Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

If a client is adamant they want a play list that you think probably isn't going to work then it can be a nightmare to get them to change their mind.

Brian S Redd put a video out a few weeks ago with quite a good delicate way to approach a situation like this.

When discussing the playlist you divert and ask them to imagine what they want their video and photos of the night to look like. Most will automatically say they want everyone dancing and enjoying themselves.

At that point you bring in the idea that maybe playing face melting metal, heavy dubstep or whatever it is they're after to a room of people from toddlers up to 80+ probably isn't going to achieve this so you'll do their music at the start when they're doing the rounds and greeting everyone but then get the tried and tested numbers out after that.

An approach like this works well in several ways:

Firstly, it gets them actually thinking about the effect their music will have. We as DJs are well aware of this but to most people their choice of music goes no further than "I like these bands so we'll have that played." By getting them to think about what they actually want their party to be like (i.e. everyone up dancing and not glued to the bar) then they start to realise that they tunes they want to hear might not tie in with this vision.

By offering to play their tunes early doors it also gives you an opportunity to see if it's actually going to work. If you're playing some left field type play list and the majority of people are going for it then you keep playing it, if not, you're vindicated in your opinion that it wasn't going to work.


I've got a clause in my T's and C's which is I really wanted to enforce, I could which runs along the lines of, as this is a business, it's ultimately my final shout on what gets played as I'm not willing to play requests which could create a negative impression or lose me work.

I've never had to rely on it and touch wood, I never will but at the end of the day, we're in a very precarious position whereby we're trying to keep 1 or 2 people PLUS everyone else happy and if what is going to make that happen doesn't tie in with the clients view, we should be able to use our professional judgement to make sure people aren't going around saying DJ xyz is rubbish or putting people off of booking you.

At the end of the day, you wouldn't take your car to the garage and then start telling the mechanic what he should be doing if you didn't have a clue about cars.

[funkymook]

At the end of the day, you wouldn't take your car to the garage and then start telling the mechanic what he should be doing if you didn't have a clue about cars.

I half agree with some of your post, but since when do clients not have a clue about the music they like and what their guests like? In fact they're in a far better position to inform us about their own tastes than we are to tell them what they should be listening to.

Sometimes the DJ doesn't know best, and this attitude is what prompts a lot of clients to present them with a strict playlist because they don't trust them to get the music right.

It should never be a 'them against us' situation (which often seems to be the case) but DJ and client working together to make the best party possible - gaining trust is the key, which usually means meeting them in person.

A very telling comment from one of my past clients who attended a friends wedding where the DJ ignored a lot of requests - 'we were dancing in spite of him, not because of him'. That party could've been so much better though from the DJ's perspective he had people dancing so job done!

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

I half agree with some of your post, but since when do clients not have a clue about the music they like and what their guests like? In fact they're in a far better position to inform us about their own tastes than we are to tell them what they should be listening to.

Sometimes the DJ doesn't know best, and this attitude is what prompts a lot of clients to present them with a strict playlist because they don't trust them to get the music right.

It should never be a 'them against us' situation (which often seems to be the case) but DJ and client working together to make the best party possible - gaining trust is the key, which usually means meeting them in person.

A very telling comment from one of my past clients who attended a friends wedding where the DJ ignored a lot of requests - 'we were dancing in spite of him, not because of him'. That party could've been so much better though from the DJ's perspective he had people dancing so job done!

I maybe came off a bit condascending in that post and I genuinely didn't mean it.

I was talking about those rare occasions where what the client wants and what will work are completely at loggerheads. Obviously you can't really tell until on the night but if you're doing a wedding with an average crowd make up of folk from toddlers up to great grandparents, it doesn't take a huge degree of brain power to suppose that a night of full on techno or metal or something like that probably isn't going to work.

I have a civil partnership later on in the year and the couple haven't given me much in the way of a play list yet but they're very adamant about the songs they don't want to hear. In a word:

No cheese (which encapsultes just about anything remotely cheesy from Abba to Take That to Journey)
No line dances.
No "sing-a-long" stuff like the Proclaimers and Neil Diamond.


At the end of the day, it's their wedding and I'll do as they wish but I can't think of a single wedding I've played or attended where stuff like that hasn't been par for the course and I can nigh on gaurantee that I'll get requests for a bunch of this stuff.

I do the rounds during the buffet at all of my gigs to take requests and 90% of them are in a very similar vein regardless of what type of do it is - they want cheese, they want line dances and they want sing a long stuff.

The DJ isn't always right by a long stretch but surely our experience, crowd reading skills and expertise counts for something? If not we'd all by dry hiring our rigs for people to run iPods through...

[JAMdisco]

Had a wedding at Tickton Grange on Thursday - always a favorite of mine as it's about 7 minutes away from my house.
I did her sister's wedding on 1st December at Rowley Manor and that was a fantastic night so they booked me again for her sister.

Not much to say apart from the dancefloor was packed all night (I think the least amount at any one point was about 25). They literally danced to anything and everything - if only everyone was like that...

