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The brainchild of former sound system owner Chris Sweeney and industry talisman Damon Crisp, Westend DJ’s initial central London store built on the success of parent company, Atlantic Electrics, by offering not just decks but a wide variety of DJ equipment to suit a range of different DJing specialities.
A major player in the golden era of Tottenham Court Road's elite electronic retailers from the eighties through to the noughties, Atlantic Electrics had become a favourite with DJs thanks to their ability to meet customer demand during the emergence of the iconic Technics SL1210 turntable. (Atlantic is still the UK’s primary distributor of Technics today.)
Chris’s experience of working for Atlantic – along with his history as a sound system DJ – had provided him with an impressive list of the industry’s main players. He was well connected, partly due to his innate desire to help others.
“He was a mobile DJ before any of us even knew what music was, rocking around with people like David Rodigan in the big sound system days,” says Marcus Bond, a relative of Chris’s who has been with the company since 2010. “At Atlantic, Chris could make things work for people in a DJ/live capacity – he became the go-to guy. And even to this day, there aren’t many managing directors who are able to sail the ship as well as being in the shop five days a week to help customers.”
With the industry knowledge and business contacts both in place, Chris seized the opportunity and set out to become London’s premier DJ store. At the suggestion of Chris's close friend Damon, they named the initial Tottenham Court Road store ‘Westend DJ’.
“When Chris first opened the shop, nobody believed a dedicated DJ store on the Tottenham Court Road would do very well,” Marcus says. But they couldn’t have been more wrong. Despite the naysayers, Chris had the vision to turn Westend DJ into one of the most-loved DJ retailers in the UK, drawing on his wealth of contacts and passion for the industry to make things happen.
The plan was to offer an exemplary sales service to the vast numbers of London-based DJs who plied their trade in venues across the capital. As part of its ethos, Westend DJ would welcome and support everybody from entry-level bedroom DJs right the way up to the biggest club DJs in the world.
The appeal for customers was the hands-on approach that let them actually try things out before committing to a purchase – something Chris knew was essential for mobile DJs with particular preferences or limited budgets. By stocking a huge amount of demo products – more than some DJ retailers keep as stock in their backroom – Westend DJ were able to give customers exactly what they wanted: a tactile experience with the latest products inside a well-located store whose staff were experts in their field.
Even today, the team’s goodwill and attentiveness towards whoever walks into their store is reflected in the company’s varied and ever-expanding customer base, which includes everybody from young first-time DJs to experienced event organisers to A-list club DJs.
“I can't think of any other store that technically has that type of split, where they're a DJ shop and then have a dedicated space for amplifiers, speakers, lighting, rigging,” says Marcus. “Let alone a place in the West End where you can buy a G-clamp, XLR cable and some chassis sockets.”
Head of Ecommerce, Gavin James, agrees: “There's a misconception with us because we get branded as a club DJ and music technology company, maybe because of what we sell and the way we portray ourselves on our social media channels,” he tells us.
“But we do have staff that work as event and mobile DJs, and we have lots of product knowledge around that side of things, but I don't think it always comes across. It's just interesting, because actually we've had a dedicated PA and lighting shop for the longest time in central London.”
Indeed, Westend DJ’s first outlet opened on Tottenham Court Road in 2001. But shortly after, the company moved to its flagship store on Hanway Street with the original team: Chris, Dilip, Richie (Chris's son), Rambo and Kola. All the manufacturers welcomed the arrival of a devoted central London DJ retailer and the store’s popularity within the community was immediate.
While Westend DJ cemented its reputation for enthusiastic staff and the ‘try before you buy’ retail experience at both its Brent Cross and Central London stores, Chris and the team realised the demand for online retail was growing. They sought to complement this positive in-store experience with an innovative website that enabled the business to reach DJs and other target markets across the whole of the UK, selling the latest in DJ, production, PA and lighting gear.
Bringing in ecommerce manager Eitan Zilkha proved vital, allowing Westend DJ to grow its online presence whilst stores like its North Circular Road base continued to flourish. The game was changing. And the employment of some sharp, tech-savvy staff was key to Westend DJ’s growth and success as the digital era took hold.
