Photo Credit: @brewcasa
Your Shot is expanding its U.S. program for 2026, moving from two cities to four after a large first season in Los Angeles and New York. The beginner-focused DJ competition and music academy will return to those two cities this year while adding Denver and Miami, giving the program a wider U.S. footprint and a much clearer national push.
The concept is simple, and that is why it works. Your Shot is not built for semi-established DJs trying to win another slot. It is built for people who have never played before, people who have thought about DJing but never had the gear, the confidence, the access, or the reason to take the first step.
That beginner-first angle gives the program a different place in dance music culture. DJing can look closed off from the outside, especially when the visible version of the scene centers on festival stages, expensive equipment, crowded booths, and polished online branding.
Your Shot starts before all of that, at the point where someone still has to ask whether they are allowed to try.
Your Shot’s 2026 U.S. Season Adds Miami and Denver
The 2026 season will hold in-person selection events in four cities. Denver goes first on August 22 at Bar Standard, followed by Miami on August 29 at M2 Nightclub. Los Angeles follows on September 12 at Catch One, with Brooklyn closing the selection run on September 19 at Elsewhere.
After registration, prospective participants share their story at one of those in-person events. Selected entrants then move into a six-week program covering DJ fundamentals, including mixing, music selection, performance, confidence, and community-building. The program ends with showcase weekends in each city, where participants perform in front of a live audience.
That live endpoint matters. A DJ course can teach technical basics, but playing in front of people changes the lesson. It forces the participant to think about nerves, song choice, pacing, mistakes, and the simple reality of holding attention in a room.
LP Giobbi, Vibee, and The Circuit Group Give the Program Industry Support
The 2026 advisor list includes LP Giobbi, Harvey Cohen of Live Nation’s Vibee, and The Circuit Group, the management company connected to artists such as Chris Lake and FISHER.
LP Giobbi’s involvement is especially relevant because her work with FEMME HOUSE already aligns closely with education, access, and opening doors for people who have been underrepresented in electronic music. Her quote in the announcement gets to the center of what Your Shot is trying to do: aspiring artists need mentorship, opportunity, and a community that believes in them.
The program also brings in AlphaTheta mixers and controllers and Sony’s ULT POWER SOUND series of speakers and pro audio headphones as partners for the 2026 season. That gives participants access to proper DJ equipment inside the program, which matters because gear familiarity can be one of the first hurdles for a new DJ.
For readers who track DJ hardware closely, my Pioneer DJ CDJ-3000 review is a useful reminder of how much the modern DJ booth is shaped by gear literacy.
Your Shot is working at an earlier stage, but the basic idea is related: comfort with the tools changes how confidently someone can perform.
The Festival Prizes Give Beginners a Serious First Platform
Your Shot winners earn opening DJ slots at major festivals, with 2026 prizes including F1 Las Vegas, Insomniac’s EDSea, and more to be announced. That is a serious first platform for someone entering the season as a beginner.
That prize structure also explains why the six-week training matters. A festival slot is not only a reward. It is a responsibility. A new DJ needs to understand music selection, transitions, pacing, and the emotional difference between playing for friends and playing on a professional stage.
This is where the program’s equipment partners matter again. The distance between bedroom practice and a proper booth can feel huge when the gear is unfamiliar. In my article on Pioneer DJ adding CloudDirectPlay to the CDJ-3000 through rekordbox, the larger point was that DJ workflows keep changing around access, libraries, and performance habits. Your Shot is part of that broader shift, just focused on access at the human level.
Your Shot’s Expansion Shows How Much DJ Culture Still Needs Entry Points
Your Shot’s 2026 expansion says something important about DJ culture in the U.S. The demand is clearly there. More than 8,300 people have already pre-registered across the country, which suggests the issue is not a lack of interest. It is a lack of approachable entry points.
That is why Denver and Miami make sense as new cities. Miami gives the program a city with deep dance music history and a major nightlife ecosystem. Denver brings a growing electronic scene with strong bass music, club, and festival connections. Los Angeles and New York already proved the model could work in larger coastal markets.
The best version of Your Shot is not just a competition that crowns a winner. It is a reminder that scenes grow when people are invited in early, before they already know the rules.
Online registration for Your Shot U.S. 2026 is open now.
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
