NC PANDEMIC PROFILE: Jason Huggins

JASON HUGGINS (Stylus, s.e.)

Managing member & DJ

Stylus, s.e. is an entertainment and DJ company, A/V production, and our focus is on helping clients make great events even better.

When did you first feel the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions in your work/business? I can tell you exactly the moment everything changed. I played at a local bar right down the street from here, 3-days a week, every week for almost a decade. I’m there, it’s a Wednesday night and the day before, the Ivy League had shutdown their basketball tournaments for both men and women…now, it’s Wednesday, and I’m at the bar [working]. It’s 10:30/11:00pm and there’s a tv on and the bar’s not packed, but there are people there – real smooth vibe – and I look up and see the tv, and it just feels different. I’m looking at the screen and I see that the NBA has just canceled their game. I think it’s the Thunder and the Jazz that are playing that night, and the NBA stops the game and makes the fans leave! And, that that’s when everything changed. As soon as that happened, I realized that there’s no half-assing this. We had a chance to get it and we hadn’t done it yet and this was the consequence of that. There was a part of me that was hoping that we were going to be able to go at a diminished capacity but still be able to keep going.

Everybody at the bar said St. Patrick’s Day will tell us everything we need to know about whether or not we can survive. That next day, Thursday, was when the President gave his Oval Office address at 9pm. He says we’re going to marshal the full power of the federal government to stop this in its tracks, our CDC is the best in the world, everybody use due diligence, wash your hands, take steps cover your face, etc. He legit said these things, and I was like ‘oh, ok this is full-on now.’ That weekend, Friday and Saturday, is usually one of the biggest weekends of the entire year for that portion of my industry and it was not busy. It just wasn’t. We were probably running at 30-40% of what we normally run. It just wasn’t slammed. Ordinarily we’d be slammed all day. For St. Patrick’s Day we usually start at 2pm and end at 2am, and we’ve got multiple DJs out there, a full-rotation, and that’s just not what happened. People were just not showing up, which meant that they had the fear. Right after the Oval Office address is when people got the fear. Okay, this is a big deal. And, after that, we got the state mandate that shutdown all the bars and it was such a blood bath.

The day after the President’s announcement, Friday, I lost $50,000 in bookings in just a couple of hours. We handle a lot of corporate clients: tech firms, real estate firms, that we do multiple events for and we’re talking about just a couple of events: $50,000. Gone. Canceled flat out. Every corporate event that had been confirmed, canceled. Every event that was pending said we can’t do this. Every wedding – and that was just the beginning. I lost on the order of $500,000 in just a couple of weeks, and that’s not including the business we didn’t get. Everything said and done, it’s just a ridiculous amount. I’m operating – even with what we’ve been able to do - at 25% and we’re the lucky ones. That’s the mindboggling thing about this.

We’ve tried to maintain and do everything we could to make sure that people are taking adequate and appropriate steps to handle this responsibly. One of our DJs watched his mother die of COVID 6-weeks ago. She was in a nursing home.

This is directly impacting people and their ability to do much of anything. We’re very social people; we thrive off the energy. I genuinely love seeing people. It’s what makes being in this industry so great, and that is, in many ways, one of the hardest parts about this [past year]: the relative paralysis. Everything still feels frozen in time from March of last year – it’s amazing.

My staff doesn’t encounter each other. My staff – those who are still left – I had 17 going into the pandemic, and I’ve got 5 now. And we’re all just hanging on. I’m throwing every possible show at my staff because, in a lot of cases, they need it more. I have budgeted extraordinarily well. If I don’t work for the next couple of years, we’re going to keep our house. My wife is still working. Some of my guys aren’t like that. They need everything I can possibly get them. We’ve got these restaurants that we’ve been doing shows at and, of my staff, 3 of them have caught COVID over the past 2 months and, luckily, we’re doing enough testing that we’ve been able to identify it before they go back out.

I still require people to wear masks, require people to go above and beyond the recommended safety recommendations. At no point can we be responsible for anybody else getting COVID, period, end of story. Wear your face mask. If you can, wear your face shield. You’d better be 6-feet away, do not lean in and talk to anybody. Really basic things but if my guys are getting COVID, they’re not getting it because of restaurant contact. Every time one of my guys has gotten COVID, they’ve gotten it from family contact. We’re running short staffed and we’re still trying to fill these gigs, but you’re looking it going, ‘how do we move forward from here’ and ‘what can we possibly do?’ As far as these guys, they’ve now got immunity for 3 months, but please go ahead and get the vaccine. We’re are exposed. We are very exposed, and we don’t want to be in a position where we can expose others.