Fast forward slightly and Gavin joined the team in 2017, tasked with making the DJ store website more profitable and bringing with him almost two decades of industry experience as well as an extensive knowledge of SEO and digital platform development. He became Head of Ecommerce in 2019 and continues to play a crucial role in the company’s online success.
Though it is admittedly harder to achieve online, Westend DJ strives to recreate its exemplary in-store customer experience and sense of community on its website. “It’s about being able to serve people. Our web platform has to be reflective of how attentive we are to customers who walk into the store, but in a virtual capacity,” explains Marcus.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a real eye-opener and if ecommerce wasn’t already important enough, it became vital when the company was forced to close its beloved stores. Customers could no longer ‘try before they buy’, but Westend DJ’s online platforms enabled them to answer queries and engage with customers, even those who weren’t necessarily interested in buying due to the downturn in DJ work.
A support platform on the current site provides a knowledge base that people can tap into. In the last 18 months, Marcus alone has resolved 8000 support tickets with customers asking questions about how their kit works and what they can do to get more from it. In some recent cases, he has even ended up helping mobile DJs rebuild their setups after selling off all their gear when the pandemic crippled the events industry back in March 2020.
Throughout their history, Westend DJ has always been keen to take new approaches with their marketing and in-store retail experiences. It’s this flexibility and risk taking that has allowed them to continuously grow and reach new audiences.
Former ecommerce manager Eitan was instrumental in attracting the attention of the Selfridges group, who agreed to a short tenure of Westend DJ franchises in the technology zones of its new Birmingham store and world-famous Oxford Street home.
Meanwhile, Westend DJ has stayed ahead of the curve in terms of sourcing new products and trying them out, sometimes mastering them before even the manufacturer’s sales team. Thanks to their connections with top circuit DJs, some staff have even worked alongside these manufacturers to develop and test upcoming kit.
To further cement the position of Westend DJ as a serious industry player, Chris worked incredibly hard to secure the company’s exclusive Shure Centre status – the only DJ store in the UK to hold one.
Recent years have also seen the expansion of the PA and lighting display area at the central London store, with plans to double this showroom space to create an even bigger area for demoing DJ booths, lighting setups and speakers in the future. The company’s North Circular Road site offers plenty of demo space too, alongside huge amounts of storage for holding stock.
“What’s great about the showrooms is that people can come in and learn what, say, a goal post looks like and how it works,” says Gavin. “There is no pressure to buy – they can spend all day with us if they like. Understanding and playing with the kit just makes purchasing decisions so much easier for them.”
Throughout our chat, both Marcus and Gavin display huge amounts of technical and industry knowledge, and they assure us that a similar level of expertise runs throughout the team. The love for what they do certainly shines through, as it does when they serve their customers in-store and online too.
In fact, you get the impression that supporting customers and sharing knowledge is as much a part of the job as selling DJ equipment. It’s an ethos of positivity and wanting to help people that filters down from Chris: “It doesn’t end with buying the product – it’s using it afterwards,” Marcus explains. “We offer an informal mentorship to people.”
Over the years, the openness of Westend DJ’s staff and the wealth of products available to demo has enabled the company to become a hub for its local DJ community. DJs across London know that they can hop on a tube, visit the store and meet other like-minded people – and the fact there are always the latest products to test out is a bonus. For example, when Rekordbox Lighting released its breakout interface box, Westend brought out £8000 worth of lighting, just to demo Rekordbox’s £300 product.
"We knew the moment it was announced that, as a mobile DJ, this would benefit people, that it would add value, due to the time-saving element,” says Marcus. “Although we know that mobile DJs already have moving heads and par cans, we needed to spend the money to portray the benefits of the Rekordbox product." We actually invited the NADJ London members down for an exclusive evening, so they could ask questions. That sense of community is incredibly important and a key part of what Westend DJ is about.”
Despite a difficult couple of years for the industry, one thing that the pandemic has provided is a new wave of DJs for retailers like Westend DJ to win over as customers. As Gavin and Marcus point out, with demand from DJs driving technological advances and companies like ADJ and CHAUVET DJ delivering innovative new products in response, it’s an exciting time for the industry.
