I’m a beginner DJ who started playing out in bars this summer, mostly hip-hop, soul and slow disco.
This weekend I have my first big gig. It’s a move out/college party that has turned into some kind of a Project X party with 900+ attending. While I’m stoked about this, I’m also worried about the music selection. When talking to the host about the preferred music for the night, they don’t have any real requirements other than “tunes people recognize and can go bananas to”.
So I guess that means top 40 from today and yesteryear?
How would you go about this? Would you limit yourself to a genre or go total jukebox?
Doesn’t too much freedom from a client lead to quarrel?
What would you do? Any ideas or pointers are much appreciated
Play whatever you want up until people start getting good and sloshed. If it’s your typical college kids, I’d check out some of the harder electro house that’s all the rage nowadays, and Top 40 of course. Trap also has really been making a hit, so throwing in some of that wouldn’t hurt.
I’ve got a similar style party coming up this weekend. It’s a bi-annual massive beast with A LOT of free liquor in a super-old plantation-style mansion. I’m expecting upwards of 4-500 people that night. I typically show up at 8 and have tunes on by 9. It’s not uncommon for me to go to 3-4am. I go through just about a little of everything in that time period. The trick to these is pace yourself, as they are a marathon. Don’t get on the decks for 2 hours, get warmed up, and then start banging it out by 10-10:30. This is the perfect time to gradually build your set and play a little of everything, including tracks you typically wouldn’t play. At the end of the day, read your crowd and play tunes that people like. If they’re going apeshit to that dope polka track you just dropped, then MOAR POLKA!
Also, keep this in mind: It’s a house party, not EDC. People will be drinking/smoking/trying to get laid/etc., something that they’ve had no problem doing when someone’s 2 Chainz Pandora station was running off a laptop. By adding a full-on DJ, parties tend to get exponentially better. Unless you REALLY REALLY screw it up bad (like, music cutting out all the time or blasting the bejesus out of the volume while people try and socialize), people are gonna dig it.
Sorry to just ramble like this, I’m just kinda going off the top of my head.
TLDR: Grab some top 40 and electro house, don’t forget your headphone adapter, let the girls go “wiki-wiki” at least once, and enjoy yourself.
Hit them with the Top 40 music for a while, hip hop, some 90’s, etc.
Once you let everyone get intoxicated, start to play the EDM stuff if that’s what you like and go from there… If half the place starts to love it, and the other half starts requesting country.. Then just sit back and prepare to be bored/annoyed as all hell.
What he says, Play what you like but pay attention to the crowd if you start playing a bunch of songs that people have never heard before they will probably love it but sneak in a remix or two every 5-10 songs that everyone knows and it should make people go absolutely bonkers. This event sounds like it’s going to be a raging time so have fun with it.
I guarantee you that your biggest tracks of the night (audience response-wise) are going to be Swedish House Mafia - Don’t You Worry Child, Otto Knows - Million Voices, and Avicii - I Could Be The One.
Cedric Gervais - Summertime Sadness is also a good shout, and Pendulum - The Island.
Good luck with everything you cannot really screw this up since they’re all going to be wasted but if you screw something up in sure no one will even notice.
