I've just had 2 gigs over the weekend that have not really been that straightfoward.
Friday's booking was a wedding in Southampton. The booking came in a few weeks back and most of the communication was done by email and phone. Unfortunately we were unable to meet up in advance due to a number of commitments on the customers side and getting in touch with the venue was a bit of a nightmare. That was only just the start!
The Bride & Groom were pretty chilled out and booked me because they saw that I catered for the Alternative side of things. Their request list was pretty big and had some really good tracks on it. There were supposed to be around 80 in attendance. I gave myself plenty of time to travel and set up and I was at the venue a lot earlier than I had planned and I am glad I was. The reason being was that on arrival I was met by the venue owner who informed me that access was via the stairs at the back of the venue as the wedding reception was being held upstairs. This was the first I had heard of it. It clearly asks the question on my booking forms which the customer had either ignored or just missed and had I been able to get in touch with the venue, I'd have asked about access and been more prepared for it.
It was a nightmare getting up them as there were 2 floors and not only that, the stairs were rusty, creaky and didn't look entirely safe. To be honest, the venue was a bit of a dive (and that's being complimentary!). On arrival I met the Bride & Groom for the first time and their parents and they were very nice. The Bride was very excited but the Groom was just chilled out and didn't really say anything. I started setting up in plenty of time after I had nearly had a heart attack from getting the gear up the stairs. The venue owner came in just as I was about to sound check and informed me that I would be better off setting up in the opposite corner as the Sound Limiter was very sensitive!!!! Sound Limiter!!???? What?? It just got worse as time went on. I tested the levels first before moving the equipment and he was right - VERY sensitive. I informed the Bride & Groom of what I was doing and eventually got set up opposite but noticed that once I started playing I had to keep an eye on the limiter as it didn't seem to take much for it to get up in the final 3 red bars. I was told tthat the 3 red bars could flicker but was advised not to let them stay on the red.....D'oh! I actually had my little hand held sound level meter with me and also the app on my iPhone and I clocked the level at around 79db which seemed pretty quiet to me. I thought around 90db was perfectly acceptable.
Anyway, around half of the 80 guests turned up and it was one of those nights where it was on/off/on/off with reference to the dance floor. There was one group who danced to nearly everything and bombarded me with requests and they kept me going really as it wasn't the best gig in the world. At about 11.20pm the Bride & Groom asked me to let everyone know that they were leaving so I did this. There were around 20 people left by then. I spoke to the father of the bride and asked him if he wanted me to continue or to fade out the music and bring the night to a close. He said it was up to me so once the majority of the 20 that were left had gone downstairs to see the Bride & Groom off, I started to wind it down and pack down. A couple of people came back up to finish their drinks and one of them asked me if I had finished. He said it was a cracking night and with some great tunes and shook my hand and then left. I knew now that it would be another 'fun' task of getting the gear down the stairs and back to the van and it was pretty scarier as it wasn't lit that well and the stairs were very steep. Once I had done it I was a sweaty mess and to be honest, I was glad to get in the van and away. I wouldn't visit that venue again.
Saturday saw me at the Princes Hall in Aldershot for another wedding. This was booked at the beginning of the year and the Groom was best man at a wedding I had done the previous year. When we met I remembered his face and the other wedding and I had high expectations about this one because the other wedding was non stop dancing all night. Communication with the venue and customers was excellent and the Bride & Groom told me to just do my thing as they already knew what I was like from the previous wedding. The only requests they had were their first dances and 2 Do Not Plays. The Groom also informed me that he used to do the mobile DJ thing and one of his guests still does it too but they didn't want to book him because they wanted him to be a guest. I joked with the Groom when we met in advance and said "Tell him to leave me to it and not be a nosey neighbour!" and he laughed.
On Thursday I received a call from the venue. It was one of the guests who worked there. She informed me that the Bride worked there and one of her favourite theatre productions is Les Miserables. She said there would be lots of work colleagues there too and that they wanted to surprise her with a flash mob type thing. It was to be a secret and we'd sort it out on the night. I was interested to see how this would go.
