Originally Posted by
SuperDude8547
I've only been out of college 2 years and i DJed those parties for 3 years. The parties can be a total blast when things go right, but every once in a while the crowd reacts to nothing. I've come to notice is that there was a nice pattern at every party, and we picked up on the habits of our guests.
You have to understand that a lot of these parties are shorter than a night out at a club, and the students have to pack in as much fun in small amount of time. I would always play high energy, top 40 remixes early in the night. Stuff with lots of bounce, 125-130bpm stuff, because when they all first arrive their first mission is to drink as much as possible before the booze runs out (only if their 21 of course, underage drinking is illegal).
After about an hour or so, your mission becomes to get the girls on the dance floor. By now they've had a few drinks, have socialized with their friends, and are ready to dance. But no one wants to be the first person to awkwardly dance by themselves, so you need to have a slammer of a top 40 track (not a remix, and yes, I sound so lame calling it that, but its true). Hopefully they will swarm the floor and sing along and hold hands and such. The men will follow once they see the opportunity to join the girls. Now you can mix in something different and unique and let it go for an hour, but nothing too obscure that they wouldn't recognize.
At around 1am or so they start to get tired and you need to slow it down to some hiphop/trap, something they can bump and grind too. The mood changes very quickly and hiphop is great to get the groups to split up into couples.
One thing to always remember is to not get stressed if it doesn't go well at first, don't panic and switch styles too frantically. Breathe, relax, and just groove. Most of these parties were at my house and I had a lot of trial and error (a lot of error the first few months), but after a few events we figured out how it worked. Good luck and be safe
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