Your First Gig Experience

[Culture_Shock]

My first gig was a party that a friend and I threw ourselves! About five people showed up, and it was a total failure. Actually it was worth the chance to turn my PA system up and see how well it played with my digital kit, but by all other accounts it was a hard lesson in promoting. My first "real" gig was a garage party out in the middle of nowhere. Tag teamed all night with a buddy, and blew the roof off of the place, it was awesome!

[DjFades]

My first gig was a pool party for a friend, I was terrified about getting my equipment wet! I was using a Numark IDJ2 lol and a external hard drive and the hard drive crashed!! luckily i had my IPOD with me!.... Safe to say that setup was gone a few months after

[JZed]

Some great stories in here! Lots of nerves.

My first gig was last year and I had only been djing with my S4 for about 4 months at the time. I was going to a private birthday party at a baquet hall's bar/ club room featuring my one of my favourite dj/ producers, Carlo Lio (opens for Dubfire very often if you're familiar). It was all you can drink for a hefty cover charge but it was going to be insane. A week before the event my friend asked if I wanted to dj a party and then explained to me I was to dj THIS party. Freaked out.

I got on the decks around 8:30pm (it was a Thursday) and spun until around 2:15am aside from a 45minute special from Carlo. I had some snobby broads asking me to play this and that which was annoying but they eventually bugged off. By the time it was over I running out of tracks to play, my back was dead, I was exhausted but I just wanted more! I got lots of positive reviews from everyone which felt amazing, hoping it happens again this year!

[aaron altar]

My first real party was probably 12-13 years ago. I had been mixing for probably 2 years or so and had done several house parties and what not before that. That one was in a warehouse in the middle of no where. I arrived an hour early and I was shaking like a leaf so I went to my car and drank at least 6 beers before going on. I opened the party with a techno set that spanned several years worth of stuff. Started off with some old minimal and worked my way up to some real banging warehouse techno. Two to three tracks in and I was "in the zone." The crowd really responded well and I got everyone up and moving. When my set was over I found out that the techno dj slotted behind me had backed out and had been replaced by a happy hardcore dj (had I known that I could have started with hard trance and built up to trancecore but oh well). When he backspun out of my last track and completely changed the vibe I had created I was extremely disappointed. Great time though and I've never forgotten it.

[Sambo]

I do two residencies a week, 11-4, averaging around 450 people, lows of 200, highs of 900, (1200 capacity venue). The original post made what I do sound like the battle at Helm's Deep in terms of drama. It was just first time nerves. Give it a few more times, and you'll not give a shit what people say to you. There's always people who complain that you don't have a track or just simply won't play it, but they're idiots, and they're inconsiderate of other people. Ask them for alternatives, if they don't have any alternatives, well it's not your fault they only like one song!

EDIT: Last night a girl flashed me her boobs just so I'd play Ke$ha. They where pierced, it was good. That was about the most eventful thing.

[DJChachiMan]

I had my first real gig last night . It was pretty fun. My problem was I had a set planned out that was supposed to take me 2 hours but I ended up mixing for 4 hours so I wasnt prepared enough and I dont have sl2 yet so im using cds. Also being a little drunk didnt help some transitioning lol. Everyone had a great time though and no one noticed any mess ups. The only times the stuff went actually wrong was when people kept touching the equipment, touching the jogs and hitting the phono/line switch on the mixer lol. I was happy to realise though that i really do love djing and I learned so much from the experience. Can't wait to get out there again.