Posted by After the first day of just arriving, saying hello to some people and enjoying the first event at Melkweg now this is the day where we started our conference live. We had some very interesting meetings with people from international labels, to whom we presented our website and our future plans for our 10th year anniversary in 2010. Between that we had time to attend a very interesting panel called “Ladies In The House”. Our main reason to listen to this panel was our friend DJ Paulette. We had her on one of our first Groovenite Events and since then we are in a good contact. It was also very interesting to see, because Paulette did something very special. She made here way up in the UK and then moved to Paris where she started from scratch. It’s impressive how she got to the top again but of course, we never had a doubt. She talked with some other famous female djs/promoters/singers like Lottie (GB), Shinedoe (NL), JES (US) and Olga Zegers (ID&T, NL). Here are some quotes of this panel:
Where are Female DJs?
In the Top 100 DJ charts of DJ Mag, 98 are men and only 2 are female djs (although it was mentioned, that the top 100 dj charts is not taken very seriously, because it’s just who promotes more get more votes)
Female DJs
Paulette: There were hardly any female djs at UK festivals this year
Lottie: But we would hate it to be just booked because we’re female
Shinedoe: you need a good team behind you that help you (get bookings, promote)
Paulette: you can do all that (f.e. Paulette.tv), but it’s not guaranteed that it helps (like David Guetta)
What to do to get more attentiveness?
to help make a name: build your profile, making records and compilations
Why do men think that female (djs/promoters) are often bitchy?
Shinedoe: professionalism: when you say to a man something and he doesn’t like, he says: she’s bitchy
but it’s just professionalism
After this interesting day at the conference we headed out for a great party at Club NL with Hardsoul, Simon Dunmore, and many more. It was like another big meeting of some great djs there like Jamie Lewis, DJ Meme, Panevino, Morten Trust, Blacksoul, etc.
Only DJs who are never likely to feature in DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs would suggest that they are not taken very seriously! The poll represents the popular views of clubbers from all over the world – over 350,000 of them. The Top 10 in the poll are all multi-millionaires – not because of the Poll, but because they are the most popular DJs in the world.
DJ Mag is not setting the agenda with who we think are the best DJs in the world – wemerely host a popularity contest. It’s not our view, it’s the view of hundreds of thousands of dance music lovers – ignore them at your peril.
I think it’s a bit harsh to say that DJs like Paulette and Lottie are not likeable to get featured in the DJ Mag’s Top 100. But I’m sure that a lot of these DJs deserve to be there. Although I think they get a lot of votes because they send out thousands of mails, facebook and twitter messages just to remind their fans to vote for them. Of course this is nothing bad. Everybody should do that (if they want of course). But on the other hand: Is this representative then? I think polls are never 100% representative. But it’s always great to talk about… maybe it’s that what DJ Mag wants :)?
The Top 100 DJs is not about whether people deserve to be in it. It is simply about who is the most popular DJ in the world. Fundamentally it is about democracy – letting the people choose. The Poll does not reflect DJ Mag’s tastes, particularly.
Mobilizing people to vote for them is a common practice in every democracy. However, we ban DJs from offering incentives. We are keen for DJs to approach their fans – it, generally, means more people voting. There are, of course, DJs who think they are above canvassing for votes – it is usually those ones that bitch about the results!
The Top 100 DJs is the most representative Poll there is, purely based on the numbers of people voting and the countries they’re voting from. Once again we don’t own the Poll, we don’t necessarily approve of the results, we are merely the guardians of a free, democratic forum. The results are announced on Wednesday – come to the party
[...] it’s important to be in this charts, DJ Mag says that it’s the most democratic choice. Peter wrote in the feedback of an ADE [...]