Silent discos - who's done one?

[fullenglishpint]

I'm playing the house/electro/dubstep/DnB channel for a silent disco in a couple of weeks, anyone done that before? I very rarely mix just in my headphones so I think it's gna be a strange experience to start with! Plus I'll have no idea how many people are actually listening to what I'm playing...

Anyone got any pointers on how to read a silent disco crowd??

[sss18734]

How does that even work? Everyone has wireless headphones that are all connected to the mixer's master out?

[basspenetrator]

How does that even work? Everyone has wireless headphones that are all connected to the mixer's master out?

yeah kind of. usually you have two channels with different djs spinning at the same time.. there was only one party like this in my town and i missed it
but i'd love to go/spin at one..

[Ed Paris]

you and you´re ears will love it!

[ToOntown]

I went to one at Bonnaroo and it was a riot. When you're walking by, everyone's dancing and carrying on in silence. Then when a huge drop hits everyone starts cheering and bouncing around--in silence. Funny stuff.

I've mixed in cans before...it's great if you can control the levels of your cue and main. Pretty hard to beatmatch when you can't! o_O

[Karlos Santos]

Anyone got any pointers on how to read a silent disco crowd??

Play bangers all night long.

Ive done loads of Silent Disco's.
It is simply a singing competition (usually) and people want to hear songs they know so they can chant along in each others faces.

Ive done it them with one other DJ and ive done them with 2 other DJ's.

One time i was doing Indie and the other guy was doing dance and I ripped him apart by simply playing a load of songs that everyone knows the words to.
People at Silent Discos love singing.

Another time i was doing dubstep,electro,D&B and one guy was doing rock/metal and another was doing Cheesey Pop. Apart from a few head-nodders the most people were dancing to a mix of the other guys cus they were playing fun music. Nothing much funny about the genres i was playing.

Mixing without a monitor is not my favourite way of DJing but if your tracks are gridded its easy with Traktor. Its just REEEEEEAAAALLLLLYYYY boring cus you spend most of the nite talking to the other DJ's and other clubbers that are taking a break.
People stand around talking and EVERYONE gets the words wrong to the biggest tunes.

I have to get drunk to DJ and enjoy a Silent Disco these days.

What you genre are you going up against..?

[Xonetacular]

Is this a thing? It looks kind of ridiculous.

[tekki]

Would love to do one Silent Disco! Maybe an item for the next DJTT party? :P

[3heads]

Dj Koze even had a silent concert tour a couple years ago, together with some guy playing the trumpet. Was strange, but awesome (but what else would you except from Koze)

[keeb]

I've been to one (was like $5 and on campus at the time). They're interesting for the novelty - I'm glad I checked one out - but they're really not all that fun. It's amusing to see people dancing completely out of time with the channel you're listening to, but at least at the one I was at it was just domination; the DJ on one channel was far better than the DJ on the other (the good DJ was using a VCI-100 and Traktor and the shit one was using CDJ 800s with Serato). Good DJ played solid electro for most of the night when electro was just starting to enter the scene in a big way at the school. Bad DJ played tired top 40 house remixes along with hip-hop... So pretty much everyone was listening to Good DJ, which left the venue looking like a bunch of special people who wanted to throw a party and opted for headphones over speakers. Like I said - good for the novelty, but little staying power.

As for reading the crowd - it should be very obvious as to who's dancing to your music and who's dancing to the other DJ (you should have a headset for yourself I'd imagine and the other DJ's song will be off from yours enough to be pretty clear, dancing-wise). Look at the crowd you can tell is dancing to your set - are they hyping up for your drops? Do you see a bunch of smiles? Is everyone dancing their asses off? Or do they look bored? Wistful? Like they're about to change the channel? From there it's just reading the crowd as normal.