Gig advice/questions

[Nesquigs]

Now, keep in mind that in general the crowd itself has absolutely no idea what they like.

^ so true. its always good to play with loops and shit of songs that they want to hear and layer them over what you are play (if they are compatable/will acutally kinda maybe sound good -- atleast that person was like OMG theres my tune.

But I've rarely run into any issue beyond some angry patron flipping me off because I kept telling him I wouldn't play his crappy requests that would have killed my dance floor.

i once had this girl keep asking me to play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqI_O3kIFHM

cause it was her birthday to a packed floor... said no, if you want in da club by 50 cent (aka the "birthday song" --- people are idiots) i can do that. lol

found out she was the daughter of the owner of the bar, and he basically was like why the hell not. so i dropped it cause i didnt wanna deal with it. let it play for 30 seconds shouted out a happy birthday to her and bulit up another song behind me and it dropped just as i finished saying "now everybody jump" and the place started rocking again.

sorry, just a good way to deal with that. smile all the way to the bank. no one said how long you have to play the request.

Welcome to never enjoying another party again

yeah.

[fellis]

I've played heaps of house parties for 18 yr olds (slash young people in general) and here is my advice. It's just everything I though of as I went all written down. SOrry for the essay

If they don't know more than about 3 songs in a row then they'll generally stop dancing. You get a few awesome people who love to soak up electro goodness and will stay on the d-floor if you play electro tune after electro tune but in general, if they don't recognise whats playing then they won't really want to dance.

When they say they want Top40, they actually mean they want music that will be kind of familiar. You can't actually dance to half of the songs that get played frequently on the radio which means you're not going to have enough tunes (without playing tunes that everyones sick of because they are a month old) to last the whole night. With this is mind, what I normally do, is find electro tunes that fit in nicely with poppy tunes and filter them through the set.

POP REMIXES ARE YOUR FRIENDS! You get to play electro(ish) tunes, and the crowd gets to sing along everyone is happy. (see Fred Falke remixes)

People won't dance at the start so don't worry if they don't. FOr the first hour of every party I do, I think it's going to be the worst night ever and I've totally screwed something up, but then the dancefloor starts rocking and its sweet.

With these kind of things, you kind of have to be nice to requests. Try to honour them but if you don't have the tune or don't think it will fit just tell them you'll play it later or you don't have it.

I always keep the music quiet at the start and leave the lights off and then crank it up, turn the lights on and play a tune I know everyone will want to dance to when I want the d-floor to start up (this doesn't always work....)

As for speakers and lights: I use two Mackie Thumps which are okay but I wouldn't want to use them for a 150 person party (they simply won't provide enough sound). I'd go for a pair of Mackie 450's or something similar if you think the d-floor will be around 70 for the whole night, but if you think the whole 150 people will be full on dancing the whole night you may want to consider getting 4 speakers or something with a sub. All depends on how loud you want it.

Lights, two light units and maybe smoke should suffice. Something like the Rage LED for solid beams and effects and then another non-LED light for a more general splash of light around the room.

Two speakers, two lights and a smoke would set you back about 200-250 to hire I reckon and I would definitely charge them for that if you're doing it for free.

[DJWilliams]

£200 to hire speakers and lights? wow.

[droctavia]

The fact your in the UK makes these suggestions extremely easy

Swedish House Mafia, Afrojack, David Guetta,Tine Tempah. All the overplayed club crap you'll hear if you venture into your generic Saturday night nightclub.

Could break into a bit of Magnetic Man/Katy B/ Wretch 32 to break them into the drum and bass a bit easier.

This site seems to have lots of the favourites and some pretty good bootlegs.

[DJWilliams]

Thanks, I'd remove that link mate.

[droctavia]

Ah ok, didnt know if stuff like that was ok on here.

[jakeintox]

In situations like this I tend to play what I enjoy early on and save the top40 and other garbage the crowd likes for later, when they're all drunk and want to dance. That way you can play what you like and people still leave with the impression that you played "their" music. This also gives you the chance to collect some requests and get an idea of exactly what they want to hear later. Good luck!

[DJWilliams]

bleh, it reeked of 'too good to be true' and now they're not having it at that venue because of concerns over underage drinking. They're looking at another venue and bouncers and a dj are included in the deal. Haha, well, I didn't know what to say so I just said for her to let me know what's happening as soon as she knows...

[fellis]

£200 to hire speakers and lights? wow.

Yup, hiring two Db Tech Opera Live 405's, plus two lights like Rage LED's ot something similar would cost me $200 Aussie, smoke machine would be another $35.

[DJ Nada]

I'm not stupid but like I said, If I knew I'd be playing top 40 all night (music that I don't like, may I add) then I wouldn't have accepted. As far as I'm concerned, if people don't like the music I play, then either they've got crap taste in music (This sounds elitist but all the music I play is dancefloor-friendly, nothing obscure) or they only want to hear their favourite songs.

I know that I should play what they want but I won't be happy... I'll try to mix it up a bit and play requests now and then but I'm not going to be a jukebox for 5 hours.

This from a guy that hasn't even played out much... When you're Tiesto or Oakenfold you can say that kind of stuff. Until that day comes, you should definitely play what people want to hear. This isn't bedroom DJing anymore, there's an audience involved now, play what they want to hear. Play that top 40 stuff, maybe the remixes if you have them. (Get some if you don't.) Hell, dance along with that annoying Katy Perry track, get over how cool you are for a second...

Real talk though: You'll never be a good DJ starting out with an attitude like that. You are there to make sure people have a good time. That is the purpose of a DJ at a party. If you want to hear YOUR favorite music, sell your gear and buy an ipod and headphones.