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gary I want to give you a massive hug, this made my month hearing this. we have quoted for one there the other day, I have done it a few times before and hate the access. but now I feel a lot happier :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Shakermaker Promotions
No worries.
I know the next time I am there the first thing I will do is ask for the keys to the gate.
There are benches round the back and a little path leading to the door where you can get in. You can reverse down that and back right up to the door AND (believe it or not), they'll let you leave the van there until the end of the night.
Friday night, I was at a Village Hall that I had nothing but run ins with. I originally had this typed up in the Supporter's area but now that the gig is over, and that I am now fully aware that my clients felt the exact same way, I will copy and paste what I put there to give some background.
I tried to organise a site visit as I've never been this venue before. I spoke to the contact at the venue, and she was...shall we say most unhelpful.
Firstly she couldn't understand why I needed to do a site visit, so I explained that I need to look at access, the area where I'll be working so I can bring appropriate equipment and to do a risk assessment.
"But it's just a disco."
*breath deep and go past it* :Censored:
She starts to explain the room and access to me (no doubt trying to stop me from doing the visit) and I ask questions that she couldn't answer. When asked how big the stage was, she replied "It's pretty big." I'm not familiar with that term of measurement, but a quick google search tells me that a 'pretty big' is 4 metres squared (I may have just made that up). :rolleyes:
There's a sound limiter that turns off the power for 15 minutes if too loud. Ok, what's the limit? "I don't know. I've never been told that information." Well what frequencies does it react to? "Don't know."
See? This is part of the :Censored:ing reason why I need to check this out myself.
So I push again for a visit which she is very reluctant to do, but she soon changed her mind when I told her that I'll have to email my clients and inform them that I am unable to ensure that they and their guests at their wedding will be able to have fun in the safest environment that I can possibly provide because the venue won't let me look around the room for ten minutes. Oh and here's hoping that I don't trip the sound limiter on the night, giving my clients and their guests nothing to listen and dance to for 15 minutes because I was unable to run a basic test so I can provide my clients with the best possible service that I can.
She finally conceded and I did a site visit the week before the big day. I took a sound system with me and gave it a test run with absolutely no problems with the sound limiter. I even ragged it a bit to see how far I can push it but the monitor didn't even flicker. I wonder how loud other DJs have been in the past to make this thing shut the power off? My favourite part of this monitor?
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That's right - the on/off switch for the sound limiter is on the monitor to the side of the stage where I'll be set up. It was all of 10 feet to my right. What genius put that there? Not that I needed to switch it off, but still!
Anyway, whilst doing my sound test I end up in a conversation with the woman there and it was just whingeing and complaining to the point where I just switched off. Across the road is a lovely venue and the B&G were literally having their entire day there except for the evening function. Now, I never asked the reason why for this (it is none of my business) but I would assume that it was more to do with the size of the function room over cost. The venue across the road is, as I say, lovely but the function room is the size of a large living room (8 steps between DJ booth and bar). I wouldn't have thought it'd be about cost because by the time you've paid for everything else, by the time you get to the evening function you have either already paid for it, or the extra cost is negligible by that point. I couldn't see it costing more than hiring a village hall, getting external caterers and an external bar, so I think it was a size thing. The woman at the village hall though definitely thought it was cost and told me that she asked the father of the bride how much per head they were paying across the road (who the hell asks that?) and apparently is was £75 a head. Sounds about right, was my reply.
Anyway, onto the evening do and it was a rather fun night. Everyone was happy, plenty of people dancing, the bride's mother and father spent half an hour complaining to me about 'the horrible ogre' (genuine quote). Up to this point, I never told my clients about the problems I had (I see it as my job to reduce stress) but this certainly looked like some common ground with the bride's parents so I just listened and said that I understood what they had to endure as I had some troubles too. Great night though and I had a lot of thank yous. Took some pics and even though it was a bit cramped to say the least, I thought it was decorated very nicely.
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Saturday night, I was at Hogarths Hotel for a wedding. Nice couple - two brides who both looked stunning in their wedding dresses. There was me and a singer on for the entertainment. I was initially supposed to be positioned half way down the room, so I was only going to use two plinths, my subs and my 8 inch tops as I obviously didn't need the sound to be thrown as far. Got there on the night to find out that I'm now at the end of the room. Never mind - I've bought all four plinths just in case and my moving heads are all in one case so I have all the lighting I need. Only issue was that I'd rather have had my 12 inch tops with my subs to throw the sound better, but hey ho. Nothing to be done about that.
