Everyone has gone to a jam (i hope) and had their feelings of it being good and bad. Every jam is run very differently and people who have never thrown a jam or havent participated in the jam promotion/ co-ordination really don't understand the risks and rewards as well as the time that it takes to throw an event. I have previously stated that i was done throwing jams in the Upstate Ny area but for the purpose of this blog i may throw one more and video tape every step that i take to go through the jam so you can be prepared to throw an event if you want to.
Here is the general Breakdown of how I throw jams, this is not necessarily the right way, this is just A way to throw an event, there are thousands of different ways.
FORMAT
I start off looking for a concept, is it going to be a 1v1, a 3v3, an open crew battle on an open crew battle (any amount of people per crew)... am i going to do it a timed battle (5 minutes) or is it going to be rounds (2 rds each till finals) there are many factors that go into the format. for this example we will say a 5v5. Are you going to have a showcase prelim rd, or is it going to be a head to head battle.
Prize- this is by no means the most important part but it definitely has it's benefits of drawing in higher leveled bboys, i've found out that when the prize is higher you general get a higher leveled bboy that may not be there to support your jam but are there for the cash prize (but regardless, they are at your event) i try to put the prize at about 100-150 per bboy. so if its a 1v1 the prize will be 100-150. for a 5v5 itd be 500-750 (again this is just my choice of prize, you can range it from trophies to clothing sponsorships to whatever you want, this gives bboys their incentive to come)
Entrance fee and time: make sure to an entrance fee, i try to use 5-10 increments, its easier for whoever is running the door, easier to count, and change is much easier if you dont have to worry about 1's. a good 200 in your till box (essentially your cash register) should be enough, make sure theres more 5's then 10's (i generally do $150 in 5's and the rest in 10s). if your selling water or anything else (water generally 1 dollar) then you'll want to have $50 in 1's,$100 in 5's, and the rest in $10's (again this is just how i run my tills, you can do it however you want) also i'd recommend getting wrist bands for your event and not release what kind of wrist bands or colors because sadly enough i have had people attempt to go buy bracelets to sneak in.
NOW THAT YOU HAVE YOUR IDEA TOGETHER,
you have to find a good dj for your event. The Dj makes or breaks the event, you can have the perfect venue, the perfect judges and format, and a terrible DJ and that will be what people remember. For your first event i would recommend getting an OK-GOOD dj, generally if people know its your first jam they will support your event because its your first jam and they want to support the growth of the scene and will understand if you dont have your ducks all in a row. If you have a ton of money to play with then go for gold and get a good high level dj like, dj ill-literate from philly, or skeme richards, or dp-1 from NYC. they are all top level dj's that really are going to give a good vibe and do the job right. when signing a dj (this will be elaborated in on a different blog borrowed from K1NG's DJ guide) make sure they know exactly what is expected of them and if you feel like they are trying to screw you for too much money, dont feel afraid to speak up, remember this is YOUR jam and your money and it should be run how you want it to be run.
you have your dj,format, prize, now whos going to judge it?
JUDGES-
you should make sure to have someone whos not going to vote based on biases, you want someone who's going to be impartial and just vote based on the facts, originality,flow,footwork,power,musicality, power, just to name a few things that a judge may be voting on, NOT they're my friends so im going to move them onto the next round. I have a compiled list of bboys in my general scene that i think are worthy judges as well as are respected in yours/their community(i have not included absolutely everyone in my scene that i think are worthy judges because i like to get out of the area judges that havent seen what everyone does so they arent voting on, oh i saw them do better before, they should just vote on what they see round for round or battle for battle) also note- you should make sure to take care of their gas and probably give them a free meal (even if its mac and cheese- same with the dj) it just makes them actually make their money instead of spending half of it to get there and home. if theyre driving from far away be prepared to have a couch ready or buy them a hotel room to crash in. they might not want to stay but it should be offered (again just my sentiments) ***NOTE***- if possible try to pay all the judges the same, if i book 3 judges and 2 of them only want 150+travel, and the 3rd judge wants 200+ travel. i tend to pay all judges the higher cost, just so when they ask eachother how much theyre getting paid there isnt such an issue. again this is just something i do to be nice, if someone agrees to the price then thats on them and their negotiation skills but i believe if i do good by ME then people will do good by them. judges are also expected to help promote. (exceptions to rules- if a judge is doing an expo battle, they will generally expect some extra cash to do an expo, for example, my buddy wont judge for less then 250+ travel, if he does an expo battle he wants 25 a round, every 3 rounds he gives a 1 round discount. so if you buy 3 rounds ($75) he will give you 1 rd for free so the expo battle will be a total of 4 rounds.) this isnt something you should worry about in your earlier jams though.
