Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[djdj]

I reckon I did get the plum gig, cos Dave had packed up and gone home when I went round to see him!

Yep Town hall Wedding, the place will hold 250 people without a problem, so when only 45 guests turn up it's not a good start.
First dance was about as interesting as it got, Couple of tunes had as many as ten people dancing but other than that it was a fairly lacklustre affair.

Only good part was hearing Mr Fisher had to pay for parking where as my Hotel car park was totally empty

[Excalibur]

Yep Town hall Wedding, the place will hold 250 people without a problem, so when only 45 guests turn up it's not a good start.
First dance was about as interesting as it got, Couple of tunes had as many as ten people dancing but other than that it was a fairly lacklustre affair.

Only good part was hearing Mr Fisher had to pay for parking where as my Hotel car park was totally empty

No wonder your car park was empty, with only 45 guests! That's a big old venue for that many people. I got value for my parking though, I left the van there till 5pm Sunday. Well I had paid for 24 hours parking. Might as well use it!

[ppentertainments]

The Scout Group I "work" for do an annual Halloween Ball for up to 100 kids (eek! I normally limit kids parties to 30-40). It's the only one I do for now't as all the proceeds go straight back into the kitty (and Gawd to we need the money in the kitty at the moment).

For the first time in 16 years I have an excuse to dodge out of our scout groups, although still look like getting roped into the xmas bash.
My son is taking over for halloween though so they aren't losing out, I just can't manage it yet - and yes, they are both free and always have been - one group I will always support.

[Imagine]

The last of my 2022 weddings last night then, in one of my regular haunts and the promise of party people.

The music brief was simple, play what makes people dance. The groom even mentioned the likes of the Macarena and the Cha Cha Slide. Okey-dokey....this is going to be easy

Requests came in aplenty, the Cha Cha Slide, Macarena, Saturday night and even Oops Upside Your Head (guest request) went down an absolute storm. Biggest surprise of the night, Big Fish Little Fish at about 10pm - it rammed the dance floor . I even took the time to send a struggling Old Git somewhere up North a couple of photos just to cheer him up

The only downside? The dance action was very sporadic, caused by the fact the venue had the heating running full tilt. Guests were moaning about the heat and even where I stand in the unheated dance marquee I could feel it gusting towards the stage. I can't help but think that had it have been several degrees cooler, the 'floor might have been busier for a lot longer.

Down to just a handful by the end of the night so no big finish, but plenty of thanks and handshakes from those left told me I'd done a good enough job.

So that's it on weddings until next February. Until then, it's kids parties and a fair smattering of Mariah

[Excalibur]

OK, never mind a twofer, it's a threefer!
Saturday last week, second time around wedding in a nice little pub, with a lovely relaxed atmosphere. Beautiful buffet ( which I was invited to partake of ) and a nice crowd. Biggest downers were being marked down on my lighting in the otherwise glowing review, and the Denon Prime showing me a nasty trick. The Iphone is wont to let go of the tether to other items, and it appears that when it does, the Prime is able to search on Tidal, but not load tracks. Most misleading, and it threw me totally.

Sunday, another wedding, in a big club I last worked many years ago. Still informal, but totally different crowd, much younger. I played oodles of BBCC ( Google it, if you're not down wiv da yoof ) and similar styles, and got another nice review for my efforts.

Last night was a last minute cover for a venue that John Brown and I worked what seems decades ago. An engagement party which seemed short on guests, and was a snoozefest for three hours. However, once the alcohol had taken effect, and I got into some Indie, Disco, Soul, Indie, and usual suspects, it livened up. A lot. Too much, in fact, as they often do.

Happy guests, happy venue, DJ who got fed and paid, so also fairly happy. Off to a 50th Birthday now, covering for a lad in Wakefield, at a Holiday Inn I've worked before. Very nice staff there, so looking forward to it, and it's an early, 3-9pm.

Then to sort out the chaos caused by one client selling a hundred more tickets than the venue will now allow ( even though they've been telling me how huge it is for months ) and pulling out in exasperation, and a hotel tearing up the Christmas list of gigs for a colleague, meaning lots of rejigging for him, and one loss for me. Ah well, it was ever thus.

[DJ Jules]

I'm still in my quieter times at the moment and I just had one gig his weekend. Last night I had a full day in a castle, providing music for the ceremony entrance and mics for readings, then background in another room during the turnaround, then mics for speeches, background duties again during the turnaround, disco for 4hrs until midnight and then finally an hour of pure Karaoke for the hard core party animals.

I've had very mixed experience of Karaoke at weddings this year with a lot of tumbleweed at times, but this really worked. The venue has pretty dubious Wifi and mobile reception so the couple gave me a list of about 40 really solid Karaoke tracks to get ahead of the night and then printed out a list of them and left them in the drawing room for the guests to look at and put their names down during the breaks in the day. So, I entered the last hour with a list of about 30 names and songs that I could pick the best 15-20 from to end the night. Because the guest were primed for this event, a really good number of them stayed on to see it. We did a big finish at midnight for those who didn't want to partake in the Karaoke before the couple kicked off the singing with Teenage Dirtbag and we led on from there, finishing with a group rendition of Borap.

I usually avoid Karaoke for the final 30mins or so of the night and try and steer people to the dance floor instead, but this was planned really well and just worked. Maybe something I'll suggest again in the future? Not sure. I have a feeling that part of the reason for the success was because the couple and their guests were just really nice people and seasoned festival goers and everyone was on board with the idea before the day. I'm not 100% sure if it would have worked so well with a different crowd.

