Gig advice/questions

[DJWilliams]

I'm djing at a party in 2 weeks time (It's a charity event to raise money for Japan) and I've got a few questions...

I think there'll be 150+ people attending and the venue is fairly small. I think I'll be djing on a table or something at one end of the main room (This sucks because I'm quite tall and I don't want to be bending down for the whole night). I don't think the venue have got a PA system so I'll have to try and rent one from somewhere (what is a typical price for a pa system, and are there any specs I should look out for?) I also think they want lighting but I have no idea what to suggest.

The organisers are a group of girls (18 years old) and after I'd agreed to DJ she said she'd want me to play mostly top 40 (which I can understand, in a way) because she went to a party there before and nobody was dancing (probably because they didn't have a dj ). I said I'd play a bit of everything, I'm primarily a dnb dj so I'm thinking of playing cheese for the first hour, then moving on to house, trance and finally dnb. It's worth noting that everything I play is club-suited, I don't play jump up or minimal dnb, it's mostly all mainstream sounding stuff, I also have a LOT of remixes of popular tracks which I think will go down well. I said to her that I'd record a few 'mini-mixes' in different genres so she can have an idea of what kind of music I'll play. I agreed to DJ for free (I haven't played anywhere big before, just a few small parties, but I've met a promoter and I'll be djing in a club soon at one of their nights) and I wouldn't have agreed to do it if the conditions were 'play top 40 all night'.

Do any of you have any tips on how to get people dancing and get people to come to the dancefloor? I emailed Phil Morse (editor of digitaldjtips) and he said play the music a bit quiet and turn it up a lot when I start playing one of my sets (let's face it, I'm not gonna be mixing for 5 hours). But what if people are elsewhere and I want to start my set? How do I let people 'know' that I'm gonna start mixing?

Another thing I'm worried about is, if I'm just on a table in the corner of the room, I'll have people coming up to me all night requesting stuff and being annoying. I only know 10-20 people that will be attending the party and a mate is coming along but I know I'll be at the table on my own for most of the night. What if someone gets aggresive or starts messing with my gear?

I know that drunk people = dancing people but the only way of getting alcohol is from the bar at the venue so I don't think people will be spending lots of money on booze. Do you think getting the organisers to buy a few crates of beer would be bad? the venue would probably take it off us but if there's any tips you can give me regarding this they'd be appreciated.

I think that's it haha, thanks in advance

[DJWilliams]

...

[droctavia]

You can only make people dance by playing what they want to hear.

Give it a while, let them hit the bar and loosen up a bit and start dropping the big ones halfway through the night and try and keep them there.

What other stuff will be going on during this fundraiser or is it purely you mixing some tunes?

[DJWilliams]

You can only make people dance by playing what they want to hear.

Give it a while, let them hit the bar and loosen up a bit and start dropping the big ones halfway through the night and try and keep them there.

What other stuff will be going on during this fundraiser or is it purely you mixing some tunes?

That sums it up for me. Basically all it is is a farmhouse style building/s with a pub and a big room where I'll be, so yeah, socialising/dancing is all they can do. The facebook event page is dull too, it just says 'a party to raise money for japan', so when my mixes are finished I'll get the organisers to post that I'll be djing there and a link to my soundcloud.

[droctavia]

Not much you can do then about music choice unless you had a specific genre advertised.

Just go for the cheesy dance/deadmau5/swedish house mafia angle to get people moving.

[DJWilliams]

Not much you can do then about music choice unless you had a specific genre advertised.

What? I'm the DJ, I play what I want to a certain extent (Cue a horde of angry posts...) What if they put on the event description something like: 'he'll be playing everything from house to drum&bass' along with the mixes this would give them an idea of what to expect.

Just go for the cheesy dance/deadmau5/swedish house mafia angle to get people moving.

This is what I was going to start off with, then move up to dnb, if people don't respond to it, I'll get the idea and put some house back on.

..

[photojojo]

Even though you're doing it for free your job is to play what they want and not what you want. If you start shifting into some things you like and they don't dance then shift back to what's making them dance.

[DJWilliams]

Even though you're doing it for free your job is to play what they want and not what you want. If you start shifting into some things you like and they don't dance then shift back to what's making them dance.

I'm gonna regret saying I'd do it aren't I...
I can just imagine the hordes of girls coming up to me while I'm in the middle of a set asking for katy perry or some shit.

[photojojo]

Get a notebook and write requests on it real big. If someone has one get them to write it in there so they bother you less. If you're real high tech you can set up a google voice number for requests. Then you just hang up a sign that says text request to 1-900-pleaseplaythiscrapysong. Go through them every once in a while and see if you have something on the list.

[DJWilliams]

Get a notebook and write requests on it real big. If someone has one get them to write it in there so they bother you less. If you're real high tech you can set up a google voice number for requests. Then you just hang up a sign that says text request to 1-900-pleaseplaythiscrapysong. Go through them every once in a while and see if you have something on the list.

Wow that's awesome, I'll check that out.

EDIT: Only available in the US. I'm in the UK.