DJ (check) JUDGES (check) PRIZE (check) FORMAT (check)
whats missing? i think we've got everything... wrong you need a venue- a venue is where the event will take place.
Generally i will recommend firehalls,american legions, places of that sort for first time jam hosts. reason being is they're very cheap to rent, they dont require insurance to rent, and generally as long as your honest with them about the event (that its a breakdancing competition) they are willing to work with you to make sure your happy about renting their space as a venue. when you are looking for venues it is a good idea to find a place with a setup you like (bring paper with you when you go to the space and mapout where you want to put everything, entrance table (where people pay to come in) if your having refreshments (where are you going to put them) DJ (he needs to be able to see the battle area easily so he doesnt keep playing music when the battles been done for 5 minutes now and he needs to switch to another track either for cypher, another battle, or cut the music entirely for the emcee/host to make an announcement) where you want to have the battle space and make sure that they have enough room to get down based on your format. again for this format a 5v5 you need quiet a bit of room. i generally try to get minimum of a 15x15 space, i think thats enough room for just about anyone to get down for a battle. its also nice if people have an area they can cypher and practice before their battle so again just make sure the venue is spacious enough for you to put every table where it needs to go, that everyone is not crammed into a small space, and that there wont be a fire hazard that may get your event shut down or canceled. After you find your ideal venue, and book it (maybe not necessarily pay for it yet, but make sure you get put on the calendar), generally you have up untill 2-3 weeks before your event to pay for the space and lock it down. with my dealings when i find a place that allows it i ask them to put it on the books and ill be back a little bit before [again 2-3 weeks] to pay for it. After you put it on the books, continue searching for a backup venue, sometimes places go back on their word and change it from "its ok you can have a jam here" to "no we never said that" or "oh we didnt know you wanted it here, sorry", theres a million reasons a venue will cancel on you so its always nice to have a backup venue, and sometimes even a backup venue to a backup venue. I cant tell you how many times a venue has told me yes its 100% a go ahead and you can put us as the venue on the flyer, and then 2 weeks before the event or even a week before the event that we can't be there anymore. Its very important to inform your venue this is not that movie hutzpa bologna stuff where its super ghetto and people are going to fight, someones going to get shot after, and it will just be tons of trouble. inform them of what the jam is going to be like and how its going to be run to ease their mind. many time they hear breakdancing and think "boyz in da hood" so make sure to seal all avenues to ensure you get your venue
now it seems you have all your ducks in a row
venue,judges,dj,prize, format. its time to make a flyer and promote. the best thing i can tell you when making a flyer is to look up other flyers and do something kind of like them and get it made asap. the longer you have to hand out flyers and spread the word of an event the more time you'll have to get people there. hit up your local newspapers and tv stations as soon as you have a flyer made (with all of the information on it of course) with a little paragraph or two telling people what its about and many times they will put it on the radio, tv, and or newspaper for free. i've gotten asked to be on tv to promote my event and given event shirts to people to wear on tv while their doing their broadcast and it was the best PR i've ever had.if you can swing it, get a couple people to help you promote, the best promoter does do it on their own, they have a team that they can monitor their work. as long as their doing their job of promoting theres no reason to not give them atleast a shirt and free entry. free entry into a jam doesnt cost you anything, so theres another thing you can do. give out free entrance passes to people in a mall, generally someone wont go alone and they'll talk about it.