“Given the boom in entry level DJ controllers, there are going to be a lot of potential both club and mobile DJs […] people look at the club and mobile DJ worlds and think they’re very different, and they’re not. It’s still people who want to play music to entertain others. It’s the same passion that drives people,” Gavin says.
“A lot of these controllers were bought for teenagers and other people who are just starting their journey in music, and it’s a really exciting time because the technology is evolving and by the same token, it looks like our customer base is expanding. Over the coming years there will be a new wave of mobile DJs who have that passion and want to share their music with others.”
The new Westend DJ website – currently in the pipeline – will enable the company to help this next wave of DJs make decisions based on their needs, regardless of their knowledge. If they know they need to purchase a PA but they don’t understand how PAs work or which features they need to look out for, the website will provide the advice and knowledge to help them reach a decision.
From its vantage point as a longstanding London business, Westend DJ has seen the nation’s capital undergo many changes over the last two decades. With increasing rent and rates, congestion charges, and questionable decisions to change the roads in and around London’s West End, the company’s Hanway Street store continues to defy expectations and please thousands of customers each month.
“Pre-COVID, we would see around 2000 people per month through the doors at Hanway Street. We turn a huge percentage of those people into customers,” reveals Gavin. This is due to the sheer amount of stock that Westend DJ keeps. “The reason for the investment in stock is to be able to serve somebody when they come in and they’re in a jam because they need something. Believe it or not, we’re still stocking lamps for people to pop into their lights, despite having not sold a light that uses a halogen lamp in five or six years.”
Although the ability for customers to ‘pop in’ for emergency purchases was taken away during the COVID-19 pandemic, Westend DJ still did well through online sales and will now look to continue this success by improving the customer’s online experience.
As well as the support functions offered by the new website, their e-commerce efforts will focus on bringing next day UK delivery to most customers, as well as same day click and collect. For DJs, musicians and event organisers who need equipment in a pinch, these faster delivery times and flexible collection options will no doubt be appealing.
Unphased by the pandemic and busy transferring their unique brand of customer experience to a new online platform, Westend DJ is as vital as ever for the DJ community in London, the southeast and beyond.
A major player in the golden era of Tottenham Court Road's elite electronic retailers from the eighties through to the noughties, Atlantic Electrics had become a favourite with DJs thanks to their ability to meet customer demand during the emergence of the iconic Technics SL1210 turntable. (Atlantic is still the UK’s primary distributor of Technics today.)
Chris’s experience of working for Atlantic – along with his history as a sound system DJ – had provided him with an impressive list of the industry’s main players. He was well connected, partly due to his innate desire to help others.
“He was a mobile DJ before any of us even knew what music was, rocking around with people like David Rodigan in the big sound system days,” says Marcus Bond, a relative of Chris’s who has been with the company since 2010. “At Atlantic, Chris could make things work for people in a DJ/live capacity – he became the go-to guy. And even to this day, there aren’t many managing directors who are able to sail the ship as well as being in the shop five days a week to help customers.”
With the industry knowledge and business contacts both in place, Chris seized the opportunity and set out to become London’s premier DJ store. At the suggestion of Chris's close friend Damon, they named the initial Tottenham Court Road store ‘Westend DJ’.
THE VISION
“When Chris first opened the shop, nobody believed a dedicated DJ store on the Tottenham Court Road would do very well,” Marcus says. But they couldn’t have been more wrong. Despite the naysayers, Chris had the vision to turn Westend DJ into one of the most-loved DJ retailers in the UK, drawing on his wealth of contacts and passion for the industry to make things happen.
The plan was to offer an exemplary sales service to the vast numbers of London-based DJs who plied their trade in venues across the capital. As part of its ethos, Westend DJ would welcome and support everybody from entry-level bedroom DJs right the way up to the biggest club DJs in the world.
The appeal for customers was the hands-on approach that let them actually try things out before committing to a purchase – something Chris knew was essential for mobile DJs with particular preferences or limited budgets. By stocking a huge amount of demo products – more than some DJ retailers keep as stock in their backroom – Westend DJ were able to give customers exactly what they wanted: a tactile experience with the latest products inside a well-located store whose staff were experts in their field.
