Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[Corabar Steve]

Did a Steampunk / Comic-Con / Star Wars / Dr Who themed wedding on Saturday.

The crowd enjoyed it, I enjoyed it.

Two separate messages from the B&G today

Him "It was great to meet you and I loved the passion, energy and time you put into our special day. Truly hope our paths cross again soon"

Her "Thank you so much for your musical talent .... Best song of night ( apart from 1st dance) had to be footloose lol xx"

She is currently wheelchair bound (with metalwork protruding from her right lower leg) after falling down the stairs the week before the wedding & going back into hospital tomorrow for another op.

[Nakatomi]

Well, I had an awful midweek wedding reception last night. Pure hell from start to finish.

First of all, the background music was too loud. I turned it down, then some more. And some more. Then when the time came for the cake cut, bride & groom assembled as if for their first dance. Ahem. That done, we had their first dance. Thinking Out Loud yet again. Oh how very original. Could the guests possibly be upstanding & give them a little ripple? No, apparently staring at the wall opposite them was more interesting. Cranked the sound up a bit for the dance, just about touching -10dB and yet again can I please turn it down there are deaf people in. Okay..

Onwards to the second track, which the bride had said in her email was the first song they danced to on the night they'd met. Jason Derulo - Talk Dirty. I introduced it & the groom looked absolutely horrified! Whoops. I thought maybe he'd been consulted. Nope.

It just went downhill from there really. They may as well just have had the venue's Sonos playing music. Requests were completely off the wall & at odds with the B&G's suggested tracklist but got played anyway since nobody was dancing to the tracklisted music. Yay, some reaction. Ah, but it didn't last for long.

Back to the list then I suppose. From there it was a long few hours til midnight, sounding so quiet I had a chance to think of all the other things I'd have been better off doing instead.

Got all wrapped up & home by 1am, feeling like... well.. Like I never want to do another midweek wedding ever again.

[Nakatomi]

Well, that was my first ever 21st party just around the corner from my house... and it sucked. I got there nice & early, loaded in easily enough despite a small step at the door & set about rigging up. That done, I got paid the balance of my fee & off the birthday boy went for a meal.. Til 8.30. Ah well, time to play around with DMX programs & familiarise myself with some new music a bit more then...

The sound was slapping back something horrible. Even toeing the speakers in wasn't helping much. I had a think, and tried lowering the stands 18 inches or so. The stage was about 4 foot high (getting a bin on & off there was fun!) & there was an odd shaped recess in the top of the room the horns were probably hitting with sound. So with the stands lower there was much less bounceback. Woohoo.

Onwards to 8.30pm then & people started filing in but it soon became obvious we weren't gonna have the promised 100. Oh and what's this? A request for Motown you say? Ah. Well, birthday lad has specifically asked me to only play house & dance music. Sorry luv. Not that I think Motown would've got anybody up though. No. Nobody was up for dancing & it was all over by 10.30pm.

I started tearing everything down & the customer came to me to thank me for all I'd done. It was brilliant - exactly what he wanted. Just a shame so few turned up. Ah well, see turns out taxis from where all his mates live are cheaper if they head into town, which is where everybody decided to go anyway. A lesson learned. Mind if I was turning 21 the very last thing I'd want would be a shindig in a local civic hall.

PA wise, the Altos & DB bin sounded beautiful in the place. The bass.. oh my GOD the bass was lovely. The tops were lovely & crispy too. The lighting... I needed more of it. My trusty GigAbar was barely bright enough. My scanners made lovely sweeping beams around the place (haze was allowed & even that was having to work its socks off too), and the Quad Phase didn't let me down. Nor did my little RGB clusters either. The LED goboflowers were visible, but not great.

Meh. What I really needed for that gig was a pair of proper moving spots & maybe a couple of moving washes. How the local lads get away with less than I've got I'll never know.

Sitting here reading that back... I thought the gigabar looked a bit dim, and its dimming curve cuts back faster than my other dimmable lights.. where was the master dimmer in my DMX control program? Damn! I never even checked it!

[Imagine]

OK the positives first - it was a stonking night and one I'd been looking forward to immensely (well, you do when the client's laying on a sausage and chip supper don't you? ).

Tonight was a 40th. I've been dealing with birthday girl for about 11 months and knew the venue well. A venue I might add I'm unlikely to be allowed back into for a while

Having been there before, I'm aware that the "rules" say everyone OUT of the building at midnight, and music off generally for around 11:30. I warned the client about this one and was sent an email by the chap that runs the committee for said hall saying that it was a midnight finish for music, not leaving the building. OK - that makes sense (their licence actually runs to midnight as do all venues around here).

