Inspiring Conversations with Mark Schwenn of First Class D.J. Service

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Schwenn.

Hi Mark, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve been a musician since the age of 9 playing guitar and had played in bands since the age of 18. While playing in bands has always been alot of fun, there came a point where I was doing all the work and supplying everything……all the PA system, all the stage lighting and setting it all up in a lead singers band yet still only getting paid as much as the lead singer that would just bring a microphone to the shows and plug it in to the cable on the microphone stand so I kind of got fed up with it. Since I owned all this equipment, I decided to start DJ’n way back in 1996. I had always been a cassette tape person instead of records so starting out DJ’n was kind of hard. I remember only having 13 CD’s and having to alternate back and forth between cassettes and a CD’s to keep the music going non stop. I joined those Columbia House clubs where you’d get like 10 cd’s for a penny and I was hitting up every garage sale and pawn shop for greatest hits CDs. I remember having 30 CDs at one point. You have to remember this was back before Napster and computer DJ’n and they didn’t even have dual deck CD players yet. Later on in 1996 I decided to get into karaoke so I could have mid week shows in bars for extra income. Back then, you had to buy CDG’s with Sound Choice ones costing $27 for 1 CDG with 15 songs on them. I was very expensive building up a library of songs and I even typed up on a typewriter the pages listing the songs I had and I had to alphabetize them manually. It was lots of hard work. Then once laptop computers became more main stream with computer DJ programs available to buy, I had to rip my collection of over 1,000 CD’s and over 1,000 CDG’s to MP3 and MP3G files and label all of the files. This took about 1/2 a year to accomplish. I’ve always been ahead of the curve over other DJ’s in the area. The first to have a bubble machine, first to have a haze machine, first to start using music videos to DJ with etc. At one point about 15 years ago, I had my best year income wise and saw a triplex – which is a building with 3 – 2 bedroom 1 bath rentals for sale in my town. I had to go to a few banks before finding one that would lend me the money for th e purchase. This was the best thing I’ve ever done because as a DJ, it’s kind of a feast and famine thing. I’d make great money during the spring, summer and fall with weddings but all that income would dry up in the winter because nobody gets married in the winter in Ohio. I poured all my income from the rentals and DJ’n into getting the loan paid off in 7 years and during that time, I purchased a 2nd triplex in my small town and when Covid hit, the money that the government was paying out to self employed people I used to pay off all the loans. About 5 years ago, since I owned the rentals, I didn’t depend on DJ income as my only source of income anymore so I was able to get back into playing live music with a local band. Pay wise, playing in a band sucks in comparison to DJ income, but it’s much more fun and not as much stress and since I’m now in my 60’s, I figure that I’d rather have the fun then the extra income now that I’m financially secure and set for the rest of my life. I still DJ on occassions. I kind of do it as a first come first serve basis. If the band is already booked on a date and someone wants to book my services as a DJ, I’ll tell them I”m already booked. If I have the date open, I will take the booking as a DJ and let the band know I’m not available so they’ll have to find a replacement bass player on that date if the band gets booked.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
All of that info is in the story above

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about First Class D.J. Service?
D.J. and Karaoke services serving mid Ohio counties of Huron, Richland, Erie etc

What do you like and dislike about the city?
Willard in a nice small town. Seems like there’s only a murder every 5 years where as surrounding bigger town have multiple murders every year. We have every fast food restaurant known to man here it seems. All the bigger towns are about a 45 minute drive away for the bigger stores. I hate that the town makes landlords have to pay every year a fee per rental unit in order to have a license to own rental property in this town while giving nothing in return to the landlords for that money paid. I also don’t like that our new multi million dollar school does not support any local businesses when it comes to the multiple yearly school dances. They hire from out of town and have the dances and after prom events in other towns instead of keeping everything local.

Pricing:

• I have multiple packages available as a DJ, starting with a D.I.Y. rental package at just $300.
• My next package with a actual DJ, my Silver System is currently $500 for a 4 hour show on a Saturday but I think I will be doubling that price at the end of this year.
• My best package with premium Bose speakers and dual music video displays and more is currently $800 for a 6 hour Saturday event but I plan on raising that price t0 $1,500 at the end of the year.
• There are many upgrades available to my entertainment packages such as karaoke, pyro grand entrance, cold sparks and more.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.firstclassdj.org