I took some really nice photo's of the first dance too (same as I did for her sister - she liked it that much she's had it framed, she said it was better that the pro photographer her dad paid 'quite a lot for'). Maybe one day my dream of becoming a wedding photographer will become a reality. Anyway, I'll do a bit of post-processing then send them to her (she's on honeymoon now).

This is the feedback I got from this one:

Hello Justin,

Just wanted to say thankyou again for a brilliant evening, everyone really enjoyed themselves, it was the perfect end to a great day. Looking forward to relaxing on honeymoon now!

Many Thanks

Chris & Anna L******

Moving on to Saturday night - an engagement party at Lazaat's (near Hull).
A lot of contact with the young lady who was getting engaged so all good there.

A slow start as I was set to go at 7:30pm (as requested) but most of the guests must have forgotton to put their clocks forward a week previous - they place started filling up at 8:30 - up to this point I was just playing background music. Her mum came up and said 'I was going to see if you were any good before paying you' and handed me the envelope with the correct amount in - her idea of a bit of humour I guess)

Well I started creeping up the volume to match the levels of conversational noise and then announced the start of the 'party'. I did request people to dance rather than 'jump' as anyone who knows this venue - it has THE worst dancefloor EVER - even if a small child ran past the whole rig would wobble :eek

Last time I played there I had 2 heavy amps and a sturdy rig with big bass bins so it wasn't too bad but with my new powered speakers I have no 'ballast' in my rig so was slightly concerned.

Anyway.... they started dancing nicely at around 10pm (after the buffet and photographer had gone) and they all seemed to enjoy the night. A very eclectic mix of songs due to the age group - a bit like a wedding in that respect. I did have to tap a few people on the shoulders to stop them from 'dance-jumping' - a quick point to the swaying rig and they acknowledged and stopped.

Well, the crowd started dwindling at around midnight (I was booked up til 1am) and for the last half hour I was playing to around 30 people, previously there were an estimated 120. So just the 'happy couple' and their family and close friends who carried on dancing right up to the end (New York, New York - in a big circle).

The Mum came up at the end and said 'so, we'll see you in 503 days time then' (which is when they get married) so she must have enjoyed it too. She took a card even though her daughter has my details and said she will be in touch very soon (I did mention I'm already taking bookings for 2014). I also got a lot of praise as the other guests were leaving - some were saying it was the best disco they have ever been too - either drunk or seen some poor shows lol...

So overall 2 really good gigs with good feedback. Oh I did forget to mention I had a minor equipment failure - my 6 channel DMX controller's power pack died on me at the engagement party but I just switched all my LED PAR56's to 'auto' - no one seemed to notice. I will be getting that fixed this week and I've also ordered two ADJ DMX Jelly Moons to be collected next Saturday so will be spending the weekend having a play with them

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Along the same lines as the above couple of posts.....
I'm still up after my gig tonight which let's say had a couple of 'moments'.
It was another gig booked via my Indie/Alternative site. When the Bride & Groom enquired about my services they were really up for something a bit different and were chuffed when they found me. They said that they didn't want the "usual kind of wedding stuff".

It was in a nice venue out of town called Wasing Park. Access was easy and I was on a small stage. They had a huge starcloth backdrop at the back of the stage and I covered the front of my console with a starcloth rather than use the panels.
Anyway, when I went to meet the customers a couple of weeks ago I was surprised to see that there were'nt many 'Alternative' requests on their sheet. The idea was to get the 'oldies' (as they called them) up early to the likes of Motown & 60's and then slowly ease in some classic 90's, some cheesiness, alternative and then some dancey/trancey stuff.

First Dance was Creed - Arms Wide Open followed by Goo Goo Dolls - Iris.
Before that I was playing some ratpack and chilled stuff.

Announced the first dance and everyone was interested. A lot joined them on the floor for the second dance.
As soon as I started the next track I was told to announce the buffet and this kind of killed it a bit. There was also a Photo Booth which was busy most of the night.
I had lots of requests for stuff like Five, Cha Cha Slide, Macarena, Gangnam Style etc... and before long it was your standard kind of wedding and nothing out of the ordinary although it was going down well.

At one point (a bit early on in the evening), this tiny lady who was a bit drunk (and I found out shortly after she was the Groom's mum), literally grabbed hold of me and almost had me in a head lock as she shouted in my ear. From what I could work out, she was saying..."Look, it's all us 'oldies' up. Where are all the young ones?" I smiled and said "At the bar" and she shouted again... "Well get them up!". I wasn't quite sure how to take that. She didn't give me a chance to reply as she walked off straight away. I / We can't MAKE people dance. We can encourage them but we can't MAKE them. I'm not Paul Daniels (thankfully!). If they don't want to, they don't want to. Plenty of them did though and for a week night wedding, it was a pretty good one.

Liked the venue, liked the staff (and I made sure that they got a round of applause)...Left my steps behind so I've got to go back tomorrow to get them. That's a bit of a PITA.
Yeah, enjoyable evening. The only 'alternative-ish' tracks that were played were The Killers and Reef and the first and second dances. The Bride & Groom came over at the end and said that all they wanted was to have everyone enjoy themselves and they did. The Groom laughed and said that he didn't expect to see the 'oldies' dancing to the likes of Delerium - Silence, Rank 1 - Airwave etc...