Extra things to think about:
If you have your event, who is going to run the entrance table (i always have my mom run it because i know she isn't going to let people in without paying because im her baby and she doesnt want people to take advantage of me) i'll occasionally let someone in if they couldnt find an ATM and their group is already inside, or if its a younger kid (1-10) or at a discounted price. again this is your event and you can run it however you want. but for example- my last event was 10 entrance, someone came with 6 people and they forgot cash and couldnt find an ATM anywhere (i knew there wasnt an atm in the general area and instead of sending him to find an atm and saying forget you, he paid me extra later for being a good guy. a little kid -prolly 7 years old, didnt have 10 dollars to get in and i could tell he wanted to watch so i let him in for free. his father/or grandfather came by to pick him up finding out i let him in for free, bought a few shirts, a bunch of waters, and still paid his entrance fee. i gave him back the entrance fee of the kid because again it doesnt cost anything for me to let 1 person here or there in for free and look at the appreciation people will give you for doing something out of the good of your heart.) im not saying expect everyone to be like this, but there is definitely a reward for people who do things out of the goodness out of your heart
If vendors hit you up- how much are you looking to sell them a table for? i generally start off with 25 a table because its the cost of 2 shirts, and they will also help promote your event because they want people to come and buy their shirts. with every vendor that buys a table i offer 3 people free entry with their table (so if jon buys a table, jon and 2 people that he brings with him get in free) and if a table comes and doesnt sell a single thing, i usually cut them a deal from the original price, i remember at an event Headspun clothing (a bboy clothing line by bboys from Rochester,ny) came, i told them 50 a table. they agreed, when they came they ended up giving away more clothes then they sold, so in turn for that i gave them a 50 percent discount on their table to make sure that i still held true to my deal to let them BUY a table but i didnt wanna screw the pooch either and make them lose more money then they had intended on.
Security- Are you going to pay for security? a police officer is nice to have on the premise but they are also 150 an hour with a minimum for 4 hours. i dont have a million dollars to spend on events, so i asked my buddy who owns a DJ company to hook me up with a few security shirts (you can also do this if i you have a friend that owns a club) and put them on some of my friends at the event to make it look like theres real security.
I think i've included just about everything, if you have any questions or feel i left something out, feel free to hit me up.
Lastly you just have to throw for the ropes and hope everything goes well, many people sign up online and dont show up. Don't expect to make alot of money on throwing jams (if any at all) because more times then not you lose money. so if your looking to throw events to make money, i'd suggest getting a real job because this is NOT a job that will be life sustaining. I would have also included sponsors into the guide but i have never had a cash supporter of my event. Although i will say if you get redbull or hit up a bboy clothing company to send a sponsorship box like Sexual Napalm (this is a shameless plug for my own clothing line haha), FrockClothing (great gear,and overall a nice guy), Cypherstyles (they're always super quick to respond and will often put your event on their calendar so anyone whos looking for jams will most likely see it posted it) , and my personal new favorite GENERATION BBOY (great guys, tell them bboy rez, binghamton ny sent you and they'll def hook you up) they will generally send you a package with tons of stuff to give out and will definitely help bring in revenue of attendance. DO NOT sell their products at the event, they worked really hard to make that stuff and selling it would just be rude and not what it was given to you for.
but just for example here is the cost of my first jam i ever threw and my last jam
Battle in the boonies 2009
judges 150 (x3)
venue-400
prize for bboy-500
dj-200
prize for allstyles-150
+ i had jam shirts made and sold (which really was a boost on revenue)
shirt cost-300
TOTAL COST-$2000
entrance was $20/$15 with flyer
Taste of victory 2011
(apparently there is a jam in michigan that runs the same exact jam so i will no longer be throwing an event like this out of respect to other jam hosts but with that being said- if you have the same idea as someone else ON YOUR OWN (ie you thought of it by yourself) feel free to throw the event, every move, and jam concept, HAS been thought of before, dont let someone else stop you from doing an event because you had the same idea as someone else)
Venue-300
judge-100 x 2
dj- 50 (my friend and local bboy dj did me a favor on this one)
prize for bboy-200
prize for allstyles- plaque (cost 20 to make)
TOTAL COST: 720
entrance was $10
Here is the general Breakdown of how I throw jams, this is not necessarily the right way, this is just A way to throw an event, there are thousands of different ways.