Is it possible to have large events safely? Right now? It’s tricky. I feel like I have participated in some very safe, larger events. There was one wedding I did where the whole theme of the wedding was ‘party like it’s a pandemic’. Every single person was in a mask anytime they weren’t at their seat. Tables were cut down to half the number of people per table, and they had as many tables as they could get. People were seated by family groups. They were asking everyone to be hyper conscious.

I lost a friend of mine from when I was a kid, from Boy Scouts. Two days ago. He was 42 years old. He died of COVID. My aunt she is on her deathbed right now. We’re trying to go down to Wilmington to see her because this may be it. I’ve already been through it. My family got it last March - a year ago. We didn’t find out that’s what we had until April when my wife got tested because no testing was available yet. Me and my kids, okay it sucked but we got through it and we thought it was just a really bad cold. My wife struggled hard with it for almost 6 months and is still dealing with gastrointestinal issues as a result. The thing that actually worries me most about it – there was a German study that came out that found that something like 75% of the people who had gotten over COVID had abnormalities of the heart. The worst part about this is the number of dead, but the part that is going to end up being worse than that are the longterm health consequences of COVID moving forward[1].

So, when we’re talking about whether we can do this safely: yes, if people can do the basic minimums. If you’re going out, then get tested. And, if you think you might’ve been exposed, then don’t go. Wear a mask. But this requires a level of person accountability and in some cases, personal sacrifice, that some people are not comfortable making...If I were a bride or groom getting married in this particular framework, my expectations would be that every person would understand my expectations and behave accordingly. As a vendor who is putting on that event, it is imperative for me to express what my expectations are and that the people who do not feel they can abide by those expectations feel free – in a very consequence-free way - to not attend. If you don’t feel like you can do this, that’s okay. I’ll catch you when this is over.

On the other hand, there are some people using this as an opportunity to throw that middle finger up way high. And, that’s one of the hard things about this because, as a professional, I can’t take a client’s other choices into account. I have been hired to provide a very specific service and I am going to do so to the very best of my ability. My responsibility to them, to the other event staff and vendors that are there, their guests, and my staff, is to make sure we do that job in the safest way possible. We wear our mask. Stay back behind our area. At no point do we ever leave our booth without our mask on. We’ve got hand sanitizer, everything gets disinfected, every person gets a different microphone. Every mic has a clean cover.

What sort of accommodations or adjustments did you have to make in your business practices as a result of COVID-19 restrictions? Zoom. I love doing Zoom meetings for clients. I can show them videos, I don’t have to drive to meet them. We don’t have to worry about parking. It is incredibly convenient for me to meet them on their schedule. It is easier for me to meet them at a time that convenient for them, when we can Zoom. I actually have more flexibility to help them out. That’s really useful. There is a huge utility to that.

We’ve taken a HUGE financial hit because every single client who has had to move their date has gotten their date moved at no penalty. I have yet to have a single client who canceled that wasn’t being shipped overseas for the military. We do a ton of military events, and they ran out of time (to have their event) before shipping out.

Obviously, there are some structural things that have changed a whole lot, too. Setups take longer now. We take extra steps. Microphones take a while to set up, time is involved in these things so there’s more time going into the work. Everything is just a little bit harder. But if you do your preparation right, on the day of the event, it’s still as smooth as ever.

The biggest thing that we’ve had to purchase are masks and mic covers. They’re not terribly expensive – they’re little disposable covers. Plus, obviously, cleaning supplies, hand sanitizers stuff like that. The cost hasn’t been extreme.

We did purchase a streaming solution - it’s completely wireless. For example: right now, we have no power nearby. [With this solution] you and I could do a multi camera wireless livestream that would go to every social media profile and YouTube. Completely wireless. I can do a ceremony on a boat, no power.

Was this streaming technology something you had in the plans pre-pandemic? Nope. It’s exclusively, strictly to help. We identified a need that our clients had and now we can solve this right here – a really easy solution…it’s really easy, and if you need this here it is. Grandma can watch you. She can’t attend, but now she can now see you get married.