Even today, the team’s goodwill and attentiveness towards whoever walks into their store is reflected in the company’s varied and ever-expanding customer base, which includes everybody from young first-time DJs to experienced event organisers to A-list club DJs.
“I can't think of any other store that technically has that type of split, where they're a DJ shop and then have a dedicated space for amplifiers, speakers, lighting, rigging,” says Marcus. “Let alone a place in the West End where you can buy a G-clamp, XLR cable and some chassis sockets.”
Head of Ecommerce, Gavin James, agrees: “There's a misconception with us because we get branded as a club DJ and music technology company, maybe because of what we sell and the way we portray ourselves on our social media channels,” he tells us.
“But we do have staff that work as event and mobile DJs, and we have lots of product knowledge around that side of things, but I don't think it always comes across. It's just interesting, because actually we've had a dedicated PA and lighting shop for the longest time in central London.”
Indeed, Westend DJ’s first outlet opened on Tottenham Court Road in 2001. But shortly after, the company moved to its flagship store on Hanway Street with the original team: Chris, Dilip, Richie (Chris's son), Rambo and Kola. All the manufacturers welcomed the arrival of a devoted central London DJ retailer and the store’s popularity within the community was immediate.
A CHANGING WORLD
While Westend DJ cemented its reputation for enthusiastic staff and the ‘try before you buy’ retail experience at both its Brent Cross and Central London stores, Chris and the team realised the demand for online retail was growing. They sought to complement this positive in-store experience with an innovative website that enabled the business to reach DJs and other target markets across the whole of the UK, selling the latest in DJ, production, PA and lighting gear.
Bringing in ecommerce manager Eitan Zilkha proved vital, allowing Westend DJ to grow its online presence whilst stores like its North Circular Road base continued to flourish. The game was changing. And the employment of some sharp, tech-savvy staff was key to Westend DJ’s growth and success as the digital era took hold.
Fast forward slightly and Gavin joined the team in 2017, tasked with making the DJ store website more profitable and bringing with him almost two decades of industry experience as well as an extensive knowledge of SEO and digital platform development. He became Head of Ecommerce in 2019 and continues to play a crucial role in the company’s online success.
Though it is admittedly harder to achieve online, Westend DJ strives to recreate its exemplary in-store customer experience and sense of community on its website. “It’s about being able to serve people. Our web platform has to be reflective of how attentive we are to customers who walk into the store, but in a virtual capacity,” explains Marcus.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a real eye-opener and if ecommerce wasn’t already important enough, it became vital when the company was forced to close its beloved stores. Customers could no longer ‘try before they buy’, but Westend DJ’s online platforms enabled them to answer queries and engage with customers, even those who weren’t necessarily interested in buying due to the downturn in DJ work.
A support platform on the current site provides a knowledge base that people can tap into. In the last 18 months, Marcus alone has resolved 8000 support tickets with customers asking questions about how their kit works and what they can do to get more from it. In some recent cases, he has even ended up helping mobile DJs rebuild their setups after selling off all their gear when the pandemic crippled the events industry back in March 2020.
CONTINUING GROWTH
Throughout their history, Westend DJ has always been keen to take new approaches with their marketing and in-store retail experiences. It’s this flexibility and risk taking that has allowed them to continuously grow and reach new audiences.
Former ecommerce manager Eitan was instrumental in attracting the attention of the Selfridges group, who agreed to a short tenure of Westend DJ franchises in the technology zones of its new Birmingham store and world-famous Oxford Street home.
Meanwhile, Westend DJ has stayed ahead of the curve in terms of sourcing new products and trying them out, sometimes mastering them before even the manufacturer’s sales team. Thanks to their connections with top circuit DJs, some staff have even worked alongside these manufacturers to develop and test upcoming kit.
To further cement the position of Westend DJ as a serious industry player, Chris worked incredibly hard to secure the company’s exclusive Shure Centre status – the only DJ store in the UK to hold one.
Recent years have also seen the expansion of the PA and lighting display area at the central London store, with plans to double this showroom space to create an even bigger area for demoing DJ booths, lighting setups and speakers in the future. The company’s North Circular Road site offers plenty of demo space too, alongside huge amounts of storage for holding stock.
