On weekdays, junior Jordan Rich mostly spends his time in class or hanging out with friends. On weekends, he parties – working the crowd and rocking out to whatever music thumps from the speakers.

Yet Rich, a government and politics major, is not the student who stumbles up to a satellite house and pays $5 to join the scene. In fact, others pay him to, essentially, throw the party for them.

Rich is the co-owner of Escapist Entertainment, which he describes as a “DJ and videography services company” that does everything from creating set lists to fully producing concerts for a variety of organizations.

“I can do an event with four lights or I can bring in 25 feet of aluminum trussing and fly things,” Rich said. “You know, you can just go crazy. The sky’s the limit.”

Escapist Entertainment’s most common market is bar mitzvahs, but it also provides services for weddings, sorority formals, high school proms, events for non-profit organizations and concerts, sometimes working with names as well-known as Chiddy Bang and Guster. This past weekend, Rich and co-owner Mark Ricche spent Friday night working a formal for sorority Alpha Delta Pi at George Washington University and Saturday at a bar mitzvah in Silver Spring.

As a child, Rich sat on the floor of his bedroom and listened to music for hours at a time. Gradually, he became fascinated with the idea of becoming a DJ. But DJs need equipment, and equipment costs money.

So Rich began shoveling snow and made enough money to buy turntables and a mixer. For his 10th birthday party, he decided he wanted a DJ theme and contacted Ricche, a kindergarten teacher with a theater background who had started an informal DJ business, at the suggestion of Rich’s father. He told Ricche to bring all his equipment to the Potomac Community Center.

“What he didn’t tell me was that he wanted to DJ the party himself,” Ricche said. “He walked on stage with a set list and his CDs and said, ‘I’m gonna go ahead and DJ now.’ He pushed me aside and got frustrated whenever I got too close. I just remember thinking, ‘This kid’s ballsy, all full of piss and vinegar.’ I never forgot that.”

When Rich was 13, the two reconnected, and Ricche offered to take on Rich as an apprentice. After two or three years, Rich was promoted.

“He subsequently sort of pushed his way through the door – like Jordan does with everything – and made himself such a valuable part of the company, not only the technical and entertainment parts but also the business side, that I was forced to bring him on as a 50-50 full-fledged partner,” Ricche said. “He was young, but he was ready.”

Until that point, they had been operating under two different company names. It was then that Escapist Entertainment was born.

“People go to these events and are spending a lot of money; sometimes it’s money that is a lot for people and they really feel it so you have to give them an event that gets them away,” Rich said. “It’s a party – it’s like going to Vegas. You gotta go away so we’re escapists. We just take you away.”

Ricche said he had expected the fledgling business to take its toll on Rich, as it forced him to lose most of his weekends and focus on contracts and insurance instead of video games and girls. Yet Rich, despite his admission that he does not relax, thrives in his role at Escapist Entertainment.

The job doesn’t usually conflict with school. The money (generally starting at $500 for non-profit organizations, $700 for sorority formals and $1,800 for bar mitzvahs and weddings) is substantial. Most of all, the performance aspect – interacting with the crowd, emceeing, getting a laugh by throwing out a random song like Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” – gives him an ego boost.

“There’s a high that you get,” Rich said. “When you have a crowd that’s really into it, you come off ready to go.”

But there is a moment when that high fades. It’s called load-out – when Rich and Ricche have to coil their cables, load their trucks and go home. Venues need to close their doors at a certain time so few people are there to help out. Sometimes, that means going to bed at 5:30 a.m.

There are also the events that never produce a high. The time the power went out. The time the nice weather outside was more attractive to the kids than the music inside. Rich remembers those nights more than the ones that were highly successful. Yet the majority of his clients come to him through word of mouth, proving Escapist Entertainment provides more good than bad.

Kathleen Lockhart hired Escapist Entertainment to work a bat mitzvah for one of her daughters. Now, she has turned to the company again for another daughter’s bat mitzvah.

“They have a lot of really good energy, and they’re very good at keeping the kids engaged,” she said.

And Rich?

“He’s professional and wise beyond his years,” Lockhart said.

For now, Escapist Entertainment is still accepting contracts and have booked events for 2014, after Rich’s expected graduation. Yet Rich does not know if he will still be a DJ in 10 years. An accomplished equestrian, he has been competing in dressage – sometimes called horse ballet – since he was 10 and is well on his way to becoming a professional rider.

“He has his hand in a lot of pots,” Ricche said. “At the age of 20, you start to look at where you’re at and think about what life is going to be like. So many different things change. You fall in love; some people have kids that early and so forth. He has provided dividends for this company that go beyond my wildest dreams, so if he decides there are other ventures he wants to go out toward, I will support him.”

mcfischer@umdbk.com