FORMAT
I start off looking for a concept, is it going to be a 1v1, a 3v3, an open crew battle on an open crew battle (any amount of people per crew)... am i going to do it a timed battle (5 minutes) or is it going to be rounds (2 rds each till finals) there are many factors that go into the format. for this example we will say a 5v5. Are you going to have a showcase prelim rd, or is it going to be a head to head battle.
Prize- this is by no means the most important part but it definitely has it's benefits of drawing in higher leveled bboys, i've found out that when the prize is higher you general get a higher leveled bboy that may not be there to support your jam but are there for the cash prize (but regardless, they are at your event) i try to put the prize at about 100-150 per bboy. so if its a 1v1 the prize will be 100-150. for a 5v5 itd be 500-750 (again this is just my choice of prize, you can range it from trophies to clothing sponsorships to whatever you want, this gives bboys their incentive to come)
Entrance fee and time: make sure to an entrance fee, i try to use 5-10 increments, its easier for whoever is running the door, easier to count, and change is much easier if you dont have to worry about 1's. a good 200 in your till box (essentially your cash register) should be enough, make sure theres more 5's then 10's (i generally do $150 in 5's and the rest in 10s). if your selling water or anything else (water generally 1 dollar) then you'll want to have $50 in 1's,$100 in 5's, and the rest in $10's (again this is just how i run my tills, you can do it however you want) also i'd recommend getting wrist bands for your event and not release what kind of wrist bands or colors because sadly enough i have had people attempt to go buy bracelets to sneak in.
NOW THAT YOU HAVE YOUR IDEA TOGETHER,
you have to find a good dj for your event. The Dj makes or breaks the event, you can have the perfect venue, the perfect judges and format, and a terrible DJ and that will be what people remember. For your first event i would recommend getting an OK-GOOD dj, generally if people know its your first jam they will support your event because its your first jam and they want to support the growth of the scene and will understand if you dont have your ducks all in a row. If you have a ton of money to play with then go for gold and get a good high level dj like, dj ill-literate from philly, or skeme richards, or dp-1 from NYC. they are all top level dj's that really are going to give a good vibe and do the job right. when signing a dj (this will be elaborated in on a different blog borrowed from K1NG's DJ guide) make sure they know exactly what is expected of them and if you feel like they are trying to screw you for too much money, dont feel afraid to speak up, remember this is YOUR jam and your money and it should be run how you want it to be run.
you have your dj,format, prize, now whos going to judge it?
JUDGES-
you should make sure to have someone whos not going to vote based on biases, you want someone who's going to be impartial and just vote based on the facts, originality,flow,footwork,power,musicality, power, just to name a few things that a judge may be voting on, NOT they're my friends so im going to move them onto the next round. I have a compiled list of bboys in my general scene that i think are worthy judges as well as are respected in yours/their community(i have not included absolutely everyone in my scene that i think are worthy judges because i like to get out of the area judges that havent seen what everyone does so they arent voting on, oh i saw them do better before, they should just vote on what they see round for round or battle for battle) also note- you should make sure to take care of their gas and probably give them a free meal (even if its mac and cheese- same with the dj) it just makes them actually make their money instead of spending half of it to get there and home. if theyre driving from far away be prepared to have a couch ready or buy them a hotel room to crash in. they might not want to stay but it should be offered (again just my sentiments) ***NOTE***- if possible try to pay all the judges the same, if i book 3 judges and 2 of them only want 150+travel, and the 3rd judge wants 200+ travel. i tend to pay all judges the higher cost, just so when they ask eachother how much theyre getting paid there isnt such an issue. again this is just something i do to be nice, if someone agrees to the price then thats on them and their negotiation skills but i believe if i do good by ME then people will do good by them. judges are also expected to help promote. (exceptions to rules- if a judge is doing an expo battle, they will generally expect some extra cash to do an expo, for example, my buddy wont judge for less then 250+ travel, if he does an expo battle he wants 25 a round, every 3 rounds he gives a 1 round discount. so if you buy 3 rounds ($75) he will give you 1 rd for free so the expo battle will be a total of 4 rounds.) this isnt something you should worry about in your earlier jams though.