“What’s great about the showrooms is that people can come in and learn what, say, a goal post looks like and how it works,” says Gavin. “There is no pressure to buy – they can spend all day with us if they like. Understanding and playing with the kit just makes purchasing decisions so much easier for them.”
SUPPORTING THE DJ COMMUNITY
Throughout our chat, both Marcus and Gavin display huge amounts of technical and industry knowledge, and they assure us that a similar level of expertise runs throughout the team. The love for what they do certainly shines through, as it does when they serve their customers in-store and online too.
In fact, you get the impression that supporting customers and sharing knowledge is as much a part of the job as selling DJ equipment. It’s an ethos of positivity and wanting to help people that filters down from Chris: “It doesn’t end with buying the product – it’s using it afterwards,” Marcus explains. “We offer an informal mentorship to people.”
Over the years, the openness of Westend DJ’s staff and the wealth of products available to demo has enabled the company to become a hub for its local DJ community. DJs across London know that they can hop on a tube, visit the store and meet other like-minded people – and the fact there are always the latest products to test out is a bonus. For example, when Rekordbox Lighting released its breakout interface box, Westend brought out £8000 worth of lighting, just to demo Rekordbox’s £300 product.
"We knew the moment it was announced that, as a mobile DJ, this would benefit people, that it would add value, due to the time-saving element,” says Marcus. “Although we know that mobile DJs already have moving heads and par cans, we needed to spend the money to portray the benefits of the Rekordbox product." We actually invited the NADJ London members down for an exclusive evening, so they could ask questions. That sense of community is incredibly important and a key part of what Westend DJ is about.”
INSPIRING THE NEXT WAVE OF DJS
Despite a difficult couple of years for the industry, one thing that the pandemic has provided is a new wave of DJs for retailers like Westend DJ to win over as customers. As Gavin and Marcus point out, with demand from DJs driving technological advances and companies like ADJ and CHAUVET DJ delivering innovative new products in response, it’s an exciting time for the industry.
“Given the boom in entry level DJ controllers, there are going to be a lot of potential both club and mobile DJs […] people look at the club and mobile DJ worlds and think they’re very different, and they’re not. It’s still people who want to play music to entertain others. It’s the same passion that drives people,” Gavin says.
“A lot of these controllers were bought for teenagers and other people who are just starting their journey in music, and it’s a really exciting time because the technology is evolving and by the same token, it looks like our customer base is expanding. Over the coming years there will be a new wave of mobile DJs who have that passion and want to share their music with others.”
The new Westend DJ website – currently in the pipeline – will enable the company to help this next wave of DJs make decisions based on their needs, regardless of their knowledge. If they know they need to purchase a PA but they don’t understand how PAs work or which features they need to look out for, the website will provide the advice and knowledge to help them reach a decision.
LOOKING FORWARD
From its vantage point as a longstanding London business, Westend DJ has seen the nation’s capital undergo many changes over the last two decades. With increasing rent and rates, congestion charges, and questionable decisions to change the roads in and around London’s West End, the company’s Hanway Street store continues to defy expectations and please thousands of customers each month.
“Pre-COVID, we would see around 2000 people per month through the doors at Hanway Street. We turn a huge percentage of those people into customers,” reveals Gavin. This is due to the sheer amount of stock that Westend DJ keeps. “The reason for the investment in stock is to be able to serve somebody when they come in and they’re in a jam because they need something. Believe it or not, we’re still stocking lamps for people to pop into their lights, despite having not sold a light that uses a halogen lamp in five or six years.”
Although the ability for customers to ‘pop in’ for emergency purchases was taken away during the COVID-19 pandemic, Westend DJ still did well through online sales and will now look to continue this success by improving the customer’s online experience.
As well as the support functions offered by the new website, their e-commerce efforts will focus on bringing next day UK delivery to most customers, as well as same day click and collect. For DJs, musicians and event organisers who need equipment in a pinch, these faster delivery times and flexible collection options will no doubt be appealing.
Unphased by the pandemic and busy transferring their unique brand of customer experience to a new online platform, Westend DJ is as vital as ever for the DJ community in London, the southeast and beyond.
Here’s to another 20 years of success…
The full review can be found in Pro Mobile Issue 108, Pages 48-52.
