controversy, their prize policies follow the same path as many others post-lockdown.
It begs the question: are these events genuine opportunities, or straight-up exploitation?
Pictured: Boiler Room & Charli XCX Presents: PARTYGIRL Ibiza
I sat down with East London DJ and producer, Tim Reaper, who shared his frustration towards promoters making contestants do all the hard work. “As much as you get experience from that, ultimately, what you do is basically become a vessel of promotion for this event. You’re trying to rally up all your mates to support you in this opportunity to get to this event. Now, all you’re doing is basically doing the promoter’s work and then the promoter’s not even really remunerating you for your dance or for your work. It is a shame.”
DJ and producer Viva recently spoke out on the issue of brands capitalising on these competitions, and how promoters are getting away with not helping up-and-coming artists with the financial support they might need to fulfil such opportunities.
“What I think is wrong is using an opening spot as something you’re ‘giving to the community’ when really the reason is you don’t want to pay for it, or you don’t have the money to pay for it”, Viva told DMY. “You use it as a marketing method, tag your friends, get the engagement, get the content, get all of that upside for yourselves, and then as a big brand you decide there’s no payment, no compensation involved. That’s cheap.”
She continues:
“If you’re a brand that size, running a competition attached to something like this, and you’re not even covering the basic flights, food, and stay, that tells me exactly what this actually is. It’s not about the artist. It’s about what the brand gains from it.”
In Viva’s Instagram post, she exposes the new model going around: You enter, tag your friends, post a mix, and potentially get picked for the honour of working for free. “And somehow that’s supposed to feel like progress to us and a new method of creating ‘community’. Respectfully, it doesn’t create this,” she stated on her Instagram.
What does community actually mean?
Community has become the most overused word in music. Go through any event company, music page, or radio station, and you’ll see the word “community” plastered everywhere.
Most of the time, it’s honest and valid. Other times, the word is used performatively and does not reflect the real value of what community means. Groups and individuals spout the term every five minutes to supposedly raise its value, yet those same people constantly applaud bad behaviour and allow acts with serious allegations to take to the stage.
“Everyone wants to have a community but it’s a lot harder to form and maintain one than people think. It takes energy, sacrifice and most importantly a lot of time to foster a genuine thriving community,” Who Is Teekay? tells DMY.
As Viva writes:
“Community is not a discount code for someone’s labour. It’s mentorship. It’s opportunities that costs the person offering it something too, could even be time, network etc.” - Viva
Making a name for yourself feels like an adrenaline rush: the thrill of trying to get noticed, followed by the lows of trying not to get financially ruined. Geography can make this even harder.
Lou Lou, founder of Polyrxthm and radio host on Doppler Radio, mentioned the difficulties of nurturing up-and-coming DJs through competitions, stating that “it doesn’t let other people showcase who they are,” and that areas in the UK like Leicester don’t have any opportunity.
“You don’t really get this with grassroots venues or festivals. I feel it’s quite upfront what you’re getting, but it’s usually the big conformants that have these sneaky little things in the back, and it just stops people like me from entering in the first place because I don’t even think I’m going to get the chance. It doesn’t feel like a real competition with all the AI bollocks.”
Lou Lou reiterates the lack of opportunities available to places outside of London, and the struggles of breaking out due to skyrocketing fees.
Let’s be honest: this issue around online competitions won’t disappear anytime soon. Brands will keep trying their best to ensure they come out richer and profit from their acts, while mass commercialisation in the music industry continues to threaten the underground movement.
Community is made by the people, for the people. Electronic music and raves were created by marginalised groups seeking solace from oppression. That is the real community: giving back, splitting fees fairly when doable, and supporting upcoming artists by guiding them, mentioning them in conversations with others, and paying them as they deserve.
When talking to Viva, her alternative solution to online competitions consisted of a rotation-based community spot, where people in the scene work together to move careers forward.
“If there genuinely isn’t a budget, be upfront about that, and open up the slot to upcoming DJs on rotation, giving them an actual shot. But if you can’t pay them, you need to offer something real in return.”
Viva, who has previously experienced the struggles of working with big festivals like Tomorrowland, says she had to pay money to enter one of their previous competitions.
“I can’t pay you for this one, but I can introduce you to three people who can. That’s community. That’s an actual exchange, not just a nicer word for free labour.”
Real community shows up in who gets paid fairly, who gets credited, and who gets brought up rather than used up.
I, myself, have witnessed this done well through grassroots platforms that truly give back to their people. This should fundamentally be a step forward, and an example of how corporations should follow in their footsteps to ensure everyone is treated fairly, including the opening artists. Not “just a caption about giving back to the culture, while selling out and overpriced the event”, as Viva puts it.
If the word “community” is doing more work protecting the brand’s image than actually building something for artists, it’s being overused - badly.
Pay your artists and DJs, big brands!
Submit music to DMY here.
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