Last song of the evening was SL2 - On a ragga tip. They went mad for it....well, those that were left. 120 guests at the start and around 50 at the end.

[Excalibur]

Well this job certainly has its ups and downs, doesn't it? ( Though hopefully it will be downs and ups )

Last night was a birthday party for a twelve year old, ( thanks Justin ) and I was sick of the drivel I had to play, and the drivel I refused to ( Birthday sex, and many other wholly unsuitable tracks for that age group. Yes, I know they've all got them on their phones and ipods, but no way on God's green earth am I playing them at such an event. End of. ) Hard work, but technically a success, parents happy with the job, DJ totally frazzled, but unharmed. If I hadn't had a really hard week at the day job I'd have called in on Justin and bought him an orange juice, but all I wanted was my bed.

Tonight? Am I looking forward to this? Do bears live in the woods? Is the Pope Catholic? It's a seventies party for a 60th Birthday, with live band, Burlesque , and a fancy dress theme of outrageous shirts for the lads. Whoopee. Three guesses who's bought a frilly silk shirt, gold medallion and Afro wig from Ebay. Oh yes, there will be piccies, if at all possible.

Van's loaded, bit of music to download, hard drives to update, shower, shave and sh
irt and I'm ready to go. Harrogate here I come.

[marting]

Sadly no gig tonight as i was busy working trains a full house was had from Southampton Central to London Waterloo, as djs we moan about the odd heckler and the can you play this, but tonight i had to endure a very busy train of west ham fans, im not going to tar them all with the same brush but when you have 100 odd supposed adults chanting insults at you and there are children crying and shaking in fear i would rather have the worst gig imaginable than have to put up with that.


so from my point of view bad gig.

[Excalibur]

Made the trip to Harrogate for my eagerly awaited 60th birthday party. Arrived at venue tofind the band already in situ, and doing a long soundcheck. Excellent lads, very good to deal with. The Turnarounds. A pleasure to work with.
Access was very very good, and I had just enough space to set up a good sized rig. Sadly, I didn't get a piccy of the rig itself, but I'd made a new shelf for the DSB, which allowed me to fit the mixer case, and two full size laptops on easily, with room for mice and controllers.

A good night, nice crowd and venue, but two 45 minute plus sets from the band, a slow buffet, and various other bits and pieces ( including the most tasteful and decorous lap dance I have ever seen, from two Ladies dressed up as Flappers* ) meant I only had a couple of hours to play, and couldn't really explore the wide range of music I'd planned to play.

As is often the case, I had expected so much from this, and was slightly disappointed. Punters were happy and appreciative, so job done. The few decent piccies I got may appear in the gallery, when I've had a look at them.

PS. Email just in from Client:
Everyone remarked on the fantastic sounds you gave us last night. You got it just right Peter. Thanks for making a lovely birthday go with a swing. Richard

Guess I must have got something right after all. At times we are our own harshest critics.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

2 really good nights at my local this weekend and I was on a better fee than usual as they were private parties which was good. No hassle of setting up and taking down again, I could use smoke and a minimal system and it still looked and sounded great. Both were joint birthday parties for friends too and both were downstairs in the pub itself and not in the function room.

Friday was the better night of the two. This one was an animal themed party / 80s fest and it was amazing looking out and seeing almost everybody in fancy dress. Lots of 'onesies' and some classic sights to be seen. Lions, Giraffes, Gorillas & Horses to name but a few. It was a brilliant atmosphere and a messy night too. I joined in the fun as it was a very relaxed and chilled bit of work for me really with no pressure on me at all. I had a few drinks and then went out afterwards too, getting in at about 4.30am slightly sozzled. Even though I didn't have to get up, I was still up and not feeling my best by 10.00am and I suffered for it all day. Nobody to blame but myself.

Saturday was a bit quieter than Friday and was a Horror themed party with lots of requests for Funk & Soul from the Birthday boy and Rock and 80s from the Birthday girl. A strange combination but I made it work and they loved it. I did struggle at times, not with the music but with trying to feel as best as I could. A good atmosphere though and that helped as lots of people got in the party mood.

One thing spoilt the evening and it was a shame. Totally out of character and totally out of the blue, one of the regulars decided to kick off for no apparent reason? It was said afterwards that he'd been mixing his drinks all evening and had drunk a lot very quickly as he turned up at around 9.00pm. It was a strange situation as he was a friend of mine but spoke to me like a piece of the preverbial. He knows me well enough to know that I won't accept that but really pushed his luck and it was as if he was a different person.
The thing is, he booked me a few months ago to do his wedding next year and I told him that if he continued to talk to me as he did, he could forget it and I'd refund him his booking fee. He wasn't that bothered and continued to kick off. It's a shame because he has always said that he wants me to do his wedding and nobody else. He's now barred from the pub too so maybe that's enough? I'll be speaking to him in the next day or so after things have calmed down a bit.

Nothing like that EVER happens in this place. Strange!

Eventful anyway!

[wensleydale]

It was another gig booked via my Indie/Alternative site.

Not sure if it's supposed to be down but the link to your "Indie/Alternative site" doesnt seem to be working.