My only negative from the day was that I managed to miss the food the venue had put aside for me And my feet hurt due to the number of steps involved in getting everything in and out of the venue.

Julian

[Excalibur]

You'd think that the birthday girl hugging you, and almost every guest leaving thanking you for the great music and your efforts would mean you'd had a great gig.

50th birthday, with a fifteen song playlist, 3pm to 9pm. Sounds a doddle, eh? Well, I was told to expect between 20 and 30 guests, and played to six people for over two hours! One or two more trickled in over time, but I don't think we ever hit twenty. To be fair, they did dance, they did engage, and they were lovely, but six hours to a dozen people? Blimey, I earned my money yesterday.

Edit: Breaking news- I'm once more " The Best DJ Ever". Phew, my crown is safe again.

[Excalibur]

I have been remiss in telling you of my exploits, so here's a triple header.

Two weeks ago, a 30th in a pub in Thorne with a nice function room that's part of the pub, but entirely separate. Lovely family, good playlist, sensible finish time, and a cracking review next day. Marvellous.

Last Saturday was the first of the infamous " massive request list " gigs. 70th birthday near Doncaster, in a venue I've played before. Lovely staff, power bars on slow fade as I'd been told of a guest with epilepsy, and nine hours of songs for a four and a half hour gig. Playlist leaned heavily to Tamla, Northern Soul and Ska.

Now something the client said before was bang on. This was a playlist for her Mum, and might not suit all the guests. How right she was! Mum and I could have stuck rigidly to the list, and had an awesome night. She danced almost all night. ( This is in fact the venue where I had my " Duracell bride ", who danced all night in a heatwave and was " glowing " to an extreme degree ). Mum worked up a similar amount of " glow" during the night, and had to dab herself down with a hankie from time to time.

The problem was, that not all the guests wanted all the playlist, and unbelievably, I ran out of songs! Actually, what I ran out of, was songs on the list which would appeal to most of the guests. All in all, still a great night, I heard guests leaving saying what a great time they'd had, and a great review Monday morning.

Last night. 21st in a local golf club. Another huge playlist, submitted as jpegs, so hard to shuffle about into any sort of order. Absolutely full of stuff I'd play at many events, a great list with very few pitfalls, except how to structure the tempo of the night, as it was expected to run from 7 till 1. I picked a lot of the more background ones, and managed to get the floor started slowly. This list had Cheese, EDM, Indie, and party classics. It was one of those you couldn't steer. Every time you set off in one direction, requests came in for a musical about turn. To be fair, the about turns being requested usually worked well. I never really got properly into the EDM, which was a shame, as the night went on it was split between Indie and Cheese.

Technically, a good night, but I think it could have been better. Christmas party locally tonight, picked up on Facebook from a multi op nearby. Then it's my packed fixture list of two parties before Christmas.

[Excalibur]

imbibing enough alcohol to relax and enjoy a party, and being seriously squiffy. More on that later.

My booking for last night was culled in a Hotel's " Night Of The Long Knives ", so I was delighted to pick up a party close to home for a local operator, who I know in passing. Early setup, in a tiny hall, for a group of forty something friends who hold charity fundraisers in memory of a friend who dropped dead suddenly before the age of 38!

They would have a meal, and I would return at 9.30pm to do my job. This place was TINY and I had one Polar, and one lighting column, with Hadron, Crossfire XP, and Spectrapix batten mounted vertically. Overkill in all honesty, as it was so small, and the effects were stifled.

The whole thing ( except me ) was in-house, even to bringing alcohol. After holding a tombola, and silly games, I kicked off, once they had removed tables to create a dance floor. I was given a brief of start with Tamla, move on to modern, and end with a bit of Clubland. Good plan, which soon went South. ( I would have put " ganged agley ", but as the Scottish vernacular would have breached my beloved Rule 23, I didn't ).

Very nice folk, some of whom were in the " very friendly " stage of inebriation, and to be fair to them all, the behaviour was impeccable. Apart from one miserable lady who didn't seem to approve of anything I played. We ended up with a significant amount of Cheese, and a smattering of EDM and general recent chart.

Much strong drink was taken, and it was having an effect. One lady went to sleep in the disabled toilet (and was abandoned by her husband, to the disgust of most other guests ) and after I'd finished, it was difficult to get to the van for the large lady prone in front of it, in the gravel! She was returned to the upright position by friends, and once more, I could load the van.

For me, a very fun night, for some guests a great night, and for others this morning, one they'd like to forget. I envisage much marital disharmony today.

[Imagine]

Well where do I begin?

For the past 10 or so years, I've been the tame DJ of choice for the local swimming club. The guests range from age 5 to 75 (possibly even older) and as you'd expect, the first hour or so is taken frantically cueing up "stings" as they come up to receive awards and trophies.

Tonight's was the best one of these I've done....EVER!
Last year was a little muted, they were all still terrified of catching the disease of the moment and it died a death a little too early. Tonight....they were baying for more

The music style for this one? Let's just say I don't bother even making an outline of a playlist. I think I chose a total of one track tonight, the rest was requests from the assembled club members. What did they ask for? Let's just say it was a very refreshing mix of the stinkiest cheddar you could ever imagine. Nothing's off limits with this one, even I Am The Music Man.

The best bit? They all get up and take part! The dance floor was very healthy for the entire evening. Just goes to show that cheese isn't always bad.

The booking's already in the bag for the same Friday next December as well