From Base to Bass: An Allstar DJ and His Booming Business
Saturday night at Cheeseburger in Paradise sounds like a plan for dinner, maybe a margarita or two, and some ambient music to blend the chatter of the other diners around you. You’d never expect to walk into a wall-to-wall nightlife setting, complete with a chest-pounding bass, stellar neon lights, and the crowd entertainment for the night — karaoke. Of course, behind it all, there’s the music: a wide variety mixed effortlessly and seamlessly by the DJ’s of Allstar Spotlight, a full-service entertainment company that offers way more than some good tunes and flashy lights. The man behind the mix, Ryan Buchmuller, drives his thriving Bergen County business across all of North Jersey and beyond.
Allstar Spotlight is located in Buchmuller’s hometown of Little Ferry, just twenty minutes away from his alma mater, Montclair State University. Though the 28-year-old entertainment guru has referred to music as “expressive” and “inspiring”, his collegiate career was dedicated to sports. He majored in Health and Physical Education while at Montclair State and graduated in 2011. So, how could one extreme shoot to the next?
“I never pursued a teaching career because the company quadrupled while I was in college,” Buchmuller says, “I was doing so well that I decided to run with it.” His company formally launched in 2008, when he was still actively involved in sports. “I was trying to create a name that could work with both sports and DJing,” Buchmuller says, “Weeks of thinking of a name, [Allstar Spotlight] came to me.”
Despite being an entrepreneur, Buchmuller found time to teach while in college. He was a student teacher and substitute at International High School in Paterson for two years, during which he was launching Allstar Spotlight. “I love teaching,” Buchmuller says, “I would have taught, but it didn’t make sense at the time.” With the success of his new business, he was concerned about adding teaching to his schedule. Late hours for DJing and early hours for teaching left little time for the production side of Allstar Spotlight.
Still, Buchmuller found a way to keep sports and students an active part of his life. He is in his ninth season coaching basketball at Memorial Middle School in Little Ferry, where he attended as a child. In addition to the middle school, Buchmuller ran every Little Ferry recreation program and currently still runs the basketball program. During baseball season, he coaches Bogota High School’s varsity baseball team. Buchmuller also plays for and manages the New Jersey Tropics, an amateur baseball league. His ultimate dream is to open a sports complex from the ground up. After years of hard work, he says this huge plan is “in the works” and hopes to open the full sports training facility in the near future, all while owning and managing Allstar Spotlight’s continuous business.
The young business owner clearly has a lot to manage, and has recently promoted one of his best DJs to general manager at Allstar Spotlight. Billy Levesque has known Buchmuller since he was in seventh grade, when Buchmuller was his baseball coach. Years later, the two ran into each other at the gym, and from there, “history was made.” Leveque has since been DJing for Allstar Spotlight for five years and is excited to get started in his role as GM.
Levesque shares a similar path to Buchmuller. Currently at Montclair State majoring in Exercise Science, Levesque has found a career with Allstar Spotlight. “I want to go far with it,” he says. Buchmuller and Levesque, also teammates on the Tropics, playfully joke that one is better than the other at DJing (even suggesting a “throwdown” to see who’s best), but Levesque admits, “Ryan taught me how to handle a crowd, run the party, look and act professional… he’s a nice guy, personal, gets along with everyone.” Later, far from earshot, Levesque adds with a laugh, “…I am a better DJ than him!”
With a general manager taking over some of the event planning and client relations, Buchmuller has big plans ahead for Allstar Spotlight: in a few months, the company will expand to a bigger location. He plans on making more connections with venues, which can bring the business to new heights: this means larger events, and even bigger entertainment packages.
Along with Levesque, Buchmuller has sixteen employees at Allstar Spotlight, including DJs, photographers, dancers, and singers. There is almost nothing that the company doesn’t offer: lighting, videography, photo booths, invitations, centerpieces, the list goes on. With so much to manage, Buchmuller must face a lot of pressure — after all, the events that he caters to are milestones for his clients. Despite the pressure of planning, Buchmuller says, “I always find a way to make it happen.”