DJ (check) JUDGES (check) PRIZE (check) FORMAT (check)
whats missing? i think we've got everything... wrong you need a venue- a venue is where the event will take place.
Generally i will recommend firehalls,american legions, places of that sort for first time jam hosts. reason being is they're very cheap to rent, they dont require insurance to rent, and generally as long as your honest with them about the event (that its a breakdancing competition) they are willing to work with you to make sure your happy about renting their space as a venue. when you are looking for venues it is a good idea to find a place with a setup you like (bring paper with you when you go to the space and mapout where you want to put everything, entrance table (where people pay to come in) if your having refreshments (where are you going to put them) DJ (he needs to be able to see the battle area easily so he doesnt keep playing music when the battles been done for 5 minutes now and he needs to switch to another track either for cypher, another battle, or cut the music entirely for the emcee/host to make an announcement) where you want to have the battle space and make sure that they have enough room to get down based on your format. again for this format a 5v5 you need quiet a bit of room. i generally try to get minimum of a 15x15 space, i think thats enough room for just about anyone to get down for a battle. its also nice if people have an area they can cypher and practice before their battle so again just make sure the venue is spacious enough for you to put every table where it needs to go, that everyone is not crammed into a small space, and that there wont be a fire hazard that may get your event shut down or canceled. After you find your ideal venue, and book it (maybe not necessarily pay for it yet, but make sure you get put on the calendar), generally you have up untill 2-3 weeks before your event to pay for the space and lock it down. with my dealings when i find a place that allows it i ask them to put it on the books and ill be back a little bit before [again 2-3 weeks] to pay for it. After you put it on the books, continue searching for a backup venue, sometimes places go back on their word and change it from "its ok you can have a jam here" to "no we never said that" or "oh we didnt know you wanted it here, sorry", theres a million reasons a venue will cancel on you so its always nice to have a backup venue, and sometimes even a backup venue to a backup venue. I cant tell you how many times a venue has told me yes its 100% a go ahead and you can put us as the venue on the flyer, and then 2 weeks before the event or even a week before the event that we can't be there anymore. Its very important to inform your venue this is not that movie hutzpa bologna stuff where its super ghetto and people are going to fight, someones going to get shot after, and it will just be tons of trouble. inform them of what the jam is going to be like and how its going to be run to ease their mind. many time they hear breakdancing and think "boyz in da hood" so make sure to seal all avenues to ensure you get your venue
now it seems you have all your ducks in a row
venue,judges,dj,prize, format. its time to make a flyer and promote. the best thing i can tell you when making a flyer is to look up other flyers and do something kind of like them and get it made asap. the longer you have to hand out flyers and spread the word of an event the more time you'll have to get people there. hit up your local newspapers and tv stations as soon as you have a flyer made (with all of the information on it of course) with a little paragraph or two telling people what its about and many times they will put it on the radio, tv, and or newspaper for free. i've gotten asked to be on tv to promote my event and given event shirts to people to wear on tv while their doing their broadcast and it was the best PR i've ever had.if you can swing it, get a couple people to help you promote, the best promoter does do it on their own, they have a team that they can monitor their work. as long as their doing their job of promoting theres no reason to not give them atleast a shirt and free entry. free entry into a jam doesnt cost you anything, so theres another thing you can do. give out free entrance passes to people in a mall, generally someone wont go alone and they'll talk about it.