Did you have to furlough or lay off any employees during the first year of COVID-19 restrictions? If so, how did that impact you? Pre-pandemic I had 17 employees and now I’m down to 5. We’re all part-time; there’s only so much work. We’re actually one of the luckiest [DJ companies]. I don’t know of anyone who got as lucky as we did. We picked up several restaurants during the pandemic, one of which has us 5-days a week, which is insane because everybody is fighting for scraps right now. We have several places I could rotate people through some weeks…it’s been helpful. But it’s not great because of the pandemic prices are down. We’re having to accommodate the restaurants’ lower price point and, at this point, my company’s not making much, if anything. The goal is strictly to get our staff out and working so that they can have money in their pockets. For the vast majority of our staff – everybody’s hit, everybody’s hurting – I need to do everything I possibly can to help [my guys] stay afloat until we get back to whatever normal looks like in May or June or July or 2022.

What has been the most challenging part of being in the events industry in the last year? Professionally or personally? The biggest silver lining – personal or professional - is that I saw my kids more in March and April then I had seen them in the past 4-6 months. The great benefit of this has been that I’ve gotten to be with my kids. I’m sure they’re over it.

I’m getting my shot today. If I could choose to give it to my kids instead, I would. I would prefer that my kids get vaccinated because they need to be with their friends. If that were a choice I could make, I would rather make that choice. I am comfortable with my own risk. I cannot, in good conscience, expose them to risk because they can’t make that choice, rationally. But I can protect them and provide opportunity for them to do that safely. Am I ready to get the kids out of the house? Hell yes. I am desperate for my wife and I to have lunch together without screaming kids. I will not be upset with this situation for giving me time with my children, but I am desperate in every way for them to get out of my house. I can’t miss you until you’re gone. (Laughter) They would benefit from it.

This is one of the biggest things that I don’t think people quite understand about those of us that do events: it takes so much for us to be available for you. I miss dinner with my family all the time because clients only want to meet in the evening; they need to get off work, so they want me to meet in the evening when they’re free which I have to do if I want to make sure that I’m servicing my clients. Events are on the weekends. I miss soccer games, baseball games, birthday parties, funerals, weddings. That’s the sacrifice that we as professionals make in order to do this, and one of the things that got made extraordinarily clear is how little some clients actually valued that or understood that.

Professionally, the single biggest impact on my business during this time is that people haven’t called. No one’s reaching out.

Also, client’s expectations are that everything should be cheaper. I want to be as accommodating as I can, but food has a certain cost, staff has a certain cost. There are costs that are built into this.

Are clients open to these new ways of holding events? Some clients are really accommodating. Other clients are canceling their event rather than asking their guests to wear a face covering. It’s a self-selecting group. Our only clients who are having events are the clients who are interested in doing things safely to some degree or another. Now, that being said, that’s not everybody. For example, I worked an event for another DJ and nobody was in a mask, except for me and my staff and the catering staff. But there’s nothing I can do – I’m not going to stop their event for this. I’ve been hired to provide a very specific service. I want them to be safe, but I’m also not the COVID sheriff.

I kind of look at it - and I don’t know if this is responsible or irresponsible - but what is my obligation to the guest and in what way can I provide a positive impact? I’m not going to change anyone’s opinion so I’m not going to bring something up that might make their experience not great on their wedding day. I will do what I can the same way if I see someone being unsafe with sparklers. I’m going to recommend how they can move forward safely. I understand the risk, and anyone who doesn’t understand the risk at this point hasn’t been paying attention. At this point, it is literally everyone making their own choice and I respect their ability to make that decision and participate. The hard part of this is when the people who make that choice end up hurting other people who didn’t make that choice. Like that wedding in Maine where they had over 100 people [get COVID] not one of whom attended that wedding[2]. That’s the danger here. There is a moral conundrum there, but I attempt to tackle that conundrum by trying to discuss these issues in a very easy way upfront and letting clients know what we are doing to be safe for them, and their responses to that will usually tell me whether we need to take additional steps.

In a case where a client isn’t hosting a safe event – what do you do to increase safety? I recommend solutions that might help their guests identify whose most at risk. One of my favorite solutions is arm bands: red, green, yellow. Green = I don’t care I’m here for the party. Yellow means I’m being cautious. Red means don’t talk to me, I’m only here to see my grandkids get married and if you get me sick, I will kill you. And, that way, people have the opportunity to engage on their own terms.

Do you feel like the events industry is on the upswing? The past four days have been the busiest days for booking than I’ve seen in the past four months.

January/February was awful. We were losing 100k people [to COVID] a month in Dec/Jan - that was the big peak that came from the holidays. The holidays were an unmitigated disaster…now, COVID’s finally starting to go down. People are getting vaccinated. We’re at the point where it’s going to be okay in, like, 3-months, and people feel that. They feel comfortable booking an event in 2022, they feel comfortable booking an event for August, September or October. The corner has turned, provided we keep on the good path.  

As a society, we failed. As an industry, we’re kind of 50/50. I feel like everything that we just went through as an industry it is our responsibility to set the example and be the baseline professional. And, I have been thrilled by the actions of some in our industry, and absolutely horrified by others.

How do you convince a client that safety protocols are necessary? I tell them that it’s required. I’m not taking shortcuts on your event. You may want me to, I’m still not going to. Any cables I have are going to be taped down. The likelihood of someone tripping on them is very low, but I’m not taking that risk. My staff is going to be in a mask. You probably don’t have COVID, your family probably doesn’t have COVID and we probably don’t have COVID – we’ve been tested - but I’m not taking that risk. It’s not open for debate. There are situations when the client is not always right.

Are you losing work to other companies that aren’t imposing such strict safety protocols? There is enough [work] for everyone. There is. I do not feel like my peers are my competition. I’m not trying to one up or take out or overcome my peers. These are people that I’ve known for 15+ years in a lot of cases. My expectation is that the person that is best for the couple – whoever they feel that is – is going to get that job. What I would like to see, is people who take it seriously.

Do you think the events industry is forever changed because of COVID-19? No. Once everything gets done, I doubt [DJs] will be wearing masks. As the emcee, it’s our responsibility to talk and we get a clearer presence without a mask. Once this is done, and we’ve gotten the go-ahead from the world at large, then we’ll drop the masks when it’s appropriate - unless the client wants it.

I don’t see the industry itself being forever changed. I see a whole lot of people ready to get back to normal, the difference is that normal is going to be very different for a long time. I don’t know that we’re going back to say, October 2019, anytime soon. I don’t see “normal” happening for at least another year or two, if I’m being honest, because the public’s perception of these things is different now.

We’re going to be seeing smaller events in some cases. What I don’t think people understand is how crazy this next year is about to be because you have so many people who moved their events. I was talking with a rental company – coordinators don’t realize that they’re not going to have what they want because it’s already sold. You can’t get pipe and drape. You can’t get these rentals because they’re already sold. You think you’re ahead of the curve, but you’re not.

What’s something that you want the general public to know about the events industry? What we have to sacrifice in order to help you for your event. I don’t want anyone to downplay the amount of effort, time, intentional skill that goes into doing this and just how much your professionals are giving up to make your event possible.

Every single one of us has been suffering dramatically and if you have the opportunity to postpone or cancel, then I encourage you to postpone. Because if you do not find a way to keep these professionals going, they are not going to be there in the future.

If I had one single piece of advice related to the pandemic, it’s that in situations like this your preparation is key and so much of your event is going to be riding on your choice of DJ or band. If I had to assign a level of importance, you’re going to want to make sure you’re putting it in your coordinator, photographer, and your entertainment. Those three elements are going to be the most rewarding and the most problem-solving for you, and if I were planning an event right now that’s where I would put the vast majority of my resources. Your photographer is going to capture everything. Your photographer is the one part of this that you’re going to carry forward for the next 50-years. Your entertainment because if it sucks, your photographer won’t have anything to capture and your guest experience isn’t going to be as good. And, the coordinator because you don’t want to have to put out every little fire that happens, you want someone who is professionally obligated to handle that for you.

REFERENCES:

[1] Puntmann VO, Carerj ML, Wieters I, et al. Outcomes of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Patients Recently Recovered From Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). JAMA Cardiol. 2020;5(11):1265–1273. doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2020.3557

[2] Mahale P, Rothfuss C, Bly S, et al. Multiple COVID-19 Outbreaks Linked to a Wedding Reception in Rural Maine — August 7–September 14, 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2020;69:1686–1690. http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6945a5