Background music up until the singer does his first set. I thought he was pretty good, but I felt it was to early for him to start. He has a second set later on in the evening though, so he'll have them going then. Whilst he sings, I provide the lighting and it looked and sounded pretty good (even if I do say so myself).
Cake cutting onto first dance, very rowdy bunch. As soon as that's done, I start off with a bit of pop and that rams the floor. Had a circle going, so we did a bit of a dance off too. Food starts getting served, so dancing numbers dwindle and it's time for the singer's second set. After that, I'm back on and the floor is jumping again. It was at this part of the evening that a chap asked me to play the Jive Bunny Megamix. I said I'll have to have a look and see if I have it, which I didn't (to be honest, I've never heard it - if you played it to me and asked "What's this?", I couldn't tell you!). He then became abusive to me for the rest of the evening. Hand gestures, offensive language and I just laughed at him. Gave him a big smile, thumbs up and a quick wink here and there. If I felt intimidated then I would have gone to the clients but he was just mouth and it was amusing watching him trying to get a reaction out of me. No point spoiling their night for one idiot.
Last song of the night, I played Bump n Grind and after the music was done, mouthy was back to abusing with me standing there laughing at him ("great idea playing a paedophile song there!" was my particular favourite). What I assumed was his missus was mortified by what she was hearing and kept apologising profusely. I was still laughing by this point, telling her it's fine and not to worry.
Sunday night's gig was unfortunately cancelled (I hate having those conversations - and it's always with the bride). My night off, however, was spoilt by me firing out both exits (which I am still doing today!).
Well now. Tonight was my inaugural gig as a solo DJ (at a residency) with all my own gear (well almost - the rest should be arriving tomorrow OR ELSE!). I was booked in to do a school prom for around 30 16-ish year olds. I had an early dart from work (I can finish at 3 & be home by half past) & got the car loaded up. I might have to rethink my plan to get a sub, or just get more creative with my packing & stacking.
Anyhow, within 40 minutes I had all the gear in & up. I changed my mind about where to put my gigabar & had to clart around aiming lights again which took another 20 minutes to fix but hey, I was wayyyy too early so I had time.
In came the young adults around 7pm & I already had background music going. They ate a 3 course meal, had a presentation (votes had been cast for various dubious qualities [e.g. form member most likely to be prime minister etc] which was fun & then I got down to business. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, except when they all disappeared to be photographed outside in the beautiful countryside sunset. Requests came in & were all serviced, and all were greedily gobbled up by the crowd including Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl (!). There was a danceoff (my idea) between arguably the best dressed male pupil & the 'trendy' teacher.. when I say 'dance off' I mean like I played Run DMC vs Jason Nevins' 'It's Like That' and there were handsprings, breakdancing - the works! Fabulous fun.
Then came a request for 'Gold Digger'. By none other than the girl who was nominated most likely to marry into money, so I couldn't possibly refrain from commenting (see, don't just switch off when it's not your bit, you can find stuff to use!) & I had everybody laughing along. Great banter.
Out came requests for all the usual cheese staples but to be honest all the newer stuff was getting a better response, though I played em anyway.
Time rolled on & I came back up to date for a while before entering the last half hour with cheese. I just got half way through SClub 7 'Reach' when a teacher informed me I'd already overrun. Wha? But I was booked to 11.30. Oh well, hey ho. Told the prommers the score, said I was sorry etc, wished them all the best of luck with their results & whatever they choose to do in the future.. and they all stood in a line waiting to shake my hand & thank me for such a great night. Knock me down with a feather!
Atmosphere & music aside, the loadin & setup wasn't as big a shock to the system as I expected. The early finish had me packed up by 11.30 & on my way home. I got my car safely unloaded & cracked open a beer just after midnight.
So, to tomorrow - and the arrival of (hopefully) a couple of LED scanners (I was tempted to go for ADJ Inno pocket wossnames, but meh.. no separate gobo & colour wheels, and only 10W.. the scanners are 25W).. and a HAZE MACHINE. Woo woo! There are no smoke detectors in any of the residency venues function rooms (YES!), so let there be beams!
My Mackies performed admirably (not that they had to go loud with so few people there), as did my ancient disco mixer (the FSM400 is still in bits waiting for me to fix the meter board).. The gigabar absolutely fills the room with colour, almost (but not quite) bleaching out the Chauvet Scorpion Storm RGB laser. How anybody can hope to work with only dotty LED effects without haze or fog - and no wash lighting, is beyond my comprehension.