Extra things to think about:
If you have your event, who is going to run the entrance table (i always have my mom run it because i know she isn't going to let people in without paying because im her baby and she doesnt want people to take advantage of me) i'll occasionally let someone in if they couldnt find an ATM and their group is already inside, or if its a younger kid (1-10) or at a discounted price. again this is your event and you can run it however you want. but for example- my last event was 10 entrance, someone came with 6 people and they forgot cash and couldnt find an ATM anywhere (i knew there wasnt an atm in the general area and instead of sending him to find an atm and saying forget you, he paid me extra later for being a good guy. a little kid -prolly 7 years old, didnt have 10 dollars to get in and i could tell he wanted to watch so i let him in for free. his father/or grandfather came by to pick him up finding out i let him in for free, bought a few shirts, a bunch of waters, and still paid his entrance fee. i gave him back the entrance fee of the kid because again it doesnt cost anything for me to let 1 person here or there in for free and look at the appreciation people will give you for doing something out of the good of your heart.) im not saying expect everyone to be like this, but there is definitely a reward for people who do things out of the goodness out of your heart
If vendors hit you up- how much are you looking to sell them a table for? i generally start off with 25 a table because its the cost of 2 shirts, and they will also help promote your event because they want people to come and buy their shirts. with every vendor that buys a table i offer 3 people free entry with their table (so if jon buys a table, jon and 2 people that he brings with him get in free) and if a table comes and doesnt sell a single thing, i usually cut them a deal from the original price, i remember at an event Headspun clothing (a bboy clothing line by bboys from Rochester,ny) came, i told them 50 a table. they agreed, when they came they ended up giving away more clothes then they sold, so in turn for that i gave them a 50 percent discount on their table to make sure that i still held true to my deal to let them BUY a table but i didnt wanna screw the pooch either and make them lose more money then they had intended on.
Security- Are you going to pay for security? a police officer is nice to have on the premise but they are also 150 an hour with a minimum for 4 hours. i dont have a million dollars to spend on events, so i asked my buddy who owns a DJ company to hook me up with a few security shirts (you can also do this if i you have a friend that owns a club) and put them on some of my friends at the event to make it look like theres real security.
I think i've included just about everything, if you have any questions or feel i left something out, feel free to hit me up.
Lastly you just have to throw for the ropes and hope everything goes well, many people sign up online and dont show up. Don't expect to make alot of money on throwing jams (if any at all) because more times then not you lose money. so if your looking to throw events to make money, i'd suggest getting a real job because this is NOT a job that will be life sustaining. I would have also included sponsors into the guide but i have never had a cash supporter of my event. Although i will say if you get redbull or hit up a bboy clothing company to send a sponsorship box like Sexual Napalm (this is a shameless plug for my own clothing line haha), FrockClothing (great gear,and overall a nice guy), Cypherstyles (they're always super quick to respond and will often put your event on their calendar so anyone whos looking for jams will most likely see it posted it) , and my personal new favorite GENERATION BBOY (great guys, tell them bboy rez, binghamton ny sent you and they'll def hook you up) they will generally send you a package with tons of stuff to give out and will definitely help bring in revenue of attendance. DO NOT sell their products at the event, they worked really hard to make that stuff and selling it would just be rude and not what it was given to you for.
but just for example here is the cost of my first jam i ever threw and my last jam
Battle in the boonies 2009
judges 150 (x3)
venue-400
prize for bboy-500
dj-200
prize for allstyles-150
+ i had jam shirts made and sold (which really was a boost on revenue)
shirt cost-300
TOTAL COST-$2000
entrance was $20/$15 with flyer
Taste of victory 2011
(apparently there is a jam in michigan that runs the same exact jam so i will no longer be throwing an event like this out of respect to other jam hosts but with that being said- if you have the same idea as someone else ON YOUR OWN (ie you thought of it by yourself) feel free to throw the event, every move, and jam concept, HAS been thought of before, dont let someone else stop you from doing an event because you had the same idea as someone else)
Venue-300
judge-100 x 2
dj- 50 (my friend and local bboy dj did me a favor on this one)
prize for bboy-200
prize for allstyles- plaque (cost 20 to make)
TOTAL COST: 720
entrance was $10
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