Put my foot through the door and the usual woman who runs the bar is already chewing my ears about the "rules" of out by midnight. No explains I....we have permission to PLAY until midnight. She wasn't having any of it. Spoke to my client when she arrived who spoke to said bar person and apparently we're game on for midnight....until 11:30 arrives and I'm being told in no uncertain terms to turn off (quite rudely as well I might add). Client is saying play on (we've BOTH been told we can), bar are turning all the overhead lights on....urgh....

Managed to go until 11:50 and out by 12:10 (a new world record), leaving my customer to moan at the staff there. Apparently it's because they're only paid until midnight, and they don't intend to do anything afterwards. A case of one side of a committee not talking to the others me-thinks but put a real damper on the end of the evening (the guests actually booed at the venue staff for the way they were behaving).

Both myself and my customer will be writing to their committee in due course. She to complain, me to ask that customers who hire the place are made aware that either they're expected to be out by midnight or to make the staff aware that the party goes on until midnight....don't mind which way round it is but getting sick to death of being piggy in the middle between the staff and the customer every time there.

Tomorrow - a kids fundraising Halloween party for the Scout Group which I'm a leader for. No such issues with finish times tomorrow - we have the key to the hall

[Nakatomi]

A wedding last night, and a murder mystery in the other room. Of course I was only providing equipment for hired help for the latter. Hey ho. Nothing to report, apart from the over controlling bloke with camera. I wonder what he'd have done if my lights hadn't been able to do white at my command... Finicky

Aaanway.. a big list of tracks to play - and I foolishly didn't check them into my playout because they were fine in other programs. BIG MISTAKE. Could I get the first dance tune to appear? Could I? No! Hardly an insurmountable problem for me if I have a good working internet connection - which I didn't so I had to tether my phone to my spare laptop outside the venue to grab it, Stressed out much? You bet!

So to the night itself.. They'd hired a dancefloor, which sat there looking twinkly to itself for most of the time. Sadly the couple's taste in music wasn't reflected back from the majority of guests, so ho hum.

Left with about 15 people out of 100 by the end, we finished on Wheatus - A Little Respect - which went down very well with everybody concerned.

Then I just had to dismantle 2 rigs & load them into the van. Apart from the 2nd set of speakers that is.

I'm now resolving to go against conventional DJ wisdom & really slim my rig down. Way too much faff, for way too little moolah.

Oh, and I bought a slightly used Micron booth during the day. I like it a lot & can see it going out more often than the 4 foot Ultimax.

[Excalibur]

Friday night was a venue I last played seven years ago, my first ever Legslappers as emergency cover for Young Penfold.
I'd been advised it would be a big one, and we had a hundred and twenty five bodies, so a good test for the Maui ( which I chickened out of using in a big venue last week, and really wished I hadn't ) eh? They coped just fine, although granted I hadn't much in reserve, and the audience were predominantly older. I reckon that's the limit really, although had it been Young Farmers, and/or a larger venue, it would not have sufficed. I'm happy now that I have an idea of its limits now.

It was a Halloween theme, so mixer with effects, smoke machine, and two Swarm 5s used as strobes initially. Bonuses were finding that rather than being faulty, the lighting tripod I bought at BPM isn't supplied with a wrong sized collar, but rather an extra stage! Tightened everything up, and it works a treat. Also, my Equinox batten brackets line up exactly with the pre drilled holes, to allow it go over the bar, so bingo, there's my simple light rig.

We did indeed have the promised number, and even with the ones who left straight after the tasting, I had a lot of folk to work with, culminating in a very healthy dancefloor for my stint, and some nice tunes. Back in the van, and make the choice to go many miles out of my way and hurtle home up the motorways, or the shorter and allegedly quicker way through rural Lincolnshire. Wish I'd gone for the motorway. Home at half past two.

No such worries Saturday though, five miles to the local Club,for a Halloween event, after I'd been cancelled elsewhere, so all good for everyone.
Except a local pub had had a Halloween Disco on Friday, and the village was dead. The club was decorated appropriately, I brought the smoke and " strobes ", so when the staff outnumbered guests for an hour and a half, it didn't look good. The Halloween theme went by the wayside early on, and I contented myself with slotting in sound effects into the songs at odd times, until I got bored with that. The night soon morphed into a " Request Fest ", which resulted in me playing Sympathy For The Devil and Gimme Shelter back to back, so not all bad.