Saturday sees the debut of the whole show.. (well almost, again .. I need something else.. something to go in front of the deckstand - think backlit facade) for a smallish wedding reception.
Blimey! I don't want to talk too soon but I seem to be blessed with really good weddings at the moment. Another one last night at one of my residencies and talk about a mad one!
It was a wedding party for a couple (the C&B Manager's brother) who got married in Barbados a few weeks ago. Masses of late 20's / 30 something's filled the room from 7.30m - Midnight-ish. There was no first dance and no cake cutting, the couple just wanted a good party and that's what they got. I also provided Pink uplighting too.
Beforehand there wasn't much communication despite my best attempts. The Bride & Groom were really laid back and just provided me with a long list of requests last week and that was more or less it. The request list was full of current chart, some scatterings of cheese and some dance stuff (Disclosure, Prodigy, Gorgon City etc).
It was a bit of a 'slow burner' with lots of people catching up with eachother for the first couple of hours. I was playing decent stuff and keeping a nice vibe with the volume at low level but would you believe it, for the first time in years I got asked to turn it down a bit.....twice. That never happens to me so it was a bit of a surprise and it wasn't one of the older crowd either, it was a girl who was quite rude at first and shouted at me. I simply said to her "Sorry, I'll drop it a bit for you but there's no need to be so rude"...She apologised and I think she was embarrassed to be honest. For the rest of the night she was a proper laugh and looked like she was having a great time.
It got quite messy at times and at one point I wish I hadn't played 'I Predict A Riot' which had been requested because they really went for it on the dance floor and I had to stand in front of my kit. I also noticed this morning when collecting it that someone had spilt some of their drink over one of my screens so that's now in the washing machine.
It was all going really well and the atmosphere was great and then I realised that it was 11.45pm. Time had flown by and the dance floor was packed. Another girl came over and asked "Have you got anything by Busted?" so I put on 'What I Go To School For' and they went absolutely mad for it. Finished off with a few more from that era and then Starship, Take That and finally Madness and we could have kept going but it was now 00.25am and it was best to stop because of the hotel residents.
Lots of really good feedback afterwards as I stopped to have a drink with everyone and saw the Bride & Groom this morning when I was packing up. They were very happy.
So this weekend was a ball up from start to finish and I kinda wish i'd not bothered.
Had a nice booking at Newcastle Civic through another company but was called on Monday and told Bride had gone off it when she heard a different DJ was doing it so that was pulled. This was not too bad as I had a few leads for work but couldn't get through to my new residency on phone to take their booking, another party was off then on then off so distanced myself quickly as I'd already had a cancellation for this weekend and had my other DJ out working another job.
In the end another local company I do work for called and offered me a walk-in gig which I was more than happy to take. Problem was 3 more local DJ's got in touch shortly after offering much more lucrative work. But true to our motto I kept the job i'd booked so as not to let anyone down. Its a kick in the teeth I could have earned twice as much but hey ho.
So the gig was a 91st Birthday at the Mercure Hotel in Darlo. Been here a few times and its a nice hotel with woeful parking. Driving down I went into auto pilot and took the wrong bloody road elongating the journey by 15 mins. Now here is the kicker, spent all day updating my laptop which I use for backup and decided it would be a good test to use it for the walk-in as its more portable. Instantly had issues getting controller to sync with it so had to go without while I reinstalled drivers etc. Then the CPU is going mental and it crashes - balls.
Next I notice that having plugged in my mixer we seem to be in mono, and by mono I mean 1 speaker working. This is the other companies gear and should have been tested on install. On inspection the speaker is overheating and having been on for not 10 mins is hot to touch on the heatsink and the other isn't. Test the wires etc using my mic and its dead or worse as seems to be feeding something to the speaker. So I swap in my mic lead and were running again. However now the input to the speaker is far greater then its friend on the right, balance is correct so I have to use the mixer to balance the volumes.
By now sick of my life. No mic and these are supposed to be cheap gigs as I just turn up and play music. Queue the flaming on cheap but some money is better than none in my books.
So onto the party - there are about 20 people in the room and they are eating so I ease the music on... more to come
Sounds like a right nasty time Andy.
Pro tip for whoever runs a multi-op disco business: Take a 3.5mm stereo jack plug to RCA cable with you and give the PA a very quick once over before you scoot off :) That problem has bugged me a few times doing walk-in gigs. Phone the gaffer.. "Ah yeah, just give the speaker a tap on the back. That'll sort it". No, get the gear fixed!
