Protecting your gear in the club!

[JAC]

Played a gig in one of the local clubs around here and as it was our first gig there I wanted everything to run smoothly. Which it was for a good hour and a half or so, place was absolutely bumpin!

Then out of nowhere some drunk girl comes up and tries to put a drink up on the front of the booth on this tiny wooden ledge. Before either me or my mate can shout at her to move it, she just tips it straight over on top of my mates Xponent, laptop, headphones and the clubs mixer! Everything cut instantly, I mean EVERYTHING and people started turning around giving us that kind of WTF?! look. Looked like we had messed up ourselves as the girl had run off, which wasn't cool.

All the circuits in the Xponent got soaked but we managed to shake most of the liquid out in the end, still nothing but crackle and static from the master outs though.

The funny thing is that the club normally have a plexiglass shield around the booth but that had been smashed the night before!

So I guess the question is how do you guys protect your gear from this kind of thing when you gig, it was an absolute horror show I just hope it never ever happens again!? Anyone got an ingenious ways of avoiding it?

[nemo]

I once had a liter of coke spilled into my recordcrate, and on top of that, the same night, some girl managed to get into the dj booth and stumbled on something and took down the mixer and almost a turntable, my beer was over the other turntable, as she pushed me with her stupid ass stunt. She was drunk as fuck...

The only way of protecting your gear in a situation where there is no protection, is to be super mega alert. And even if you are, then things like this can happen (obviously in your case)

You COULD build custom Plexiglas shields to put over your gear like a -45degree L shape so it covers half the thing, but to bring that along all the time is going to be hell.

To be honest, the club should reimburse you for your loss, if they did not take proper precautions for this things to happen. They should also put BIG FRIKKEN stickers on the booth saying NO DRINKS OR CIGARETTES NEAR THE DJ PLEASE! INSTABAN IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW THOSE BASIC VERY SIMPLE RULES! (or something nicer maybe... haha)

Damn, I am sorry for your disaster, hope your gear is not all kaputt!

[olafmol]

bouncers in front of the DJ booth

[other1]

I usualy give ppl a warning, no drinks here, and it is usualy enuff, but some just leave there halffull beer or drink at the edge of the booth, if they do and dont respond i just flip it to the floor, and if they complain, call security

[tekki]

This is what I tend to do IDD.

[JesC]

I've seen alot of mis-haps with drinks & dj/band equipment. They only thing you can do if the dj booth is out in the open is to keep people out of the dj booth and keep them drinks as far as possible. I would recommend to bring a friend along to take request and help keep out the dj booth as much as possible.

[tekki]

And especially make sure that that friend is aware of where he can place your drinks as well.

[EYENSEE]

Played a gig in one of the local clubs around here and as it was our first gig there I wanted everything to run smoothly. Which it was for a good hour and a half or so, place was absolutely bumpin!

Then out of nowhere some drunk girl comes up and tries to put a drink up on the front of the booth on this tiny wooden ledge. Before either me or my mate can shout at her to move it, she just tips it straight over on top of my mates Xponent, laptop, headphones and the clubs mixer! Everything cut instantly, I mean EVERYTHING and people started turning around giving us that kind of WTF?! look. Looked like we had messed up ourselves as the girl had run off, which wasn't cool.

All the circuits in the Xponent got soaked but we managed to shake most of the liquid out in the end, still nothing but crackle and static from the master outs though.

The funny thing is that the club normally have a plexiglass shield around the booth but that had been smashed the night before!

So I guess the question is how do you guys protect your gear from this kind of thing when you gig, it was an absolute horror show I just hope it never ever happens again!? Anyone got an ingenious ways of avoiding it?

yikes!!!

did you guys get reimbursed for the damaged gear by the club?

[BentoSan]

Yeah that totally sucks for your laptop there are covers that you can buy. Infact Traktor Pro has a layout that can be downloaded of the Traktor forums for the Serato laptop keyboard protectors. So you have some mappings for your keyboard and some protection for keyboard in one.

In future bring some barbed wire for these hotspot areas

[JAC]

yikes!!!

did you guys get reimbursed for the damaged gear by the club?

Well after a night on the radiator it seems as if everything is alright again, sound comes from the master outs still have to test if the level is as loud as before. So thank god for that, at least we can play a gig we had scheduled for tomorrow!

The worst part was that we found her again at the end of the night and confronted her to say she was gonna have to pay for any damage done. Her boyfriend then decides to be macho and take the blame so we start arguing with him while she attempts to run off home. This guy was a complete wanker. He kept throwin the my dad's a solicitor line at us, you've got no case here and started saying 'You were shit anyways, I hope you fail in whatever you plan to do with yourself' and stuff along those lines.

I tried asking for his number so we could get money off him, even offered to text him in the morning if everything worked again and say forget about it. To which he replied 'oh you want my phone number? yeh here you go....no wait actually you can't have my phone number, you're gay and no one cares about you'

Eventually, all my mates who were stuck outside called the cops on him, cos it was either gonna be that or me hitting him one and probably losing any future gigs in the club. The cops told him he would have to pay, so then he says it was actualy his girl that spilt the drink! He was talking such shit they threw him out the door and threatened to arrest him for drunken disorderly!

It was probably the most ridiculous situation I've ever been in, I'm in no way a violent person but I was about to floor this guy because he was just such a total bellend. Hope I never see him again!

EPIC NIGHT!!