So, I get to the venue, again in plenty of time and lots of people are chilling out. Access is easy (thankfully) and I am set up in almost record time. I have around 40 minutes before I am due to start. A guy from the venue comes over and asks me if I can do a sound check which I thought was a bit strange as I had already tested everything. He then tells me that there is a performance of The Wizard Of Oz going on upstairs from 7.00pm - 10.00pm and that the music should be kept low. I ask if the Bride & Groom know about this and he says yes. I double check with them whilst he nips off for 5 minutes and they're cool with it. He asks me to pump up the volume a bit so he can get an idea of the level and I do this and he gives me the signal to turn it down, then a bit more.....and some more....and then a tiny bit more...and then...Hold on! Is it worth me playing anything? I cut out as much bass as I can and eventually the time comes to start the evening. More guests have arrived and the venue is filling up nicely. There are lots of children there and they are all dancing and sliding about on the dance floor. Within 15 minutes a woman with a walkie talkie from the venue comes over and shouts at me "You're going to have to turn it down a bit more as we can hear it clearly upstairs in the theatre!"... No problem. I do this for her and she gets on the walkie talkie where the voice on the other end says "A bit more please". I can't actually believe this. It seems unbelievably quiet to me. Once she's gone I walk out front on to the dance floor and it does seem quiet.
The time comes for the first dances so I make an announcement and everything goes to plan. A nice atmosphere and lots of cheering and clapping......guess what!? Yes, I get another visit from walkie talkie woman. "Could you please keep the volume down" she says. I tell her that I haven't increased the volume at all since she last came to see me and that I couldn't control the volume of people's clapping etc... The Groom comes over a bit later and tells me that everyone is having a cracking time. I asked if he was ok with the volume etc and he's fine and tells me that I can crank it up once the show is over upstairs. Apparently the venue don't have functions on when there are shows on but because the Bride worked at the venue, they said it would be ok as long as the DJ (me) understood that the volume had to low. I thought this was weird but went along with it. I even advised everyone over the mic what was going on and to be fair not one person said anything about how quiet it was. It was strange for me as I could hear feet on the dance floor and chatting too. Very bizarre!
When it came to the flash mob surprise it worked a treat. I started to play the 'One Day More' backing track and a guy popped up and started singing. He was stood next to the Bride and she wondered what was going on and as the song went on, more and more people popped up singing until it was more or less the whole room. It worked really well and the Bride and Groom were in tears. They loved it and to be honest, I thought it was really cool.
Just after this had happened I had yet another visit from someone from upstairs. It wasn't walkie talkie woman but looked like a member of the cast. She was quite rude and shouted at me to "turn the music down" and "have some respect for what they were doing upstairs for paying customers". I really didn't know what to say. I tried to explain but she was one of those people that just blurted out what she wanted to get her point across and then stormed off just as I was about to explain. The Groom saw this and came over and just laughed and said "You're doing a cracking job so don't worry. We're loving it".
It was now 9.55pm (I had been looking at the time all night just waiting for it to get to 10.00pm so we could really go for it). I had plenty of requests for Cheese and Indie / Rock during the evening and I was saving it all. It hit 10.00pm and the Groom said "Go for it" so I upped the volume and played 'Love Shack' as it was the most requested song of the night. The dance floor filled instantly and about half way through it walkie talkie woman came running over to me. She informed me that it would be 10.15pm when the performance would be finished so could I please drop the volume again. I'll be honest, I was getting a bit annoyed now and even though I didn't say anything and wasn't rude, I think she could tell and she couldn't apologise enough. I dropped the volume and loads of people that were dancing looked over to me. I just shook my head and didn't say anything. They knew it wasn't my fault.
At 10.16pm on the dot walkie talkie woman ran over and gave me the thumbs up and from then on it was a packed dance floor with everyone really getting into it. It was so much better. It seemed like the previous 3 hours had been more or less background music. Funny thing was, I really thought I had annoyed the people upstairs, especially walkie talkie woman and her staff but she came over to me at the end of the night and thanked me for my co-operation. I was surprised at that.
It was actually a really good night. The last couple of hours finished it off nicely and they were shouts of "one more!" so I played them another couple. The Bride & Groom got on the mic and thanked everyone and then made a big deal of me and everyone cheered. As I was packing up someone asked me for a card and said they'd had a great time.
Apologies for the mammoth report. I'm glad this weekend is done and dusted now.
