Never Hire an Uninsured DJ/Band/AV Company for Your Special Event

It really goes without saying, but every single vendor who is part of your event should have insurance. This is standard practice for our event industry and any professional industry. The standard amount of insurance for our industry is $1 million. When I started my company 19 years ago, the two first things that I did were to get an attorney and get insurance. I didn’t know anything about business, but I knew enough to know I didn’t know very much and that those two entities would help me. And they have. We carry $4 million of liability insurance as a company including workers comp insurance, general liability insurance, errors and omissions insurance.  Every vendor you should be working with should have insurance as well. Many venues will not allow any in uninsured vendors to even come to the event, and I wish this was the policy for everyone.

For some reason, people think that DJs, bands, and AV companies are vendors you can hire without them having insurance. For example, you may know someone who has a band or who has DJ equipment, so you think it’s okay to hire an uninsured friend. This is crazy to me because these vendors typically have some of the biggest vehicles that drive onto a property on an event day and also some of the biggest and heaviest equipment, thus more risk of falling and damage. Regardless, I still get this issue coming up all the time with clients wanting to work with a DJ band or AV company that is not truly a company but rather more like a hobby/side gig and who maybe doesn’t have insurance.

Here are 5 real world examples of incidents that have happened in my business where insurance claims or financial payout had to happen with an AV company, DJ, or band because of damage that happened on site at an event.

#1: Broken Nose Guest

I had a band one time that was a client’s friend. It was a band that they knew from a bar who came to do an outdoor event at their house and was not insured. They set up their equipment and did not weigh down their speakers properly, like by sandbagging them. One of the speakers ended up falling over during the course of the event, hitting a guest in the face and breaking her nose. She had to go to the emergency room and, because the band was uninsured, the client had to pay for all of her medical bills.

#2: Sunken Box Truck

Later on that same event, actually, my professional AV company who was insured was leaving the property in their box truck. The ground was pretty soft, and there wasn’t great lighting in their yard. They made a turn into the yard and sunk one of the tires of the box truck into the grass over a gas line and could not get the truck out. I remember them calling me at like 1:00 in the morning, because I had already left thinking they were good to go to tell me the truck could not be removed. It had to be towed out the next day and there was significant damage to the lawn. However, the AV company paid for it and covered all of the damage for the because they were pros.

#3: Broken Driveway

The third example was a similar instance with a DJ company driving on site at a private home. Again, think about that situation: for an event at a private home, it is so much more important for the vendors to have insurance when they are coming to your house. In this case, this DJ’s truck ended up kind of driving off the edge of their driveway. It was a driveway that was kind of elevated with some sunken ground below it, and the truck ended up taking off a huge chunk of their driveway because the truck was backing up and missed its placement and ended up knocking off a section of their driveway. The DJ company ended up having to pay to replace that. But, of course, they were able to because they were professionals and were able to take care of this.

#4: Smashed Fire Hydrant

Again, I had a box truck again with an AV company that was at a neighborhood event and backed up into a fire hydrant, smashing it open, with water going everywhere. We ended up having to get the city’s water department to shut off the water. Of course, all of this had to be repaired, dealing not only with the client’s neighborhood but also with the city. It was a pain, but accidents do happen. The AV company covered all the cost and were able to manage taking care of this repair.

#5: Damage at a Historical Venue

Many times events are held at venues with tremendous historical value or with art in them that is quite expensive, like at a museum. We have the Dallas Museum of Art here in Dallas and in that museum is sculptured glass by Dave Chihuly. If you’ve ever been to the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, it’s the same glass that’s on the ceiling and is incredibly valuable. Each piece of that Chihuly glass is valued at about $100,000. We had a DJ one time that was setting up a lighting truss at the Dallas Museum of Art accidentally knock off two pieces of the Chihuly glass, smashing them to the ground. It was like a $200,000 insurance claim. Of course, just like if you’re in a bad car accident, you have insurance that helps cover these claims, and he was able to take care of it. I have heard of another instance here locally, though this was not one of my events, where a DJ accidentally put his elbow through a painting at a museum with that painting valued over $2 million. It had to be repaired and restored, and that had to be covered and paid for by this DJ company’s insurance.

I’m not trying to say that DJ AV companies or bands are more problematic or more dangerous. They’re not. but they do happen to have a lot of really large equipment and really large trucks and they’re moving around things that are quite difficult to manage in a quick setup time and with little space. Thus, if you feel like it’s okay to just hire your friends who have a band or your friend who happens to have some speaker equipment or your friend who happens to have a little bit of lighting and some TVs, think again.

Significant damage can happen to the guests or to the venue. When it does, if you’re working with a vendor who doesn’t have insurance, guess who gets to pay for it? You do.

by Meredith Commender, CSEP