At the height of the festivities we had twelve guests, so paid off early and home by midnight. Be careful what you wish for, eh?

...don't mind which way round it is but getting sick to death of being piggy in the middle between the staff and the customer every time there.

Amen Brother. I have visited the same location, dined on pastry covered meat products, and am proudly wearing the raiment.

Oh, and I bought a slightly used Micron booth during the day. I like it a lot & can see it going out more often than the 4 foot Ultimax.

Put it on wheels and it definitely will.

[Nakatomi]

Put it on wheels and it definitely will.

Ah if only my can (pet name for the Berlingo) had the space to transport it assembled when I take the bin. After last night's rig-marole, and in light of other non-developments I'm culling what I take in from now on. Gigabar & QP HP, maybe a cluster & that'll be it from here. Work smarter, not harder.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

This weekend I was back in Hampshire for bookings on Friday and Saturday so it was another long drive in the van again (feels quicker the more I get used to it). I intended going on Thursday morning (always go the day before), but I felt a bit rough so had a day doing nothing and then left early Friday morning.

Friday's booking was a 3 x retirement party at my hotel residency. It's the 3rd booking I've done for this particular company and they are usually good nights but they never ever last until the finish time. This time I was booked from 7.30pm - 11.30pm with an estimated 60 guests maximum. Well, I knew it was going to be a toughie when the organiser told me there had been lots of no shows and there was a grand total of 31 attending.
28 of those were guys and more than 75% of those guys were nearing retirement too. If there had been a fly on the wall I bet it was playing the violin for me because I felt sorry for me, let alone anybody else. A long night turned into a very long night with hardly any dancing.

The only time there was some dancing was when one of the ladies came over and showed me her phone and asked "Do you have this?" in an accent that I didn't recognise. I think she may have been Polish but I'm not sure? Anyway, she asked for a Marc Anthony track and surprisingly I had it. I played it and her and the other 2 ladies got up. They stayed on the dance floor for all of 20 minutes and that was about it.
I played the Ozone track (can't remember the title just now), and they were mad for it.

Organiser came over at 10.30pm when there were around 15 people left and asked me to wind down. He said that a number of them had to get up for work in the morning and they'd caned the free bar so best knock it on the head. I didn't argue! I just said that I hoped he'd had a good time. He said I'd been great as usual but the rest of them were "boring "

Saturday....well, what a contrast!
I was at Ascot football club for an 80's themed 30th birthday for a lovely girl. It was fancy dress too and there were some great costumes.
I had to pick a winner of the best fancy dress competition later on in the evening and I chose a couple of guys who I thought were really original and away from the 'norm. They'd turned up as Captain Birdseye and a Fish Finger! They looked hilarious.

Anyway, beforehand was a nightmare. I did all of my usual checks and noticed that Ascot races were on yesterday so I gave myself ample time to get there.
I was due to start at 8.00pm with a 12.30am finish. Left Basingstoke at 5.30pm with an arrival time of 6.15pm showing on my Sat Nav. I got there dead on time but 2 miles away from the venue (in the pitch black and fog), my Sat Nav was telling me to take turnings that didn't exist!
Called the party girl as it was getting on for 7.00pm and I didn't know what access to the venue was like. She and her Dad eventually found me and I followed them to the venue and then when I got there my heart sank as I realised that I had a 100 metre walk back and forth to the van to unload.

I declined the offers of help from a couple of people and just got on with it and was set up and ready to go at 7.58pm (they were still sorting out the food and I'd finished before them), I was a sweaty mess and I'd also cut the top of my hand on something at some point (didn't feel it though).

The venue had a VGA socket on the wall so I plugged the iPad into that and showed the photo slideshow. I flicked between that and 80's visuals throughout the evening. I was allowed to use the smoke machine too which was cool. No sound limiters either.
It was a bit of a slow start for the first 90 minutes and I began to wonder if I'd picked the wrong weekend because it seemed like that nobody wanted to party but once they'd scoffed some food and the drinks were going down nicely, they all got into the vibe and it was a really good night with lots of dancing.
I really enjoyed playing a good mix of 80's stuff for them and had quite a few requests and gave out some cards too.

