Joiner Xmas Parties

[Ryu]

Had my first of the season last night and all went well, playing our usual Xmas season venue, a beautiful stately home, big function room with a small stage, that lights well, approx 150 people, and averaged 40 on the dancefloor all night.

A joiner (as I am certain most of you know) is where a number of different companies share the function, last nights was a combo of hospital staff, hairdressers and a hovercraft club (?).

Played background Xmas songs throughout the meal, with some non Xmas toe tappers thrown in, even had a few dancing to background music! Then started up with intros for each company, asked for requests and kicked of with a bit of Duck Sauce - Barbara Streisand and went from there.

Though all went well, there was a running battle through the night with half the audience wanting modern, the rest wanting classics and fortunately for the most part each half was reasonably tolerant of the other when we flowed between new and old.

Nice round of applause at the end with a good Xmas singalong to finish...all in all, happy if all the Xmas work goes as well.

Point of the thread though, a question for you...how do you handle joiners with differing tastes? I mean, everyone paid the same money to attend, so you cater for all...right?

You cant please everyone all the time as my learned father keeps telling me...

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Good question.
I must admit, every christmas party I did last year bar one was a joiner party and this year they are all joiner parties.
It can be tough sometimes but I guess it's down to using your experience of reading the crowd etc...

When I am doing the background music (I set a playlist to continue and fade in / fade out), I usually try and get to chat to a few of the guests to find out what they like etc...Friday's party was predominantly young and full of women and I guessed that the classic stuff (Weather Girls, Michael Jackson, Candi Staton etc) would work alongside current chart stuff and it did.

Last night was a mixture of all ages and I was getting requests from allover the shop from everyone. The interesting thing was that I got talking to a bunch of girls (hairdressers) who you would assume would like all of the current chart RnB type stuff etc (and they did as the requests flooded in) but they knocked the nail on the head with the comment "It's a christmas party at the end of the day and you've got to play the cheese. We hear all the up to date stuff when we go clubbing".

So far (I've only done 2 parties so far), everything has gone to plan and I think everyone has had the music that they want but you can't please everyone all of the time. I've had no complaints from anyone at all and the feedback to the hotel has been good. I have even given out some cards.

Last year I had one older gentleman that was quite rude to me who said "Excuse me young man, this is my christmas party too and I want you to play something that I like". Now, that may not sound rude but you had to be there. He then requested some Perry Como!! I really wanted to keep him happy but I had a packed dancefloor all night on that occasion and playing Perry Como just for Mr Rude would have killed the dancefloor. Thing is, he was dancing to everything anyway!

[Megamix]

Most people understand - but it's the insistent, rude and often drunk ones who try and take you off track.

[Vectis]

.how do you handle joiners with differing tastes? I mean, everyone paid the same money to attend, so you cater for all...right?

Christmas parties are one of the few types of gigs where it helps to 'show a bit of personality' if you catch my drift, early doors.

A bit of audience interaction before you get going - "now which table is going to be the biggest pain in the backside tonight?" - get them acknowledging the fact that there's a person behind the decks, and if you can get a few cheers and a bit of noise out of them you're halfway there.

Then, if you have a good mix of sexes, have some boys -v- girls dances or sing-offs; a mix of ages, some older -v- modern party dance offs and such like to keep them interested.

Don't overdo it though - careful balance is required.

But overall play a good mix of music - if you're getting wildly differing requests then genre-hop quite frequently but steer the earlier part of the evening towards the (generally) older genres and save the latter part for the (generally) younger ones to fit with "bedtime".

I always made a point of getting names and dedications with requests at this type of gig - keeps the interaction going as folks know who to cheer (or jeer) when the song kicks in :)

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Spot on advice!
I think the main thing is to break the ice (pardon the pun because of the current situation)...

You do get some rowdy groups who are all out to get drunk, be the preverbial pain in the backsides and to make the most of their companies stash behind the bar and then you get the others who just want to have a great evening. I break the ice as soon as the last desserts are being finished by welcoming everyone to the venue and saying that I hoped they enjoyed their meal. Then (as you said) I will find out who the loudest bunch are and it gets the atmosphere set.
Example from last night..

"Good evening to Barclays! Come on, where are you!?" and they all go mad.
"Good evening to Wickes!" and so on. Everyone got in the spirit straight away. A bit of Black Eyed Peas kicked off the proceedings and away we went.

[supersound]

I used to do the interaction thing(12 days ect)and I used to do table magic too at coffee time.

[andyw]

I used to do the interaction thing(12 days ect)and I used to do table magic too at coffee time.

we must do the table magic thing, as soon as we start playing whole tables disappear:)

most of our parties are joiners, you just have to go with the flow and play for both lots,(same as a lot of family events do a little of everything to please everyone) last night was the first of the season for us, we had a great response for the older classics but even thought there was quite a few younger ones in(and they were requesting chart r&b etc) they never really danced to it, last night they wanted a lot of cheese including music man (the lady requesting it meet us at the door on the way in and came up every 30 minutes to make sure we hadn't forgotten about it::mad: :eek: ) and she danced top it with all her friends

[Charlie Brown]

What songs do you guys use for sing offs?

[ian8limelight]

Firstly, I find 'joiner' Xmas parties tend to go better than single company ones, certainly because the latter seem somewhat reluctant to 'let their hair down' in front of their work colleagues/partners.

Secondly, with a 'joiner' party, the DJ is not the only person who doesn't know the guests (i.e. one table/party won't know the other).

A good mixture of background music Xmas classiscs (+ Brian Setzter, thanks Steve :D ) always goes down well. When the sweet/coffee starts arriving, I usually find that it's a good time to get the guests involved with some sing-a-long songs. For me, the following usually work, and in no particular order:-

It's not unusual
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Daydream believer
Delilah
Always look on the bright side of life
Sweet Caroline
Theme from "Happy Days"

Then announce each table/party name and see who can make the most noise.

As for the first Xmas starter track, Maria Carey normally does the trick. As for the final track of the night, Shakin' Stevens is the one for me :cool: