DJ Hospitality Rider: What to Ask For, What Is Reasonable and How to Get It Honoured

The booking is confirmed, the fee is agreed, and the promoter sends a cheerful message: "Send over your rider and we will sort everything." You stare at a blank document. Ask for too much and you look like a diva before you have even played. Ask for too little and you end up starving in a corridor at 3am with one warm beer and no water.

A hospitality rider is the part of your booking paperwork that covers how you are looked after: food, drinks, the space you wait in, guests, and the small things that let you play at your best. Here is what to put in a DJ hospitality rider, what is reasonable at each level, and how to make sure it is actually honoured on the night.

What is a DJ hospitality rider, and how is it different from a technical rider?

A DJ rider usually has two parts. The technical rider covers what you need to perform: players, mixer, monitors, booth layout, and how the sound is set up. The hospitality rider covers everything else that affects your wellbeing on the night: food, drinks, a place to rest and store your bag, guest list spots, and sometimes transport and hotel requirements.

Keep them as two separate sections or documents. Production managers read the technical rider; promoters and venue managers read the hospitality one. Mixing them makes both easier to ignore.

What should a DJ hospitality rider include?

A useful hospitality rider is short, specific and easy for a busy promoter to fulfil. These are the sections worth covering:

• Drinks in the booth: still water first, always. Then soft drinks or energy drinks if you use them, and any alcohol you actually want.
• Food: a hot meal before the set, or a meal buyout in cash if the promoter cannot provide one. List dietary needs clearly: vegan, gluten free, allergies.
• A safe space: somewhere secure to leave your bag, coat and spare USBs, ideally a lockable room or a staff area, plus access to a clean toilet.
• Guest list: the number of guest spots, and a deadline for sending names.
• Towels and small essentials: a towel in the booth, earplug spares, a phone charger.
• Arrival and departure: who meets you, where, and who takes you back to the hotel or station after the set.
• Hotel, when travelling: a private room, a quiet location if possible, and a late checkout when your set ends near sunrise.

Anything you list should be something you really use. A promoter who sees a rider full of things you clearly do not need will start to treat the whole document as optional.

How much should an emerging DJ ask for?

There are no official standards, so think in terms of what is normal for the size of the booking. For a local club gig at the start of your career, a modest rider is the right call: water, a couple of drinks for you, a meal or a small buyout if you are there for hours, and one or two guest spots. Many local promoters will offer drink tokens rather than a stocked booth, and that is fine.

For a travelling gig, the rider grows because you are away from home for a full day. Food, a hotel and transport become essential rather than nice to have. A meal buyout matters most when you land late and the kitchen is closed.

For headline and festival bookings, riders often include a stocked dressing room, more guest spots and specific drink brands. You earn those items with draw and fee level, not by asking early.

Rule of thumb: your hospitality rider should cost the promoter a small fraction of your fee. If it starts to rival the fee itself, you are making yourself expensive in a way that will cost you rebookings.

What should not be in a hospitality rider?

Some requests cause more harm than good, especially early in a career:

• Long lists of named spirit brands for a 90 minute local set.
• Vague demands like "VIP treatment" that cannot be fulfilled or checked.
• Requests that make the promoter responsible for things you can bring yourself, such as a specific brand of headphones.
• Unlimited guest list. Give a number. Promoters often have to cap guests to protect ticket sales and capacity, and a clear number shows you understand that.

Also avoid treating the rider as a bargaining chip for things that belong in the main deal. Travel buyouts, hotel standards and payment terms should sit in the booking agreement, where they are legally clear, not buried among requests for fruit.

How do you make sure the rider is actually honoured?

A rider in your press folder is a wish list. A rider attached to a signed booking agreement is part of the deal. Always send it before contracting and ask for it to be referenced in the agreement or the confirmation email.

Then advance the show. A few days before the gig, send a short message to the promoter confirming arrival time, who meets you, meal arrangements, guest list deadline and where you can store your things. Most rider failures are not bad faith; they are a busy promoter who forgot. Advancing catches that early.

On the night, be friendly and flexible. If the meal is late, ask once and politely. If something essential is missing, like water in the booth, ask the bar or your host immediately rather than playing without it. Save bigger complaints for a calm message afterwards or for your agent to handle.

Should rider costs come out of my fee?

Normally, hospitality is provided by the promoter on top of your fee. That is the point of agreeing it in advance. But at smaller events, some promoters will propose an all in fee that includes your food and travel. If that happens, do the maths: a fee that looks decent can shrink fast once you pay for a meal, a train and a late taxi yourself.

If you agree to cover your own hospitality, ask for the buyout to be listed separately in the agreement so it is clear what is fee and what is expenses. This also helps your bookkeeping. In the Netherlands, for example, that split can matter when you work out your VAT and your business expenses, so talk to your accountant about how to invoice it.

How do riders work for festival slots and B2B sets?

Festivals run hospitality differently from clubs. You will usually share an artist area with other acts, catering runs at set times, and drinks come through a backstage bar or a token system. Your rider still matters, but expect the festival to point you to its standard artist hospitality rather than stocking a room just for you. Ask the artist liaison for the catering hours and guest wristband process before the day, because guest lists at festivals often close days in advance.

For a B2B set, agree one shared rider between both DJs and send it once. Split the guest spots evenly unless you agree otherwise, and make sure both of you know who is the contact person for the promoter. Two separate riders for one slot confuses the promoter and usually means neither gets fully honoured.

A simple template to adapt this week

Open a new document and write the following headings: Booth drinks, Food, Backstage and storage, Guest list, Arrival and departure, Hotel (travelling gigs only). Under each heading, write one or two lines that reflect what you genuinely need. Keep the whole thing to one page.

Then save two versions: a local version with the basics, and a travelling version with food, hotel and transport added. Send the right one with every offer you accept, ask for it to be referenced in the agreement, and confirm it during advancing. Within a few gigs you will find that promoters treat you as someone who knows how a booking works, which is exactly the reputation that gets you rebooked.

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