As I've already posted, Saturday's gig for me was a wedding in my residency. I'd arrived early to set up & found not only had the function room been changed, the guests had taken it upon themselves to arrive in the room early too, along with a piano vocalist who was intent on murdering songs until 7pm.
In spite of everything I managed to get loaded in & set up as completely as I could without causing major disruption. At 7.05pm I was going, playing background music. I was told the B&G wanted to get the formalities out of the way as quickly as possible, so first dance would be early & they'll get the B&G to come to talk to me about it. The buffet would open at 8.30 apparently. So, grand entrance and first dance done I had a full dancefloor. The photographer came over to ask if I knew when the cake would be cut.. I said I didn't know & kept bobbing out of the DJ pulpit to find the planner person. Nowhere to be seen & the cake table wasn't in a prominent position. Oh dear. Eventually it was decided to go ahead with the cutting of the cake without moving the table.
This still left 30 minutes until the buffet was going to open, so I thought stuff it, let's go then. Full dancefloor for recent hits & items from the B&G's massive playlist and as 8.30 approached I found myself checking the buffet room to see if the food was ready or for any sign of somebody who could give me an exact time. It's usually a good idea to announce the food is available when it's still hot y'know. 8.40 arrived & there was still no sign of a kitchen staff member but as if by magic the buffet room was full of people helping themselves to food so I announced it in the function room & went into background music mode.
I gave that around 20 minutes then progressed into playing tempter tracks and within 15 minutes had a full floor. The playlist tracks were, it's kindest to say were a bit of a mishmash if they weren't the usual suspects for a wedding disco. Who says you need lights for people to dance? The floor was full and it was still fully light in the room thanks to the all glass roof (the room is in a former courtyard). I did have my gigabar in its slow crossfade mode but it wasn't noticably hitting anything yet the natural light was still so bright.
Onwards, working through the list of 'must play' songs, some of which cleared the floor of all but 2 or 3 people, but mostly a busy floor. And then it started to feel very warm in the room. My usual stance of building energy up to absolute full-on party by 10.30pm was going to need a rethink - people were simply running out of steam it was so hot, so I tried to introduce mini cooldown sets - and as luck would have it the groom had asked me to play Peter Andre - Mysterious Girl, so I took the BPMs down a good few notches with that, and a selection of boyband hits from Five & Backstreet Boys to a full floor. The floor & room emptied & reunited in waves. The one aircon unit in the room wasn't having much of an effect, bless it. By 11.15pm it was either too cold for people to sit outside or they'd just decided to tolerate the heat inside til midnight so I had a full floor again. Proud Mary had been requested in the big long playlist so I cued it up to the start of the fast part & sent it on its way, which went down very well indeed.
The last two songs of the night were to be Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes' dirty dancing effort followed by Semisonic 'Closing Time' (what? Pick a better last song than that - maybe one everybody's more likely to know at least in passing) but I worked in the bride's selection of Jimi Jameson's Baywatch Theme (talk about hitting the spot with all the ladies)... then played the 'last' two songs... As I suspected it might, Closing Time fell on its backside very badly so I cut it short & played out with another item from the playlist I'd used earlier as background music - Eric Clapton's 'Wonderful Tonight'. Tada! Big cheer for this, and a rammed floor :D Bride's mam & dad were very impressed & said so. "Just doin my job, ma'am" was kind of my reply.
I've got 2 gigs next week - another prom on Thursday and another wedding on Saturday. The prom is going to be over before the light has fully gone, so that's going to be interesting. See if people can be coerced into dancing without the aid of alcohol or flashing lights, eh? Bring on the syrupy sugar punch!
"Prom! Pfft. You were lucky if your school had an end of year disco in my day.", says just about everyone.
I do hope you are feigning naivety there. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by juski
Yes & no. I'd not played to anybody under 18 (knowingly) for over 20 years til last week & I was amazed by how easy it was to get them going. I'd be naive to think it'll always be that easy though. Maybe despite advances in technology & so-called over-sophistication of kids' tastes some things don't change so much after all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Benny Smyth
School proms are great fun to do, but I do feel ashamed that kids these days don't use a lot of common sense. Last year, I noticed one kid try to sneak in a '2 litre bottle of coke'. "It's just coke Miss...honest!" :rolleyes: In my day, we were smart enough to sneak our booze in via a hip flask.Quote:
Originally Posted by juski