The time seemed to fly by too (always a good sign), and as people started filtering out in the fog, I started to get my stuff back to the van. I did rush as I was determined to drive home last night so I was a sweaty mess once again. As I collected the last bits from the venue, the bar manager asked me for a card. I was thinking to myself "hurry up, I need to get home now" but I'm glad I hung around because she asked about pricing. I gave her a decent price and was surprised when she said "that's really good" so I'm hopeful of more work there in the future. It is worth the drive as Ascot is an affluent area as I am sure you know.

So, the drive home.......blimey! At points I wish I'd stayed in Hampshire overnight and came home today because it was thick fog for the whole journey home.
I was doing steady speed and didn't really get delayed but there were times when I couldn't see anything yet cars were still speeding past me!!!
Finally got home though.
Back next weekend for another 80's party and if it is as good as last nights then I'll be happy.

This weekend really was a game of 2 halves.... Friday, they didn't know how to party (or didn't want to?), Saturday, they knew how to party and it was great.

[DJ Jules]

What a complete mess of a weekend. Friday night I was booked by a local agency for a 40th birthday party with Karaoke in a venue about 30mins from my house. Turned up at the appointed time to discover that I couldn't get the car within about 15m of the door and that the function room was upstairs. Also had to wait a further 30mins for the venue staff to turn up.... Luckily the guests turned up 30mins late as well as I was only just set up in time for them. The fancy dress costumes were pretty awesome and the music guidance was 80's, 90's with some heavier rock thrown in. From the costumes (and the genuine tattoos under them) it was clear that the crowd were into heavier music and I went with it. Karaoke was met with a luke warm reception with only a few singers throughout the night, but the crowd were generally, great. 1am finish and I was offered the choice of the front door with the choice of 3 flights of steps inside the building or the lift OR the backdoor - which meant going out onto the balcony and then walking the length of the building on a rickety fire escape and then down 3 flights of metal stairs in the rain. Errr... think I'll take the lift thanks.

Saturday I had to drop the new Photopod to a kids party alongside another local entertainer and then I had a do my own gig which involved 3hours outdoors in a playground warming up a crowd before fireworks. When I left home I felt fine and the photopod was dropped and left running, but by the time I got to my gig and then ran home to get a gazebo and got back again, I felt proper ropey. VDJ on Autoplay and a few runs to the toilet later and I felt even worse. I made the organisers aware and got through the gig doing the bare minimum of announcements and requests and then very gingerly packed everything away, limped home in the car, shoved the expensive bits into the store and was in bed by 8:30. The situation wasn't helped by problems at the Photopod gig... The actual gig went fine, but I'd made arrangements for a colleague to pick it up and drop it off at my house later and he didn't show - so I had to deal with conversations with my customer about pick up arrangements for the pod inbetween toilet visits and announcements. I've still no idea where said colleague disappeared to, I'm hoping he shows up tomorrow!

Today I had to drag my bum out of bed and go and pick up the photopod from one of the worlds most :censored: caretakers. Because everyone needs sarcasm, unhelpful advice, bad jokes (at my expense) and spiteful remarks at 10:30 on a Sunday morning while trying to hold down breakfast and stay upright. I'm sure the other kids entertainer who arrived to set up for a party also really appreciated being directed the long way round the building

Afternoon comes and I'm supposed to be doing a kids party at my local community centre, but I'd made arrangements for someone else to cover it as I wasn't sure if I'd be in any shape to do it. The cover turns up and sets up and then I get a phone call from the lady who booked me saying that he wasn't expecting to play any games. I'm still not sure where blame lies for this one as I was talking to him about the details for the party inbetween toilet visits, but the end result was that I had to go down with a wireless Mic and the prizes I had already bought for the gig and do the entertainer part and we split the fee.

Looking on the bright side, all of this weekends customers have been very happy, so despite all of the problems it's this weekend has been a success.

However, I'm still not sure how I survived today. I'm just hoping I feel better tomorrow!

[Nakatomi]

Karaoke and heavier rock type music? I'd never have pictured those going together. Hey ho.

I had a family Halloween party to deal with at the good ole residency tonight. We got good numbers in & everything went like a dream apart from a slight wee lack of prizes - there could've been more goodies to give away really so I had to improvise with some non-prize games (thanks for the tip Andy P!). I was out & about on my radio mic for about half of the 3 hours we had customers for & even joined in with the silly dance favourites. I just hope no footage of this happening ever surfaces

Good gig in all, and the night was a runaway success by all accounts. I'm now thoroughly shattered though, so I take my hat off to you folks who do this kind of thing regularly.