For disc jockey Anthony “AJ” Scartozzi, the closure and cancellation of places and events due to COVID-19 has hurt.
Scartozzi makes a majority of his income as a DJ playing at weddings, events and bars and with the closure of bars and the cancellation of plenty of other events, he’s been left with nothing.
“I was kind of leaning on the DJ stuff,” Scartozzi said, noting he lost his full-time job as a union mechanic few years ago due to a back injury. “Unfortunately, (there’s) nothing to lean on right now.”
Scartozzi, who usually plays at Cagney’s in Hobart every other weekend, among other places, said he enjoys playing at bars, even if they don’t pay as much as weddings or other events. He said he was disappointed when he found out about the closures.
“When reality sunk in, it was like ‘OK, now what?'” he said. “It was an eye opener, first of all — I didn’t think that was going to happen. I didn’t think it was going to be this bad.”
He said though he doesn’t have a steady source of income now, he plans to give down payments back to those with canceled weddings where he was scheduled to perform.
“The down payment is not supposed to be refundable, but considering, I’ll definitely return the down payment for those weddings,” he said. “Hopefully I can reschedule them and use that down payment for rescheduled events, if I’m available.”
He also noted that during this time, he’ll be practicing and curating his music library.
“Of course it gives me time to reorganize my libraries and stuff like that, as far as music,” he said. “Other than that, there really isn’t much for me to do, other than hopefully reschedule with people.”
Tayler Edward Hussain, of Supersonic Sounds DJ and Entertainment Service in Portage, said even with closures and cancellations, he has still been busy.
He’s not just a disc jockey, master of ceremony or karaoke jockey, he said over Facebook messenger.
“I operate a Magic mirror photobooth (sic) as well,” he said. “So it hasn’t really affected me as much as others because I’m booking weddings and other events into 2020, 2021 and 2022.”
Hussain said if there’s nothing to do, he works at bars or has disc jockeys that work for him play music, do karaoke and more using different equipment he has at different venues.
With the closure of these venues and bars, though, he said they’ve lost just a small source of income temporarily.
“You figure worst case scenario,” he said. “The bars will be open again by May 1st. The bar and food industry is going to come roaring back after this quarantine statues is lifted. The bars and clubs will be jumping and we will be there.”
Hannah Reed is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
